tv says beach shut due to sewage spill yesterday

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KING 5 5:09 PM this night. Should be on the KING5 site later. Stated that beach signs were posted due to raw sewage spill into the sound yesterday. Malfunctioning pump/valve. Not y2k of course. No other details given. Of course this happens all the time (not).

-- pliney the younger (pliney@puget.sound), January 05, 2000

Answers

sorry about that. Local tv news from seattle. King 5 is the station. Sorry. Had a bit of wine and typing while having famous NW chopped salad. With tofu, as with all good vegetarians. I know, worst than doomer spawn to be a veghead. But preps were easy. 500 pounds of soybeans and two quarts of epson salts = 2200 (thats right over a ton) of fresh homemade tofu-de-beast.

-- pliney the younger (pliney@puget.sound), January 05, 2000.

At least you never had to worry about the neighbors storming in to seize your hoard.

-- SH (squirrel@huntr.com), January 05, 2000.

Veg prepping actually sounds like the right way to do it all around! And given the amount of good restaurants around here that are all veg and do tofu right, I have to say that I think you have the right idea. Rock.

As for sewage -- hm, when was the last spill? We just had one here a few months back, so I'm used to them, alas.

-- Ned Raggett (ned@kuci.org), January 05, 2000.


Sounds good, I'm a vegan myself. Well, vegetarian, every once in awhile I slip up and drink milk. But I just had half a can of Redskin peanuts and tacos(no meat). Yeah, not nearly as classy as a chopped salad, but I'm too lazy for my own good. I'll be so glad when our fruit trees start producing, so I can just go outside, pluck a peach and be done with it.

Also, I like your name - Pliney.

-- DB (tomG@h.com), January 05, 2000.


Pliny, PLEASE post your recipe for tofu, I would be eternally grateful!

-- (formerly@nowhere.zzz), January 05, 2000.


Tofu Cabbage Stir-fry with Tsang sauce: 1 T. Spectrum Canola oil (manufactured to take high heat) 4 oz. chopped Tofu one fourth of whole tennis ball shaped onion, chopped Start the above in a skillet on medium to high heat to seal the tofu in the oil. In a moment turn down lower and add: one fourth of a head of cabbage, chopped Stir and fry while cooking your quick rice for one person. Also in a small bowl mix 1 T. cornstarch with 2 T. House of Tsang Ginger Soy Sauce and 2 T. water. After rice and tofu skillet are both ready at the last add the soy sauce to tofu mix and blend well. Put rice on dinner plate for the base and the rest on top. Very healthful and I can't lap it up fast enough. Real food and the Tsang sauce is divine.

-- gl0ria (watkins@dtc.net), January 05, 2000.

Pliney's tofu recipe Need very large bowl, a very large pan, a cup measure, a teaspoon measure, cheese cloth, colander

ingredients

3 tsp of epson salts

2 cups soybeans

16 cups of water

clean two cups of soybeans

soak two cups of soybeans overnight in 8 cups of clean, cold water

drain soybeans in morning

heat 16 cups water to boiling

puree soaked soybeans with 8 cups of the water. Any method available that will crush the beans. Blender, mortar&pestle, two rocks, whatever.

I use a vitamix. Does a fine job.

So at this point you have a big, hot mess of soy soup. Dilute it with the remaining 8 cups of boiling water.

Now take the cheese cloth and line the colander. Place colander in large pan. Pour (slowly and carefully as it is hot stuff the hot soup of soy into the colander. The idea is that the fiber from the beans will stay in the cheese cloth and the soy milk will be caught in the pan. Once all the soy milk has drained from the colander, dispose of the soy fiber (feed to chickens, compost, et cetera). Then take the soymilk and slowly heat to low (repeat LOW) boil. This stuff scorches like no one's business so watch out. Then boil at low level for 10 minutes. This is required to make the soy digestible for humans.

So. Now set pan aside to cool a bit. And mix the epson salt with a cup of cool water. You should not need all the epson salt. It is the coagulant which makes the tofu from the soy milk.

Then slowly stir the epson salt into the pan of the soymilk. About two thirds of the way through wait a minute and see if curds are forming. Either way, slowly add more coagulant until tofu curds separate from the whey.

THen take the now clean cheese cloth (or another piece) and put into the colander. Then spoon the curds into the cloth to drain. Can use or dispose of whey as you choose. I use it as high protein garden additive.

I then take curds and press them into tofu block in this little wooded box that I made. But I have also used tupperware.

Much more to the art of tofu making. And mastery of it is a long way from this beginning but this will get you started. By the way, home made tofu is more yellowish in color that commercial as they use a different magnesium compound to coagulate.

-- pliney the younger (pliney@pompei.com), January 05, 2000.


glOria, that sounds SO good ; definitely something I want my husband to try(chuckle): HE can try making it, and *I* will try eating it. Just have to double that recipe..Thanks.

What a coindence, Pliney - I, too, have a vitamix. When you talked about pureeing the beans,for the tofu, I thought of my vitamix(I've tried making soymilk with it), and then you Mentioned the vitamix. Yeah, my vitamixer is one reason I'm glad we still have electricity.

-- DB (tomG@h.com), January 05, 2000.


coincidence? I knew I pushed submit too fast. Unfortunately, I think faster than I type.

-- DB (tomG@h.com), January 05, 2000.

