SolarpunkIn a paper published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, Dr. Chris Macdonald explored the best sources of protein currently available.
To answer the question, Macdonald had to build a new holistic scoring system that combines measures of environmental impact, health, affordability and availability into a single framework.
Applying the scoring system to 20 commonly consumed protein-rich foods, the analysis found a striking pattern: every product in the highest-scoring quintile was plant-based, while every product in the lowest-scoring quintile was animal-based. Tofu ranked first overall, while cheddar cheese ranked last.
The paper argues that many existing food rating systems focus on only one aspect of a product. While useful, these single-dimension labels can obscure important trade-offs and make it difficult to compare foods comprehensively.
TOFU DOMINATION
Link to open access article https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainable-food-systems/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2026.1677796/full
I like tofu. My wife eats it almost daily, I eat it occasionally (typically, I make mabodofu). My biggest issue is that it's fragile and doesn't have a texture akin to meat. Before anyone recommends seitan, I like that but can't have gluten or wheat anymore. Any suggestions?
I live in Japan, so we have no shortage of types of tofu, but even our firmest doesn't do it for me.
Press your tofu for 2-4 hours, wrapped in paper towels. You wanna get it real dry. Microwave it for like 1-2 minutes. Get it REALLY dry. Once all that water is out, you wanna rehydrate it with some sauce + seasonings, basically like a marinade. Once it’s soaked up the goodness, air fry it (preferably) or pan fry it. Should end up with a texture almost similar to chicken. It’s still gonna be softer than real meat, but getting it just absurdly dry first is the first step to getting it close
Can I just slice it into slices and dehydrate it in a low temperature oven for hours and hours?
Like can I make 'dehydrared tofu chips' is what Im asking.
Or does anyone please know any brand of CHEAP dehydrated tofu chips already made and sold in canada?
Also does anyone please know how much of the essential amino acids tofu offers per 100grams of tofu (and I do mean any form of tofu. Fermented tofu , whatver form you pick) and then compare it to the essential amino acids 100 grams of ground beef gives.
Thanks
Searched it up in 5 seconds:
- https://nyomirecipes.com/tofu-chips/
- https://tofucurious.com/tofu-chips/
- https://www.powerhungry.com/2026/07/13/tofu-chips/
Man, I had no idea this stuff existed. I wanna make it now! lol.
thanks
Standard answer is get extra firm tofu, drain it, pat it dry, then freeze it. Later when you defrost it, it has a chewier texture.
Oh, I hadn't tried freezing it. I'll raise the flag on this to try.
The ice crystals change the structure of the tofu. This is an ongoing research topic in modern food science as the growth direction and firmness of the tofu matters.
But you should just try it and see what happens with yours.
I'm excited that we'll likely get better textured plant based protein sources soon.
Nobody commenting on the fact that this good scientist nearly shares a name with the largest fast food chain on the planet on the planet. I like to think this Dr. Chris Macdonald is rebelling against their father, Ronald.
I agree Macdonald is clearly a plant working against big meat.
I'm a bit surprised that tofu is ahead of beans, especially in the Planet Score, since it's kind of just further processed beans.
My best guess is that the non-determinate "beans" are an average or something like kidney beans, whereas tofu is specifically soy beans.
And well, Wikipedia tells me that soy beans kick ass:
Cultivation of soybeans has one of the lowest needs for land use (1.3 m² / 1000 kcal) and emits some of the lowest amounts of greenhouse gas emissions per gram of edible protein of any food (1.6 kg CO2 / 100 g protein).
Would probably need to e-mail them to ask for the actual data... 🥴
Beans are a less complete protein than soy, so you need to either eat a lot more or supplement with grain or dairy.
Adding to what the other person said about complete proteins, the whole thing is really overblown and frankly almost never something to even begin to worry about. Virtually every plant food contains every essential amino acid, it's just that the ratio of those amino acids is slightly different than the ratios in human or other animal flesh. Notably legumes have marginally less methionine than a lot of other protein sources. But even in an outlandish scenario where you had to live on nothing but beans, this deficiency would still be easily overcome by just... eating a little bit more of the beans..
But people don't do that. They eat lots of things, and many foods supply varying amounts of protein. Despite the hype, there is no need for the average person to worry about their protein intake. If you are eating real food and getting enough calories, you are getting enough protein.
