Tofu, an ingredient you find in east Asian and some southeast Asian cuisines. Its plain taste provides a ground for spices and sauces to shine. But if you didn’t grow up in a country where tofu is an integral part of its cuisine, it’s hard for you to grasp the whole picture of tofu.

While many call it the ‘plant meat’, referring to its nutritional value and texture, there are also some concerns about tofu — the most common one being that ‘it’s bad for men’. Are these claims rumoured or the truths?

Before we dive into answers, let’s understand tofu first.

Tofu recipes

An accidental inventor of tofu, potentially

‘Tofu’ is transliterated from ‘Dou Fu’(豆腐), which is originally a Chinese word. ‘Dou’ means beans. ‘Fu’ means decay. However, there is no decay involved in the process of making tofu. A rumored story says that the accidental inventor of tofu dropped some brine in soy milk, then the milk started to coagulate and eventually formed a curd. Not knowing what it was, he thought the soy milk had gone bad, hence the name. However, his fellows tasted the curd and thought it was delicate and delicious, so they consumed all. And they didn’t have any discomfort afterwards. Regardless, the name remained.

Tofu was invented in China, but there is no clear evidence proving who invented it and when it was invented. Li Shizhen, a Chinese pharmacologist, herbalist, physician and writer of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) recorded in his book ‘Compendium of Materia Medica’, which is an encyclopaedic gathering of Chinese herbology, medicine, and natural history, that the method of making tofu began with Lord Liu An of Huai-nan（179–122B.C.）during early Han Dynasty.

However, according to book ‘A Brief History of Tofu’, the first known record of tofu in China was around 960A.D., in ‘Qing Yi Lu’, a book recording societal and cultural phenomena, written by author Tao Gu. The book told a story of a vice mayor named Ji Shu, who was too poor to afford mutton and instead, bought tofu daily and had them as a side dish with rice. Soon people in the area started to call tofu the ‘vice mayor’s mutton’. The story implied that tofu was widely consumed in China by then.

With time, tofu spread to neighbouring countries such as Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Thailand, and became a key ingredient in these cuisines.

What is tofu made of?

Interestingly, according to ‘A Brief History of Tofu’, a Spanish Dominican missionary and archbishop named Domingo Fernandez de Navarrete wrote in his book ‘A Collection of Voyages and Travels’, that “the most usual, common and cheap sort of food all China abounds in” was made of kidney-beans. However, as a Chinese person, I’ve never heard or seen tofu that’s made of kidney-beans. I imagine it may had been a misunderstanding.

While the classic tofu is made from soy bean milk, which is extracted from soy beans, some food that is entitled ‘tofu’ are made of something else — usually, the key ingredient is included in the name, for example, duck blood tofu’s main ingredient is duck blood. Fish tofu’s main ingredient is fish. They have ‘tofu’ in their names because they have a consistency that is similar to tofu.

How to make tofu versus how to make cheese

The process of making tofu is somewhat similar to making cheese – they both involve milk curdling. However, there are a few differences.

First of all, unlike cow’s milk or sheep’s milk, which can be obtained directly from the animals, soy milk is extracted from soy beans, following a set of cooking methods. You’ll need to soak the soy beans first, till they are twice as heavy in weight. Then, you’ll want to grind it with certain amount of water, and squeeze out the milk. But this is not all, you’ll also need to boil the milk for around 5 minutes.

Only then, you can add proportional coagulant to curd the milk. The commonly used coagulants are brine, calcium sulfate and glucono delta-lactone. After curding, you’ll need to press the curd to get excess water out. Depending on how you like the firmness of your tofu, you can choose to press more or less water out of the curd.

Brine-coagulated tofu is denser, more aromatic and my favorite. Calcium-sulfate-coagulated tofu contains more water, and is smoother in texture. Glucono-delta-lactone-coagulated tofu is the softest of the three, like a soft pudding, which is not ideal for stir-fry, or anything requires the stirring motion. It’s great cold appetizer material though, often paired with soy sauce, Chinese black vinegar and Chinese sesame oil.

