Deficient Vegans
The podcast for anyone who’s ever been told vegans can’t get strong, stay fit, or live fully. A mix of science-backed nutrition, exercise advice, vegan food and recipe tips, and just the right amount of chaos to help you thrive on plants and laugh along the way.
Deficient Vegans
All You Need to Know About Tofu
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This week we discuss one of our favorite vegan protein sources: tofu! We'll cover some of the most common types, what you can do with them, and share some of our favorite tofu recipes.
Chapters
0:07 Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast
0:30 New Vegan Products on the Market
6:29 Tofu: The Main Attraction
7:52 Benefits of Tofu
9:15 Personal Tofu Experiences
12:16 Types of Tofu
13:15 Pressing Tofu Explained
16:07 Creative Tofu Preparation Techniques
21:12 Flavoring Tofu
27:06 Silken Tofu Insights
31:44 Tofu Firmness and Types
32:59 Creative Uses for Silken Tofu
33:32 Silken Tofu in Desserts
34:44 Non-Soy Tofu Alternatives
35:32 Soy and Health Myths
37:39 Debunking Calorie Deficit Myths
49:23 Updates from Protein-Deficient Vegan Land
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Welcome to the Deficient Vegans Podcast, episode 39. I'm the muscle deficient vegan here with the protein deficient vegan. Do you want to say hi?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Hi!
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Hi, everybody. So, this week, we're going to talk about a great vegan protein source and tell you all you need to know about tofu. It can be a little intimidating and also has a reputation for being kind of bland and boring.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Because people are wrong.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Right. Well, I was also wrong.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I was too. We'll talk about that.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:But we can set the record straight for sure. And then we'll also have our myth of the week this week, which is that you can be in a calorie deficit and not lose weight.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Hmm.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:But first up, new news.
Protein Deficient Vegan:New news.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So the first piece of news here is that there's a new product going around making the rounds on social media.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Mostly Reddit. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It is a fermented egg white protein that is vegan.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yes.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So it's made by a company called Healthier Comforts. It is 90% protein and it is a complete protein because it is bioidentical to egg whites. It's also very high and loosing. It's made from fermenting yeast and its purpose is to use in like baking recipes and other things where it calls for an egg white. You could also just scramble it up into a scrambled egg, but we could already kind of get tofu for that.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. The original post that I think got most popular was someone was using it in Angel Food Cake on vegan baking. And then I saw someone else using it in vegan fitness for like an egg white omelet. So seems like it's getting really good reviews.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Right. And it is really high protein, probably an expensive way to make an omelet.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, there were a lot of concerns on how are they getting it to be bioidentical.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So there was a user, the plant-based patissier on Reddit that, I guess, emailed the Healthier Comforts Company and then posted that email on Reddit so everybody could understand how the food was made.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Thank you, plant-based patissier.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So I'm just going to read the relevant part of the email here so you guys know too. So this is from the perspective of a person at the Healthier Comforts Company. So they say, we source this product from the every company. They produce the animal-free egg white protein using a process called precision fermentation. So how exactly is animal-free egg white protein made? First, the DNA sequence for egg white protein is inserted into yeast cells. The yeast cells are then placed in a tank with sugar and water to ferment. During fermentation, the yeast cells produce egg white protein. The yeast is then completely filtered out, leaving behind the animal-free egg white protein. This process does not require any chickens, eggs, or farms, meaning the protein is completely vegan. Since the protein produced is one of the primary proteins found in egg white, this product is not suitable for consumers that have an egg allergy. So that's an interesting point. And on the label as well, it does say it's an egg allergen. So if you have an egg allergy, you probably shouldn't try it.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, it's kind of like the vegan way, right? Right. Like you can't drink that if you have some kind of a milk allergy.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, exactly.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Which means we have that now, so we can't.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I found that out the hard way. I apparently have some sort of milk allergy now.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. He found that out the hard way twice.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:You have to be sure.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So I guess we'll find out if we have an egg allergy because we did buy the vegan egg whites. Right. I'm excited to use them. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And, you know, from the vegan perspective, they say that they, you know, they use the DNA sequence from egg whites, which, you know, may have been extracted, you know, long ago by some company when they were doing, you know, DNA sequencing or something. That does not mean they have to keep using eggs or keep using chickens to keep making the egg whites. That was just, at this point, it's just data. They just have the DNA sequencing data, and that's what's injected into the yeast.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. There's no ongoing use of eggs to make this. So, totally vegan. Yeah. I'm excited to try it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And I think we'll probably see a lot more products like this in the future. And we'll see kind of where they fit in. I mean, a lot of the stuff we don't really need, like, they're going to do this with meat at some point, like lab-grown meat. Yeah. A lot of the stuff we don't really necessarily need lab-grown meat, but people do like to have options. And it does make it a lot easier for people making the transition who are like, okay, I really love meat. And so now at some point you'll have lab-grown meat that's vegan.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Someone in our Discord actually brought up, like, bio-identical leather would be cool or, like, other clothing materials. And I actually like the idea of that better than lab-grown meat.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It would be interesting to see what the future holds with all that kind of stuff.