The focus on complete protein is not useful in 99.9% of cases. You do not need to eat all amino acids in the same meal. As long as you get it at some point in the day, it's fine. The main person who popularized the idea has actually said they regret doing so
"In 1971 I stressed protein complementarity because I assumed that the only way to get enough protein ... was to create a protein as usable by the body as animal protein. In combating the myth that meat is the only way to get high-quality protein, I reinforced another myth. I gave the impression that in order to get enough protein without meat, considerable care was needed in choosing foods. Actually, it is much easier than I thought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_combining#Criticism
I have a serious question, if someone is a person that is bulking does her quote about : "With three important exceptions, there is little danger of protein deficiency in a plant food diet. The exceptions are diets very heavily dependent on [1] fruit or on [2] some tubers, such as sweet potatoes or cassava, or on [3] junk food (refined flours, sugars, and fat). Fortunately, relatively few people in the world try to survive on diets in which these foods are virtually the sole source of calories. In all other diets, if people are getting enough calories, they are virtually certain of getting enough protein." also apply?
Like suppose a person need 4000 calories a day to bulk I can actually just eat a diet of tofu, rutabagas, confierous vegetables, oil for frying them and a multivitamin and Ill be eating enough protein and calories per a day to bulk?
If you are eating 4000 kcal/day, you are almost certainly getting a lot of protein. At 4000kcals, even the example of a 100% sweet potato diet is getting you to around ~80g of protein (well above average person recommendations of 50g/day). If any significant portion of that is tofu, the number is going to be even higher. Tofu has like 30-50g of protein per block (varying based on soft vs firm vs extra-firm)
~800 kcals of tofu (~2 blocks of firm tofu) is already putting you at like 90-100g protein assuming you ate zero other protein from anything else for the rest of your 3200 kcals (which will not be the case unless you ate like somehow ate 100% pure cornstarch)
I was going to rebuttal that you typed out a wrong comment since you didnt account for ESSENTIAL AMINO ACIDS anywhere in your comment . But then I plugged in a 4000 calorie serving of boiled sweet potatoes into a website and found out that you are correct and Im wrong. If a person is willing to eat 5.2 kilograms of boiled sweet potatoes EVERYDAY they are indeed getting in enough essential amino acids into their diet even if they are bulking cause theyll be getting WAY more than enough each of the essential amino acids for an average adult lol https://tools.myfooddata.com/nutrition-facts/168484/gm/5269
Thanks for that . I didnt even know that you could get essential amino from potatoes...
Damn, good link. I was also about to type up a lengthy explanation about why it's not relevant, but then realized you need to explain a ton of stuff before you can argue that on a logical basis, which they wouldn't trust me on either.
I'm sure it'd still score highly if not, but I wonder if the study accounts for the burning of plastic to cook it? https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/may/10/tofu-plastic-indonesia
That is not a general practice. From the article:
The tofu is not sold outside Indonesia.
Yes, and also from the article is that their average tofu consumed per capita per annum is 8kg. With a population of nearly 290 million, that's a lot of tofu. Obviously it's not all produced that way, but it's not insignificant. Did you read the bit about dioxin levels?
and the worst thing is thdt in all forms of meat too there are microplastica found in them too
OK, but what about the significant percent of the world that has allergies or intolerance to soy? ... Meh.
0.3%
...which is 27 million people!
Your point being? Soy bad because 0.3% can't eat it? What?
....i said soy bad?? Doh! My amnesia is acting up! Its so bad that I cant even see what I typed a few minutes ago! 🤭😏
Man you're dumb or something? What is wrong with you?
What's with the protein obsession? Eat more fiber, that is what almost everyone is lacking.
Laughable new USAian nutrition guidelines plus accompanying social media nutrition grifters
This is the take.
Which is funny, because tofu is low fiber. Eat more beans.
Marketing. Also, people think you can only get protein from meat.
I prefer both
It's a large ongoing Facebook campaign. My mom is also obsessed with protein suddenly, so dumb.
it seems to be the food industry marketing 'flavor of the month'. everybody and everything that can, is stressing protein content or producing high-protein varieties.
Are there any health issues linked to a lack of fibre?
