Benefit Of Tofu

healthydailymail.com Even though soy foods in general are associated with decreased risk of cancer in several countries, a comprehensive analysis of 28 previously published studies on Chinese adults has now shown that intake of soy foods in the form of tofu (and soy miso) does a better job of reducing risk of at least one cancer type (stomach cancer) than intake than soy in general. A team of researchers at the School of Radiation Medicine and Public Health at Soochow University in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China arrived at this conclusion after statistical analysis of numerous studies conducted between 1998-2008. While we cannot be sure about the ability of tofu and soy miso to provide health benefits for U.S. adults in the same way that they provide health benefits for Chinese adults, we can be sure that there is something unique about tofu and miso among all varieties of soy foods, and that this uniqueness may extend to stomach cancer prevention under certain circumstances. 

In the case of fermented tofu, we've recently learned that antioxidant and free radical-scavenging health benefits are directly related to the length of fermentation time. Tofus fermented for nine versus three days have recently been shown to provide up to double the free radical-scavenging activity. We suspect that there is no magic number with respect to fermentation time, and that a variety of factors were responsible for the increased free radical-scavenging activity of these tofus after nine days of fermentation. Nevertheless, this study underscores the potentially beneficial nutrient changes that can take place when a food is carefully fermented and when micro-organisms used in fermentation are provided with enough time to grow and transform the food's nutrient potential. In this particular study a variety of micro-organisms (fungi) were used to ferment the tofu, including Aspergillus oryzae, Aspergillus sojae, Aspergillus awamori, Actinomucor taiwanensis, and Rhizopus oligosporus.