Protein Deficient Vegan:But I would like to point out that yeast is so cool, guys. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:You're a big fan of yeast.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I love yeast. I think yeast are like the coolest little guys ever.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:We're looking at a yeast stuffed animal right now, actually. Wow. Just a little yeast bud. Yeah, he's cute, right?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:He's staring right at me.
Protein Deficient Vegan:My friend Bruce gave it to me.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:All right. Next piece of news is a company called Join Foods, J-O-Y-N, created a blended mushroom meat, which means it's half beef and half mushroom, and got it approved for use in K-12 schools in South Carolina, which if you're not familiar with the U.S. school system, basically means everything that's not college, right?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, kindergarten through 12th grade. So, yeah, primary school, yada, yada. Exactly.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So the product is called 50 Cut because it's, you know, 50% cut mushroom with beef. And the students at the schools had tastings and overwhelmingly approved the alternatives. So there was a 96% approval for their meatballs and a 92% approval for their burgers.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And I think a lot of the kids actually preferred the 50 cut over like just normal meat. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Which was interesting. So, yeah. I mean, you know, they do still use beef, but now that means basically all the food that would have been beef in the school system could now be half mushroom. Yeah. So it's definitely a big reduction in beef, potentially.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Obviously, I think we'd all like the world to go fully vegan, but if the entire world would reduce their meat by 50%, that's like 25% population of vegans, right? So like still better for the animals. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So yeah, that's good progress. And that's cool to see something like that. I think that's an innovative way to help reduce animal harm without really like pushing too extreme of something on somebody.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, I also like that it's happening when it's kids, because I think that makes them more likely to be open-minded when they are grown up and able to make their own food choices and buy their own products. Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then last up, there was a vegan power lifter that set a new French national bench press record. Her name is Alison Huet, spelled H-U-E-T. Yes. And that is a French name, and I'm not French, so I may have messed that up.
Protein Deficient Vegan:We did try to practice, though.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Found a website that says, this is how you pronounce the name. And I gave it my best shot.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Either way, congrats, Allison. That's awesome. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:She's been vegan since 2017, I said.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Woo!
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Pretty cool.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Representing.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Okay. So now let's go ahead and move into the main segment about tofu. So let's start with, what is tofu?
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's my best friend.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh, that's really sweet. Okay. Tofu is made from three ingredients. It is dried, mature soybeans.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So not edamame. Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Because edamame means young soybean. water and some sort of coagulant. I think the two main ones I saw were like a calcium coagulant and a magnesium based coagulant. Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Um, but also you can make it at home. So it's not something that's typically considered highly processed. Yeah. There are a lot more types of tofus than we're going to cover here. A lot of them are popular in Asian cultures, things like fermented tofu, stinky tofu.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I saw some reels on like hairy tofu.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It has like a mold growing on it. Okay. So, but we haven't used any of those. So we probably, you know, we can't really talk on that. So we're only going to be talking on things that we know about. Yeah. And that we've tried. Right. And there's probably other stuff we're not covering. So, like, if you have tips and tricks or, like, things you like to make with tofu or ways you like to prepare tofu, let us know. Because I'm sure we're missing a lot of stuff.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And a fun fact, on the origin of tofu, tofu actually originated in China over 2,000 years ago.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's awesome.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Been around a long time.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Thank you, China. Thank you.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So, yeah. Now, why would you maybe want to use tofu?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Because it's great.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That's true. That's really the only reason. Yeah. Soy. Okay, so tofu is made of soy. And soy is one of the few complete proteins that vegans have access to.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That and I guess vegan egg whites, right? Yeah, right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's also the only vegan complete protein that has a high protein percentage and is kind of a lower volume food. Because the other vegan complete proteins are like buckwheat and quinoa and stuff that you can't eat a whole ton of.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Both are like lower percentage protein. Right. Yeah. I guess the vegan egg whites are now making this a bit of a lie.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:But yeah tofu is also very versatile and it has a neutral flavor which is actually a huge benefit for it and then different types of tofu can be used for different things also on the nutrient side most tofus are good for iron calcium and manganese yep, And there's also no dietary cholesterol in tofu, but there's also no dietary cholesterol in any vegan food.