The last meta study I saw saw that over all health comes were better for people with a majority fiber diet over both majority protein and majority carbohydrate diets.
Personally it's the fact that I can be full faster but with less total calories.
Link please!
Also if thst is true, is there such thing as a majority fiber diet that a person could bulk with? Id be thjnking its impossible since the majority of fibre is indigestible by the human body. Though I could he wrong of course as Im not an expert on the matter.
Colon cancer.
That is probably the most serious. Other things that are more likely when you don't get enough fibre with your food:
Feel hungry sooner
Increased blood sugar fluctuations
Piles due to increased straining to poop
Constipation
Abdominal cramps and bloating
Weight gain
Diverticulitis
Misread the title and read the article hoping to learn more about this "hostile" scoring system, only to be highly disappointed. lol
We have ways of ~~making you talk~~ calculating performance
For some reason, this reminds me of a story my dad told of being in college in the early 70s. Apparently there was a "game" going around - a sort of viral joke - that involved going up to someone and in a terrible German accent saying "Do you vant to play Geshtapo?" and no matter what they said, slapping them (probably gently) on the face and saying "You lie! You lie!" - probably funnier 30 years after WWII rather than 80 years we are now. heh.
So he did this and it was fun until the one time he started to do it to one of the football players. Massive guy, not so quick on the uptake.... He said he went up to him, asked "Do you vant to play Geshtapo?" and started to put his hand up to slap him, and the guy grabbed his arm, looked confused and said, "What dis?" and my dad was like "Just a joke....... nevermind.........." lol. And that was the end of that!
(I suppose it's too late to mention that my dad is on the shorter and scrawnier side)
I’m here for tofu recipes pls
Check out Thai vegetarian recipes. Mostly soy protein and the most flavorful food in the world. You can substitute a lot of Asian ingredients if they are not available in your region very easily too.
Been vegetarian for over 20 years now and focusing on maximalist kitchens (thai, indian etc) is the way to go with vegetarian constraint!
For something different, apply this technique to any of the suggested recipes here. ETA: firm and extra firm tofu works best.
Freeze it. Thaw it. Press it. Shred (or cube) it.
It takes on a different texture, and can remove even more liquid through pressing than fresh.
Agedashi tofu is one of my favourite Japanese dishes https://www.justonecookbook.com/agedashi-tofu-2/
A few from my recipesage library.
Mapo Tofu,
Garlic Eggplant Crispy Tofu,
Tofu Broccoli Quinoa,
Tofu Taco Filling. Hmm. I feel like I should have more good tofu recipes...
Magic Tofu
Per pound or 454g of extra-firm tofu:
- Break the tofu block apart by hands in a bowl, make pieces of 2cm/1'' large
- Add 1 table spoon of preferred oil (nut, vegetable oils)
- Add 1 table spoon of cider vinegar
- Add 1 table spoon of soy sauce
- Add 1 table spoon of sugar (best source are honey, agave or maple syrup)
- (Optional) Add 1-2 table spoons of preferred spicy sauce (I use sambal oelek or thai red curry paste)
- Mix
- Add 30 g of nutritional yeast
- Mix
- (Optional) Add more nutritional yeast for flavor (another 15 g should do), mix again
- Put on a baking tray, preferably with a parchment baking sheet to cover it, and spread the tofu apart
- Bake for 25 minutes at 375°F or 190°C in the oven
Enjoy on everything! I add it on top of pizzas, in wraps, in a plate with vegetables and rice...
Infredients: block of tofu
Prep: none
Cooking: none
Enjoy one bite at a time
Cover in soy sauce.
There's a couple communities on Lemmy with a decent number of tofu recipes (plus plenty of other plant-based recipes which are not tofu)
- 1-2 packs of plain tofu, drained, cubed (about 200-400g)
- add to a pan and fry it a little until it shrinks in size and gets a little golden from all sides
- add soy sauce until it's all coated and let it simmer and absorb the soy sauce a little
- add a sweetener of your choice (agave syrup is the one I use), a good squeeze from the bottle is good
- paprika powder
- maybe MSG if you like the taste
- salt a little if you don't like MSG
- serve :)
Crispy Tofu and Veg Stacks with Pea Puree and Lemon Herb Sauce
I hate almost everything in this recipe but somehow it's insanely deliciious.
