In Japan, tofu is prepared in more than 100 ways, and according to the national journal Diet Science, the average person in Japan eats more than 20 kilograms of tofu per year…Interesting fact: According to a survey, Japanese Americans living in Hawaii have one-third less stomach cancer than Americans who do not eat tofu because they consume it regularly.
For this reason, the medical department in Hawaii followed 8,000 Japanese Americans for 20 years and found that those who ate tofu only once a week or once every two or three weeks had a prostate cancer rate three times higher than those who ate tofu every day…
Why is tofu related to cancer?
Although it is said that anti-cancer cannot rely on a certain food alone, after long-term experiments, experts have come up with a lot of data to prove that soybeans contain more than four kinds of substances with anti-cancer effects, which are.
1. protease inhibitor: a group of functional proteins with biological activity. Modern research results show that: low concentrations of trypsin inhibitors can significantly prevent the activation of oncogenes, can reduce the incidence of cancer, and the toxic side effects on the human body is very small.
2, inositol hexaphosphatase: inositol hexaphosphatase contained in soybeans can inhibit the occurrence of colon cancer.
3, plant sterols: soybean sterols contained in soybeans into the body, can be more in the intestinal tract to absorb cholesterol decomposition of bile acids, thereby reducing cholesterol, not only can inhibit colon cancer, but also have a beneficial effect on heart disease.
4, soy saponin: research shows that soy saponin its role in inhibiting the proliferation of stomach cancer cells and green tea in the catechin class equivalent.
It seems that the proverb “cabbage and tofu to protect health” is a certain amount of truth. In fact, soybeans are native to China, and it is estimated that China has been growing soybeans for more than 4700 years, in contrast to the short history of soybean cultivation in Europe and the United States.
Tofu is indeed a great Chinese invention, it is rich in protein, almost zero low cholesterol, but not only in the mouth of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty “the world’s first dish”, more suitable for modern dietary structure: 1.
1, the protein of tofu is comparable to meat
Protein is something necessary for the human body, animal protein such as meat is better, vegetable protein is second, but eating too much meat, it is easy to gain weight to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, how to do?
At this time, tofu is a very good choice. Professor Cheng Yiyong, honorary director of the Chinese Nutrition Society, pointed out that “of all the plant foods, only soy protein can be comparable to the protein in animal foods such as meat, fish and eggs”~
Tofu protein content of more than 34%, not only a large proportion, but also belongs to high-quality protein, conducive to the body’s digestion, absorption and utilization, rest assured that eating, the body is not burdened.
2, low cholesterol, help prevent hardening of the blood vessels
Compared with eating meat and drinking milk, the cholesterol content of soybean products such as tofu and soy milk is almost zero. Therefore, many nutritionists call soy products as the best health food at a good price.
The fat in tofu is dominated by unsaturated fatty acids, and the lecithin in it helps metabolize cholesterol in the walls of blood vessels and prevents hardening of the blood vessels.
Plus there are numerous active substances in tofu, such as soy saponins, soy isoflavones, soy peptides, soy oligosaccharides, phytosterols… These components have the effects of lowering blood lipids, anti-oxidation and anti-aging.
Professor Li Ritter of the School of Food Science and Nutrition Engineering at China Agricultural University said, “Make sure you eat at least half a block of tofu every day to effectively prevent cardiovascular disease.”
3, gout patients are afraid of soybeans, but don’t be afraid of tofu
”Soybean purines are too high and can cause gout, don’t eat tofu!” In fact, this statement is inaccurate and a long-standing misconception about tofu, which is not equivalent to soybeans.
There is no doubt that the purine content of soy is high. Each 100 grams of soybeans contains 75 to 150 mg of purines, equivalent to lean meat, but tofu, due to the loss of purine substances transformed during its processing, its purine content is only about 13 mg per 100 grams of tofu, much lower than the content of purines in fish and meat in daily life, gout patients can not be intimidated.
Therefore, stomach cancer patients can take tofu because it is nutritious, easy to digest and has no adverse stimulation, which is suitable for stomach cancer patients. If you add some foods with very high protein quality while eating tofu, it can play a “protein complementary” role with tofu, so that the protein of tofu can be better absorbed and utilized by the body. These high quality protein foods are meat and eggs.