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. My personal favorite thing about tofu is that it does have a neutral flavor, which I have been arguing on threads with a lot of people lately about how tofu tastes gross. Tofu doesn't taste gross. It doesn't taste like anything. You just have to, like, add stuff to it to make it taste good. Yeah. Which is a great benefit of tofu.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:If you just popped a piece of tofu in your mouth, like, out of the package, maybe, it would taste kind of like water, like spongy water.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Yeah. I also hear people complain about the texture, but like the texture is really dependent on how you make it too.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:How you make it and how you prepare it. Yeah. So let's talk about our first experiences with tofu because like I alluded to earlier, I was a hater.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I was also a big hater.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Tell me about yours.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Okay. So I went vegetarian as a kid and it was always like, oh, how is she going to get protein? We don't know. So I was mostly living on Morningstar Nuggets. But then one day we decided to pick up a pack of tofu from the store. But like, you know, this was before food blogs were readily available, really. And we didn't have a cookbook on this. And so my mom and I just kind of winged it. And I don't think we pressed the tofu. We basically just like... toss it around in breadcrumbs like you would do chicken we treated it the way you would do chicken nuggets right yeah but we didn't press it and so it came out as like wet soggy ass blobs yeah and it was really really gross and i didn't try tofu again um i think until after college when i had my own kitchen and stuff and then i i experimented again with it and figured out other ways to make it but i didn't touch tofu for like 10 years yeah
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's a shame.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. What about you?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. I don't really like remember when mine was, but I do remember that I had tried tofu a couple of times on like salads and stuff. And when you get it like that, they basically just throw a couple of cold cubes that aren't even marinated or anything on top of the salad. So like I would try it and you'd bite it and it would squeak and taste like nothing. And I was like, just really, it didn't seem very appealing to me.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah i remember asking you about trying tofu when we first started dating again and you were like i don't like tofu and honestly i think a lot of restaurants aside from asian restaurants do a really big disservice to tofu because they don't know how to prepare it yeah definitely and they just are trying to give you like bland bear cubes of tofu that suck and
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Don't get me wrong it's nice that it's on the menu but it'd be nicer if they put a little more effort into.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It i mean it's like they serve it in an equivalent way to like if you just like tossed chicken in the oven without seasonings and then just like threw it on a plate and said enjoy that exactly it's like she thinks for the effort yeah so
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah that for me basically i tried it a couple of times and then probably like you i didn't try it again for a decade or more just because it was like okay i guess this is not.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Unfortunate but yeah especially i think if you try it from a restaurant it sucks you kind of assume like a restaurant's gonna know how to cook it So if you're getting, like, shitty tofu from a restaurant, you're probably like, oh, all tofu's terrible.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, I'd understand if I tried to make it at home and it didn't turn out right, I would just be like, oh, I'd totally mess something up.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, exactly.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So I'd get it as part of a dish and have it be pretty underwhelming.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I spent $20 on this. Why was it terrible? Tofu must be terrible.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that $5 tofu upcharge. Yeah. I don't know about that.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, and I think that's probably where all these people on, like, threads and social media are coming from. Maybe they tried it once at a shitty restaurant. Yeah. And then it just forever made them think tofu sucked. Yeah. Well, it doesn't.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And so we'll talk about how to maybe change that perception. So there are several different types of tofu. So we'll go through a few of them that we commonly use and that are kind of featured in the recipes on your website. So the first one is, well, it's really two, but it's super firm and extra firm tofu.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, but you would use them in pretty much the same way, in my opinion. Super firm is usually like 43% protein and extra firm is around 40% protein. And those macros might vary, but that's what I see on the packages that we buy. But yeah, they're pretty much the same. Superfirm does come in a vacuum pack, which means it's pre-pressed, so you don't need to press it. But Extrafirm, while it tends to be a little cheaper, you will need to press it. So I think those are really the main differences. The macros are slightly better on Superfirm, and you don't have to press it. Yeah. So the convenience factor. But it tends to be a bit more expensive. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So, but basically if you go to the store and they're like out of the super firm, you could just pick up the extra firm and basically use it the same way.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So, now we should talk about pressing tofu.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, what does that mean?