I love this one a lot, i marinate the tofu in soy sauce, oil and a little 5 spice after freezing and pressing it
My personal favourite right now is:
- A pack of firm tofu (~200g drained) cut into comfortable bite sizes
- 2 tablespoons of soy
- 0,5 - 1 inch of grated ginger
- half a green onion chopped
Add together in a bowl, mix and serve.
It's a super quick side that goes well with nearly any of my regular dishes, and I eat it several times a week.
I don't have a recipe as my wife is the tofu cook, but she uses silken tofu and cashews to make a shockingly good vegan mac and cheese. One of my kids became a vegetarian last year and now most of our meals are vegetarian or vegan just because it is too expensive and time consuming to make different meals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUI8Xu6Xpec (also contains chickpeas and dates)
I tried this recently, and while it doesn't quite match the texture and sweetness of "real" cakes, it's ... not bad. If you pair it with something very sweet like whipped cream, it's actually very good.
Scrambled tofu!
Gotta translate this from french https://l-herboriste.com/tofu-brouille/
I did something like this recently to add texture to chili, worked pretty well!
It seems that the biggest impact you can have with a diet change is to just stop eating beef.
Just stop eating meat in general - it's absurdly ridiculous middle man between us and our energy source. It's purely a cultural relic yet people still pretend it's not.
Beef is only part of the problem, it's rather bad but all animal products are super high emitters
If we are concerned about the ethical side of things, swapping to other meats increases the number of animals slaughtered due to lower slaughter weights
Yeah, but talking about beef is more about it being a good first step for people to take. Removing one thing from your diet that can easily be replaced, makes it easier for people to start their journey.
Also, ethics is weird to bring and discuss in this issue, because... "What's worse"?
50 male chicks fed to the grinder alive at three days old, plus their 50 female cousins living in hell for 4 months until being asphyxiated alive, for meat,
or
four cows being chain-machine-raped, made pregnant, and having their children immediately taken away from them repeatedly, in order to keep the cows producing milk, unmoving and sick, throughout their 5 year life until slaughter?
It's all a criminal tragedy. I don't think it makes sense to compare them, comparison will never make sense, it's all arbitrary.
What is not arbitrary, are the methods to wean people off of the habits that feed those industries, and the methods to reduce those industries' political power.
I am doubtful advocating for switching one type of meat for another types of meat will lead towards people reducing their meat consumption in the end. I see it brought up way more often as an excuse to not reduce meat consumption
This is anecdotal of course, but that was absolutely my journey.
I went from a meat heavy diet to not eating meat the majority of the days, and still trying to gradually lower it further.
For some people (like me) the barrier to lowering their meat consumption has more to do with having to learn a whole new paradigm of cooking, than being super invested in meat itself.
In case like mine it really helps to do the changes little steps at a time, where you make just one relatively small change at a time, learn how to cook with that change in mind, and then move onto the next relatively small change. It allows me some time to learn to cook with the new ingredients/new allocation of ingredients, and make food I actually want to eat in the long run, so it becomes way easier to keep it up.
I agree, I’m Autistic and had an eating disorder as a teenager. It takes a lot for me to leave my safe foods behind. Not because I don’t sincerely care about ethics and the environment but I also need to be alive and healthy.
And then I met my awesome partner who hates meat and we started cooking and experimenting together. It hasn’t been over night but just one meal at a time I’ve totally changed my eating habits!
[EDITED: my partner hates meat, he doesn’t hate me— as far as I know.]
By the way, same. Just getting familiar with the fact I had options, went a long way.
A lot of dietary choices are just inertia and fear of change. 🤷♀️
I was commenting strictly based on the charts in the article. Beef seems to be the worse, by far.
Swap not just beef, but any meat for pulses and you've achieved a lot for yourself and the rest of the world.
And it doesn't have to be a "100%of the time" situation; each time you do the swap is good.
Stop eating steak, you mean. Part of that high number is that there's only so many steaks on a steer. I mean, beef is still bad but it's exaggerated in the chart.
this is just warmed over poore-nemecek 2018. it's not new, and it's not good science.
Too bad there isn't a good source of tofu in most grocer markets. Soy is one of the most suspect crops,with pesticides and such to start, and there just aren't many buying options, and they are all expensive-er than they should be.
