food for though...

Benefits of soy beans:

• complete protein containing many essential amino acids
• high content of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat (good for the heart), fiber, vitamins, minerals
• low content of saturated fat
  

Soy vs. cow's milk

• Equal amount of proteins
• Soy milk's main dissacharide is sucrose, which breaks down into fructose and glucose. Because of the lack of lactose, soy milk can be drank by those who are lactose intolerant or suffering from galactosemia (inability to digest galactose, a byproduct of lactose breakdown)
• Soy milk contains less saturated fat than cow's milk and no cholesterol
• Soy milk contains lecithin (protects large intestine from colon bacteria) and Vitamin E (antioxidants)
• Soy milk contains little digestible calcium (however, most manufacturers enrich their products with digestible calcium carbonate)

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A traditional Chinese breakfast is hot sweetened soy milk (豆浆 dou jiang) with crisp fried dough strips (油条 you tiao). Indeed, whenever we go back to China, my aunt would buy several containers of fresh soymilk for breakfast every morning. The street vendors set up their stands early in the morning, drawing crowds with the aroma of sizzling, golden you tiao, and the rising steam of soy milk. The flavor of the off-white liquid is rich and smooth, distinctively nutty.

In the states, we like to make our own soy milk. It's a simple process, with gratifying results.

Soymilk
makes about 5 cups
1 cup dry soy beans
granulated sugar to taste
water

Soak dry soy beans overnight (8-10 hours). Add about 1/3 cup soy beans to blender and add water until blender if 1/3 full. Blend until liquid. Pass puree through fine cheesecloth and squeeze to get all the liquid out. Be careful to not let pulp pass through. Strain again if desire. Place strained soy milk into pot and bring to boil. Add sugar to taste. Serve hot or cold.

You can adjust the water in the blender to obtain your preferred thickness of soy milk. And since I like my soy milk rather sweet, I also add in quite a bit of sugar. Allow the hot soy milk to cool before pouring into a pitcher and refrigerating.