Discipline and flavour, no longer a trade-off

Soy fibre → Fermentation → 自律の蛋白™
Daily life and food science, explained
Okara upcycling, and the questions we get asked
What is okara? Can you eat it?
It is the soy fibre left over from making soy milk and tofu. It still holds protein and dietary fibre, but it is coarse and hard to eat as it is, so we treat it as a raw material and upcycle it through fermentation.
Read the thread (in Chinese)How does okara become protein?
Enzymes first cut the fibre into sugars, then microbial cultures ferment those sugars into a food ingredient with a higher protein content.
Read the thread (in Chinese)Is a fermentation mould the same as food going mouldy?
No. Miso's koji and Indonesian tempeh both rely on moulds people have eaten for a very long time. We pick strains on three things: how well they grow, how pale they stay, and how good they smell.
Read the thread (in Chinese)Why a tempeh culture?
Tempeh is interesting for more than its protein. On Threads we wrote up a 2018 human study in which people who ate tempeh every day for a month ended up with more Akkermansia muciniphila (Akk) in their gut. What happens when the same culture ferments okara is what we are testing now.
Read the thread (in Chinese)What does dietary fibre have to do with the gut?
Fibre is food for gut bacteria. A diet heavy on meat and fat and light on fibre gives more room to sulfate-reducing bacteria, which make the sulfur compounds behind smelly wind.
Read the thread (in Chinese)