A pound is like a couple of bucks, but a pound isn't that much really. Making your own isn't really practicable, I saw a video on how they make it traditionally in East Asia and it's a big thing with many steps.
I've made my own tofu and it is not a big thing with many steps. Soak beans overnight, blend beans in blender, cook resulting slurry, strain, add coagulant, place in container and apply weight.
It's about the same amount of work as baking bread. However it is not cheaper than buying tofu from the store unless you can find very cheap soybeans.
Sounds a little similar to making cheese. Which you can do at home easily too. It just takes a lot of milk for not much cheese. Usually only do it if I obtain several litres of milk for free that would otherwise be wasted.
Yes I believe it's basically the same. You're just collecting protein from soy milk when making tofu.
90%+ of soya grown is used for animal feed. Funny how those of us that eat a lot of tofu manage to find it cheap very easily, and I'm still finding new types of Tofu 35 years later... I'm in the UK, but surely wherever you are can't be that far behind the rest of the world?
We get tofu blocks in various forms from all supermarkets (Aldi, Lidl, Asda, Tesco... etc.) for about £1 per block. Equivalent meat costs probably £3-£5. We sometimes get fresh (unpackaged) and deep fried tofu from our local Asian cash-and-carry, plus various tinned, vac-packed and jarred varieties. Occasionally we get "expensive" tinned braised tofu from local wholefood shops as a treat. Occasionally we get a Chinese take-away - several of our local ones do Tofu and Seitan. Our favourite one does their vegan dishes £1-£3 cheaper than the non-vegan options.
We don't buy frozen ready meals, but vegan ones do exist. We like cooking, and cook a lot from scratch, but there are lots of jarred sauces and sachets you can get that are vegan - it's completely possible to make a quick meal with a jar of pasta sauce, a tub of marinated tofu chunks and frozen veg, and it would still be cheaper than using frozen chicken chunks instead.
It's there if you go looking for it. A vegan diet is pretty cheap in reality - about 30% cheaper the way we do it, and we're not particularly frugal about it, nor do we put in much effort to achieve it. We buy the things we like where we know we can get them, probably just like you do.
Unfortunately I live in the deep woods in the upper midwest US, the closest Aldi is 40 miles away, there is a cheaper store that does not carry it maybe 12 mles off. Even Aldi and the large dominant supermarket chain are expensive for what it is though, about 2 dollars now for a pound or so.
It's just not popular enough to have lower prices here, although aldi should be the same regardless idk. But pound for pound, it takes more tofu than meat to get full, so it's not a 1 to 1 comparison on price.
I would have to make it to get a good price, after finding human grade soybeans not full of pesticides, and it's an involved process judging by the video I saw on how they traditionally make it in East Asia.
Soy boy is an insult here, as to the lack of popularity keeping prices higher. It's South America, what do you expect.
Can you buy online? There are shelf stable tofu products
The US is strange then. This side of the pond, the UK is not considered a leading light in vegan progress. Lots of other countries have more vegans. I've lived in more rural areas in the UK (e.g. Wales) and although it was harder, it was still possible.
Smaller rural stores will cater to the lowest common denominator, and in the US, that's going to be much more in the way of processed foods. I'm sure there are rural vegans, but they're probably a bit less common. Certainly not the stereotype.
I often struggle to find more unusual ingredients in Aldi tbh. Great for the bulk of my shopping though, which is largely vegetables and grains.
90%+ of soya grown is used for animal feed.
this just isn't true. some 80%+ is pressed for oil
this just isn’t true. some 80%+ is pressed for oil
Lol you show up in every thread talking about soybeans being used for animal feed. If beans weren't used for animal feed then the entire northern hemisphere would be growing rapeseed because it's a more efficient oil producer per acre.
A majority of soybean production exists only because it can be turned into animal feed after it's processed.
you show up in every thread talking about soybeans being used for animal feed.
and still, misinformation persists.
i think it's true that being able to feed the waste product to livestock helps make teh decision to plant it easier. but it's still the case that humans use about 93% of the crop before giving anything to livestock, and it's a conservation of resources to give the waste from the oil production to livestock.
