Introducing Soy to a Meat and Potatoes Family
Posted By Clod on June 8, 2010
Often people ask me, “How can I get my family to eat soy?”
Often people ask me, “How can I get my family to eat soy?” or “How do I prepare soy, how do I serve it?” When learning my background, some often remark, “Well, you’ve been a vegetarian for fifteen years. It’s easy for you to eat soy. My family, eat meat and hardly any vegetables at all. What will I look like trying to make them some tofu?”
Take heart, I understand how you feel. Soy products are considered mystery food even by some vegetarians. At the heart of the issue is taste: after a lifetime of eating meat and dairy products, certain soy “imitations are bound to taste funny. Also, I get the feeling that a lot of people think that soy is only for vegetarians and vegans. It’s not. There are many ways to integrate soy into a meat-based diet slowly with simple, basic recipes.
Cow’s milk is a basic staple of the American diet and a vastly over-rated part of American children’s diets. Although it is not neccessary, many people wrongly believe that cow’s milk is a fundamental part of their child’s diet. It isn’t, and is easily replaced by soy milk. That is one way to bring soy into your diet. Soymilk also comes in different flavors, such as vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, as well as unflavored. Children generally accept the change easily and find soy milk to taste very good. It might take adults a while longer to appreciate the taste, but this can be helped along by using soy milk in coffee and in recipes that call for cow’s milk, like cakes, cookies, etc.
Another way to get soy into your diet is by using soy protein crumbles or “fake” hamburger in recipes that call for ground beef. This might include tacos, lasagna, and casseroles. The texture is thicker, more denser than ground beef or ground turkey, and due to the spices and other flavorings in such recipes the taste is virtually unnoticed. Soy by itself tends to be bland which makes it appealing for many recipes as this contributes to it’s absorbing flavor easily. Most big chain supermarkets carry this product or other type of soy product these days, you can also pick up a wider variety of soy stuff at health food stores and food co-ops.
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