Protein Deficient Vegan:So, like, if you've had tofu that you didn't like that was, like, wet and soggy, it probably wasn't pressed. So, pressing it is just merely getting the extra water out of it. Right. So, with the Super Firm, it's already pre-pressed. So, you can just pop it out of the package and cut it, use it, do whatever you're going to do with it. But, like, extra firm and then also firm, you're going to want to press the extra water out. So you can buy a tofu press, which are usually like, I don't know, $10 to $15.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Just like a little plastic box.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. They have ones that you basically screw down, which that was one of the first ones I bought. But they make kind of a mess because now the water is like kind of like going all over your counter. Yeah. And you have to worry with like, you have to like screw it down evenly. That was the first one I bought. I don't really recommend that. Yeah. Then we bought this plastic one that you basically like push down and then it has like side clamps. And I actually like that one a lot. Although sometimes it can be kind of hard to get it down far enough. And I was like really struggling the first time I used it. And now I just put my little fist in like the hole in the center and like push it down with my arm. I went to the Amazon listing that I bought and there were a lot of comments that were like, don't buy this unless like you're living with a man that can close this.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Which is a weird comment to see. Yeah, yeah. And you were like, well, that sounds dumb. That's not true.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, and then I was like, oh, no, it is like it's pretty hard to press.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It seems like it gets easier over time a little bit. Yeah. It's definitely still pretty sturdy.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Because basically you're pressing down on a spring.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, so in case you don't know, tofu, when you buy it, it comes in like a big kind of rectangle shape.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, like a prismatic rectangle. Yeah. A rectangular prism.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Think like a big sponge, right? And then you have to press the water out. But it's like a big block and you have to put it inside this box and squeeze it out.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So usually a spring's involved for the most part, unless you have one of those screw down ones. But yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I like my springy box one now, and I don't seem to have as much trouble as I did when I first got it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:But if you don't want to pay money for a tofu press, you don't need a tofu press, you could throw down a couple towels, the tofu, and then maybe like a pan or something and stack some books on it. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Same effect, really.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. The only problem with stacking shit on it is you need to stack it evenly. Otherwise, it's like I've had this happen where, like, everything you've stacked on it topples over. Because, like, basically, your tofu gets less tall as you press water out because you're smushing it down and you're getting the water out. So, like, if the weight is not evenly distributed, one side is going to get shorter faster than the other side. And then all the shit you've stacked on top of it will fall.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Right.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's like a survivor challenge so yeah but I think like the books help I've also done it with I maybe didn't have books so I like threw a big pot on top of it and then just filled the pot up with random shit like heavy candles and stuff yeah you can get really creative in
Muscle Deficient Vegan:A pinch if you ever need a presto.
Protein Deficient Vegan:You can also just like push it down with your hands really hard yeah I
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Think a lot of people probably do it.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That way. They probably do.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And there's a difference. Like, it doesn't get all the moisture out. Yeah. It does cook up a little differently.
Protein Deficient Vegan:You definitely need to, like, I think doing it over a longer period of time, you're going to get more out. Like, a subtle press over a longer period.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I've seen a lot of people on Reddit that seems to be a pretty popular opinion that they just never press their tofu when they cook it.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. I don't know. I think there are certain ways that you can avoid pressing it. Like we're going to talk about some different ways to prepare it that I think, you know, maybe you don't need to press it because there's going to be enough surface area you can cook off the extra water. But like, man, if you're cubing it, you should really be pressing that shit. And then I would say if you can press it overnight, I think that's best. You're going to get the most out if you press it overnight. But I think 20 to 30 minutes, you should be pretty good, too. Moving on from pressing.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So because that type of tofu is so firm, it's kind of a solid, basically. There are a lot of different things you can do with it.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. One of my favorites is to shred it. Yeah. And I like to use like a vegetable or like a cheese grater and just shred it like you would a cabbage, you know?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And then basically because you're shredding it, there is so much surface area on all of the little tofu shreds that it allows for water to bake off of it really well, which like results in like a meatier texture. But also like you can make it crispy really easy that way. And because there's so much surface area on it, you get a lot of spices. There's like lots of surface area for the spices or seasoning or marinade or whatever you're doing to stick to it really well. So I'm a big fan of shredded. Do you like shredded?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I like the shredded a lot, yeah. That's really good. I didn't even realize that was an option.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. I think the first time I did it, I was trying to make, like, that crab rangoon.