Comment by lynndotpy
6 days ago
Tofu is so ridiculously OP in terms of nutrition, production costs, and culinary versatility. It's a shame society here in the US is so strongly stymied by the manipulative meat lobby.
6 days ago
Tofu is so ridiculously OP in terms of nutrition, production costs, and culinary versatility. It's a shame society here in the US is so strongly stymied by the manipulative meat lobby.
As someone who is frugal AF and open minded...
I think you are overstating Tofu.
But honestly I'm mostly eating for nutrition rather than taste. Tofu doesnt hit the numbers I need.
Tofu uses about 50x less land, 5x water, and produces 15x less CO2 per gram of protein compared to beef. It's pretty remarkable by these metrics even compared to other plant foods. Tofu would certainly be understood as "OP" in any simulated game like civilization. We in the US are disadvantaged just for our intractable attachment to beef.
Plus, all the other nice things about it (high in fiber, doesn't incur the bodily damage associated with red meat and saturated fat, is complete protein, lasts for over a month in the fridge, can be produced shelf-table, etc.) And it's not like you have to choose one or the other.
Meat is subsidized in the US, so while tofu is usually cheap, it's not by as much as those numbers would suggest. (About 3x, for those just tracking protein. At my Costco, it's about $30 for 4lb of 85% ground beef or $7 for 4lb of tofu. That works out to $0.10 per gram protein for the beef, or $0.03 per gram of protein for the tofu.)
Had to use beef and not chicken? And I noticed you didn't mention nutrition but rather economics.
2 replies →
What do you mean by overstating? It has really good protein numbers. The protein itself has an evenly balanced amino acid profile (or in other words - a "complete" protein). It has a good amount of calcium, iron, and low fat. You can technically make it yourself and there's numerous ways of cooking and flavoring it.
Not good compared to chicken.