For the production of soybeans, Chinese people can be said to have invented various ways to eat them.
As one of the most common soy products, tofu is not only a high-quality plant-based ingredient that provides protein, but it is also inexpensive and can be prepared in many ways.
For the elderly and children, because tofu is soft and tender, and easy to digest and absorb, tofu is truly a “convenient ingredient”.
Although tofu is good and cheap, there are always picky eaters pointing at it, claiming that eating too much tofu will cause xxx, and the most common claim is kidney stones.
Kidney stones are really caused by eating tofu?
Kidney stones are mainly stones that appear at the junction of the renal calyces, renal pelvis, renal pelvis and ureter. Most people who suffer from kidney stones are because of purines in the body. , calcium, oxalic acid and other components have abnormal metabolism.
The mineral concentration in the urine is too high, exceeding the “saturated concentration”, it will continue to crystallize and deposit in the kidneys and gradually become solid particles.
And these solid particles can be large or small, and the small ones can be excreted with the urine, and they are more likely to block the ureter and cause the urine to be blocked, thereby causing low back pain.
and can cause stones, most of them are calcium oxalate, about 80% of the stones are caused by it, and some kidney stones are caused by Caused by calcium phosphate, urate or magnesium ammonium phosphate.
Tofu is not high in purines
The purine, oxalic acid and calcium in soy products are indeed related to stones.
It’s just that soybeans have been processed differently, and the components related to stones will not change much.
Although soybeans contain purines, they need to be soaked, cooked, and pressed in the process of making tofu. A piece of tofu does not require much soybeans.
In this process, most of the purine components in beans have been removed, and there are not many purine components left, so it does not increase the risk of developing stones.
Tofu also has less oxalic acid
And tofu itself only contains very little oxalic acid. Although the content of oxalic acid in different soy products is relatively low, the content of tofu is relatively low.
In 2015, the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry published a study:
Researchers tested oxalic acid content through more than 30 soy products. Among the 19 brands of tofu tested, 18 had oxalic acid content below 0.10mg/g, which belonged to low oxalate food.
There are usually two reasons why oxalate is low—
On the one hand, before the tofu production process, part of the oxalic acid is dissolved into the water when the soybean is soaked, and then washed away;
On the other hand, the tested tofu is made of gypsum or tofu. After coagulation, it is squeezed or placed naturally to remove part of the water, and part of the oxalic acid will be removed with the water.
However, compared to brine tofu or gypsum tofu, lactone tofu retains almost all the water in soy milk, so the oxalic acid content may be relatively high.
In combination with the above, people with a higher risk of stones can also eat tofu without worrying too much.
For healthy people, because the body can process components such as oxalic acid by itself, there is no need to worry about eating tofu or other ingredients.Stones caused by soy products.
Can we eat tofu in large quantities for a long time?
Tofu is delicious, and you really need to pay attention to the amount of it. It is not recommended that you eat tofu every day or eat a lot of tofu at one time. After all, tofu is also a soy product, which has a certain gas-producing function. Eating a lot of it will cause abdominal distension and repeated farting.
Therefore, tofu can be eaten often, but it is better to control the amount every time, which will be more beneficial to health.
Of course, there is one type of tofu that should be eaten less frequently, that is, oily tofu. Although some of the water in oiled tofu will evaporate at high temperature during the frying process, most of the calcium remains. Among them, it is kept at about 147mg/100g.
After all, oiled tofu is fried and has a high fat content. 100 grams of oiled tofu is about 3 times the calories of ordinary tofu.
But then again, who can resist the deliciousness of oily tofu (especially stinky tofu)?
So it’s okay to eat occasionally.