Cow’s milk and sheep’s milk on the other hand, doesn’t need to be heated before curding. Traditionally, you need to acidify the milk and add rennet, which is a set of enzymes produced in the stomachs of ruminant mammals, to curd the milk. Pressing the curd is also not the only way to get rid of excess water in cheese-making. Usually it’s done by draining, heating and adding salt.

Lastly, fresh block tofu doesn’t last long – about 2 days with refrigeration. You can apply some salt on the surface of the tofu to prolong its expiration date. Un-opened packaged tofu lasts longer than fresh ones – typically a month. Only dried tofu products such as dried tofu skin can last for a longer period. Though, cheese generally lasts longer than block tofu.

Tofu’s nutrition value versus cheese’s

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture, per 100 grams of tofu contains protein 17.3 grams, against cheddar cheese’s 23.3 grams, calcium 683 milligrams, against cheddar cheese’s 707 milligrams, iron 2.66 milligrams, against cheddar cheese’s 0.16 milligrams, magnesium 58 milligrams, against cheddar cheese’s 26.8 milligrams, potassium 237 milligrams, against cheddar cheese’s 77 milligrams.

We can see that tofu’s protein and calcium content is similar to cheddar cheese’s. Its minerals – iron, magnesium and potassium are significantly higher than cheddar cheese’s. Moreover, per 100 grams of tofu have 144 calories, about 65 per cent less of cheddar cheese’s, which is 407 calories, 8.72 grams total lipid (fat), about 74 per cent less of cheddar cheese’s, which is 33 grams.

So, if you are looking for a high-protein and high-calcium, but low-fat and low-calorie alternative to cheddar cheese, which is somewhat representative of many other cheeses, you may want to consider tofu. Tofu’s lower price is the cherry on top. In the country where I’m currently in, which is Dubai, 500 grams of tofu is about 1.5 U.S. dollars, mild cheddar, on the other hand, is about 11.8 U.S. dollars – nearly eight times more expensive than tofu.

Is tofu bad for men?

People who think tofu is bad for men, potentially get the idea from one particular component of tofu – soy isoflavones, which is a type of plant estrogen that is similar in function to human estrogen but has much weaker effects, as per article ‘Straight Talk About Soy’, published on the website of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

It also states that soy isoflavones can bind to estrogen receptors in the body and cause either weak estrogenic or anti-estrogenic activity. Specifically, among premenopausal women, who have high circulating levels of estradiol, soy isoflavones may act like an anti-estrogen, but among postmenopausal women, who have much lower circulating levels of estradiol, it may act more like an estrogen – it seems that soy isoflavones act like a regulator of estradiol among women.

And because of that, people associate soy isoflavones with feminizing men. Contradictory studies have been published, either stating soy products do affect male reproductive hormones, or they don’t. To derive conclusions from these studies, a 2020 meta-analysis titled ‘Neither soy nor isoflavone intake affects male reproductive hormones: An expanded and updated meta-analysis of clinical studies’, looked at previous data, which consist of 41 studies where total testosterone and free testosterone levels were measured in 1753 and 752 men respectively, estradiol and estrone levels were measured in 1000 and 239 men respectively and sex hormone binding globulin was measured in 967 men, and found no effects of soy or isoflavones on testosterone or estrogen levels in men.

Personally, excessive amount of any food can cause harm. When I look at my grandpa, 90-years of age, who has 5 children and can climb a mountain faster than some adult men, I see someone who doesn’t snack, stops eating when he is full, likes to exercise, and enjoys his tofu a couple of times per week, along with a variety of other food.

Where to get tofu?

In East Asian and most South East Asian countries, you should be able to get tofu in vegetable markets and supermarkets. Elsewhere, you will likely be able to get tofu in big supermarkets, or the ethnic sections of big supermarkets. Or else, you can always visit Asian supermarkets to get tofu.

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