By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin Eating lots of tofu leads to "accelerated brain aging," a study says.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ Too much tofu induces 'brain aging,' study shows A Hawaii research team says high consumption of the soy product by a group of men lowered mental abilities

By Helen Altonn Star-Bulletin

Tofu is touted for its health benefits, but also may pose health risks, says a Hawaii scientist.

A Hawaii study shows a significant statistical relationship between two or more servings of tofu a week and "accelerated brain aging" and even an association with Alzheimer's disease, says Dr. Lon White.

The Pacific Health Research Institute researcher urged caution at a recent conference in Washington as scientists from around the world discussed the role of soy products in the prevention and treatment of disease.

The symposium was sponsored by giant soybean growing and processing firms such as Archer Daniels Midland and DuPont.

The largely unregulated food supplements industry is preparing to step up sales, claiming that isoflavones, plant chemicals found in high concentrations in soybeans, offer "natural" cures for breast cancer, osteoporosis, prostate cancer, heart disease, menopausal "hot flashes" and other chronic conditions.

Negative conclusions

But, White said in an interview, "The majority of scientists said the data they were talking about for beneficial effects on health is very weak" and doesn't really support health claims for soy foods.

White and his associates have been studying diseases and aging in a group of Japanese-American men who volunteered for medical research in 1965. The Honolulu Heart Program began with 8,006 men born from 1900 through 1919. They were identified through World War II Selective Service registration records.

In comparing the dietary habits and health of the Japanese-American men in the study group between 1965 and 1993, White said the scientists found "a significant link between tofu consumption during midlife and loss of mental ability and even loss of brain weight."

The men were questioned about 27 foods and drinks, with data showing that those who ate more tofu were apt to have impaired mental ability, White said. Tofu was the only consistent link among the men, he said. The rate of brain impairment, which normally increases with age, also went up faster in the men who ate the most tofu, he said.

"The test results were about equivalent to what they would have been if they were five years older," he said. "Guys who ate none, their test scores were as though they were five years younger."

The brains of 300 men who died also were examined in a unique autopsy study conducted as part of the Honolulu aging project, White said. The 300 men didn't appear to have had any more strokes than the average person, and their blood vessels didn't look different.

"But what I did see was (that) the simple weight of the brain was lower," he said. Shrinkage occurs naturally with age, but atrophy progressed more rapidly in those men who had consumed more tofu, White said.

He said the wives of about 500 men also provided information about what they ate, and the findings correlated with what their husbands said.

Stark contrast

So the scientists obtained four independent indicators of an adverse effect from frequent eating of tofu and changes in the brain with aging, White said.

Those who ate a lot of tofu, by the time they were 75 or 80 looked five years older, he said.

"Why in the world would that happen?" he said. "Everyone knows protein in tofu and soy is wonderfully nutritious. Everyone knows fats are wonderfully nutritious.

"But more and more and more over the last five to 10 years, people have been claiming the health benefits of soy foods are less related to its nutrient composition, proteins and fat, and more related to other molecules that occur in tofu made by soy plants and act as pharmacological agents."

Isoflavones, the most talked about, "are molecules that the soy plant makes while it's germinating to help it fend off mold and other things that attack the plant in the ground," White said.

They're plant molecules that look like estrogens but they're not natural estrogens, he said. "When they get into cells, they actually affect the metabolism of cells. They inhabit certain kinds of enzymes and alter (the) metabolism of cells.

"The bottom line," stressed White, "is these are not nutrients. They are drugs. They will have some benefits and some negative things."

Groundbreaking work

White said his study, to his knowledge, is the only one to show strong evidence of serious adverse effects from a soy product. His group is seeking a new National Institutes of Health grant to continue research on the effects of tofu.

It may be beneficial for heart disease and bones, White said. "We don't know. All we know, in our study, is there appears to be an adverse relationship."

Among those at the conference was Finnish scientist Herman Adlercreutz, who became interested in soy after observing that breast cancer and colon cancer were less common in Japan than in Finland. His studies 20 years ago led to a scientific explosion of interest in soy and its components.

Adlercreutz believes more dietary soy, a staple of Asian diets, would improve the health of Americans and people of other Western countries. But he said at the conference, "I am myself frightened a little bit by all of this. There is so much we don't know."

Mark Messina, a soy foods expert and former researcher with the Diet and Cancer Branch of the National Cancer Institute, told the scientists, "It's simply not possible as yet to draw any conclusions about soy consumption and cancer prevention, but further research is certainly warranted."

Companies that make money from soy products are pushing hard to have people think of them as "perfect food," White said

"But if we're talking about soy foods containing substances that have effects on health that aren't nutrients, that are not vitamins, or fat, but change how cells operate, they're acting as drugs act. And the way we think of them should be how we think about drugs."

http://starbulletin.com/1999/11/19/news/story4.html

-- tofu (tofu@tofu.com), January 06, 2000.



Living in Hawaii, I saw the article you're quoting. The research on which it is based is totally full of holes. How about all the people in China and Japan who eat tofu practically daily their whole lives? How's the Alzheimer's there? The tofu makers here in HI are suffering because of that article. There is so much responsible research showing the great benefits to health from soy foods, and it's sad that the newspapers can't cover that. How about both sides??? This is the only study as far as I know (and having been a vegetarian for 30 years I pay attention) that has ever been critical of soyfoods' benefits. But there have been thousands of studies showing the health-destroying effects of meat. Pramada

-- Pramada (pram108@yahoo.com), January 06, 2000.

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