It isn't one or the other, it's both: soya oil and meal (what's left after pressing the oil out) are so-called "co-products" - you get about 20% oil, and 80% meal. The meal goes almost exclusively into animal feed, the oil then goes into various other products, including animal feed and food industry, where it is used in mostly non-vegan products (because vegan products only constitute a small proportion of industrially produced food products).
Your 80% figure pressed for oil includes soya meal used for animal feed.
after it goes into an oil press and oil is extracted the waste product is fed to livestock. the oil is almost half the value but it's only 20% of the weight.
They feed the leftovers to livestock when they do so though so you both may be right.
that's about 69% of the global crop weight. another 7% is fed to animals directly. that's not 90%.
and feeding it to animals is a conservation of resources
My wife has made tofu as few times as well as a tofu analog using different types of beans and it was surprisingly good and it was less intensive to make than I expected. Tofu is fairly cheap, but I imagine you could make large batches without much additional work. I can't say that her was following some traditional method which might be more work, but it matched what I expected from tofu in the taste/texture dept.
Not sure how they score, but chickpeas are pretty great too. Soak'em, mash'em, stick 'em in a falafel.
Great in a curry
Falafel goes great with hummus!
Ultimately, beyond the spreadsheets and scores lies a fundamental reckoning: our protein choice is a referendum on the compassion we are willing to show to animals, to the planet and to future generations.
Clearly no bias at all!
Where's the lie?
Personally I'm wondering why their beef item was steak and not ground beef. Because there's so much more of the animal that can be included, the impact would be smaller.
Well, if I had to guess, I’d say they started with the result they wanted, and worked backward from there.
I haven't read the article and I'm not saying you're wrong, but in general plant foods are known to have less environmental impact than animal products because animals are higher on the food chain, and it takes more energy to raise an animal for consumption (including the resources to grow food for the animal) than to just grow plants and consume them directly.
Globally tofu production is somewhere raround 36 m metric tonnes/year. To eat 150g of protein per day using DIAAS scores (so that's amino acid complete as measured in animals) about 1.2kg of tofu is needed to be consumed, about 1,700kcal. production/consumption - a current global sustainable protein source for 40 million humans. (napkin math)
Here is a map of current global tofu growing regions (2024) - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-04248-2
they also rate quinoa a high score - which to get 150g of DIAAS adjusted protein requires about 4kg of quinoa....
I want to point out a few major issues with these calculations, and how to arrive at a more reasonable result.
First, 150 g of protein per day is a big amount, something that you could recommend to a 100 kg person who does a lot of sports (if you assume 1.5 * bodymass in kg rule, which would be a mid-range estimate). 70-100 g would be more fitting to the average person. Second, you make the calculation as if tofu was the only source of protein. Eg. Menno Henselman, a muscle growth researcher, has stated that our bodies are actually remarkably good at combining amino acids from different protein sources digested throughout the day. His recommendation is to increase protein intake by 10-20% if you swap animal proteins to plant proteins (note that the amounts in his presentation are for bodybuilders). A balanced diet would include a fair amount of grains, even vegetables and mushrooms that have protein. So all of this would bring the amount of protein required from the main protein sources way down.
Let's say that your main protein-rich foods would cover 70 percent of the total protein intake of a 100 g + 15% = 115 g (still quite a lot), that means 81 g of protein from tofu. With 14 g / 100g this would mean eating ~580 grams of tofu, or 145 g per meal over four meals, a very reasonable portion.
Now, in reality, I would not recommend eating just tofu as your main protein four times a day, but of course use some of the other great plant-based protein sources mentioned, like seeds, beans, lentils etc. Personally, I even throw in some sustainably fished local fish.
this is just poore-nemecek in a trench coat
What is even the point of preserving liveable Earth if the food on it will taste like polystyrene?
I notice that the replies are all "it's not tasteless, it tastes like whatever you season it with" so yeah. Boring and without much taste, but carries flavouring well
Tell me you don't know how to cook vegetables without telling me you don't know how to cook vegetables
Vegetables are awesome. And the majority of legumes are awesome. Delicious and nutritious. But tofu... tofu is basically biodegradable polystyrene, yes.
Gotta disagree, but heyho :)
Tofu can taste like anything you want. It's the way you prepare and season it that makes the taste
Tofu is extremely versatile in taste, it'll taste like whatever you season it with. It's more a vehicle for other flavor
You're a bad cook.