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And I was like, how do I make it, like, more, like, meaty and maybe, like, a bit crispy? Yeah. To, like, hold up in the, like, soft stuff, so.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It definitely works.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So I like to use it shredded on tacos or I really like making like the fake crab meat out of it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I don't think we've done this with it either, but I think that would actually be pretty good on a salad, too.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, I think so, too. Oh, we should do that. Yeah, no, that's a good idea.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Ooh, yeah. I was just thinking when I was talking earlier about they just put cold cubes on a salad. This would have been way better off.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, yeah. Because, like, you get more seasoning on it. Like, it really sticks to it. Yeah. And there's kind of, like, in my opinion, like, kind of two ways to flavor something like this. You can either do a wet sauce or, like, dry spices.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So with the wet sauce, I mean, you could either marinate in it, but man, I'm not like, I don't like wasting time marinating stuff. So I usually don't do this. Yeah. I think you get a similar, like, especially with this, like there's so much surface area. I think you get a similar effect if you just cook it in a wet sauce. I like cooking it in barbecue sauce. Like we make a lot of like shredded barbecue tacos and shredded barbecue nachos with it. And I really like that.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And the one thing I've learned about something like a strong sauce, like a barbecue sauce with tofu or really any of these vegan options is like those sauces are such a strong flavor that you can't really tell the difference between like shredded barbecue chicken and shredded barbecue tofu. Yeah. It all just tastes like barbecue meat, basically.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right. And I think that's where I think omnivores get a little confused because they're thinking they're tasting meat. Yeah. But I think they're really just tasting like spices and sauces that you put on meat.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. That's definitely 90% of the flavor. Yeah. That's one of the big things I've learned since going vegan is, like, all the flavors I used to like, 90% of that was in the sauces and seasonings. Right. So, all this stuff still tastes the same.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So, like, as long as you get the texture to a place where you don't hate it, it's going to taste pretty good. Yeah. And then, like, the other way I like to add flavor to shredded tofu is I'll flavor it with dry spices. So, like, that's what I do with the crab meat. Like, basically, your shredded tofu is already going to be, like, a little bit wet anyways still. Yeah. And so it's going to grab onto spices really well. And if you want it crispy, you can also add cornstarch. But then I just toss, I like basically toss the shredded tofu with a bunch of spices by hand. And then just like toss it onto a baking sheet and throw it in the oven. Yeah. And flip halfway through and you've got like meaty, crispy seasoned tofu shreds.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And when you're just like shredding it with a grater, I mean, this all takes very little time.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, yeah. It's super fast. Cool.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:What are some other ways to prepare it?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Slicing it is another good one. Okay. So you can definitely do that with a knife, but I found that you can actually get thinner slices if you use like a wide vegetable grater, or like a mandolin would work as well.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Also better to be more consistent than a knife.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, exactly. So then it's going to like cook more consistently as well. Yeah. But what I like about this is like it's very, very thin. So this actually works pretty well with a marinade because it's going to kind of like soak all of that shit up.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, the first time you made this one, you were soaking it in something for, I think, one of the sandwich recipes. Yeah. But it turned out super good.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, the first time we did the sliced, it was for, I think, the Philly cheesesteak. Yeah, yeah. So it makes really good, like, sandwich slices. Yeah. And we just marinated that in soy sauce and, like, half soy sauce, half maple syrup. And it gets a nice, like, salty sweet flavor. And, yeah, I don't know. I think it's really good. Yeah, me too. But you can cook that on a baking sheet or in a pan. but I really like this method as well. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And you can also like crumble it up, right? I've seen you do that before.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So crumbling is kind of the basis for a tofu scramble. So you're usually just going to crumble it by hand so you don't need any fancy kitchen equipment like a grater or a knife even. You're just using your hands. But this one also increases the surface area so that spices and stuff can stick to it and also allows for more water to cook off of it. Yeah. So you end up with a meatier texture. Yeah. Um, so for like a tofu scramble, you would put it in a pan and I like to cook it to add some like, uh, brown, brown it a little bit. Then I'll add the spices and some liquid back in so that you can get the spices well distributed and then cook it some more.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, the liquid just helps the spice kind of move around in the pan a little more.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, yeah. And then for, I actually like using tofu, like crumbled seasoned tofu for like salads or chilies.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's really good on chili.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It is, yeah. Yeah. But you can do that. You just crumble it, maybe add some soy sauce, and then a bunch of spices. Yeah. And then chuck it on a baking sheet and cook it for like 20, 25 minutes.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then we have the old standby of the cubes, right?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yes. You can cube it. We really don't cube it very often.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Not much at all.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And if we're going to cube it, I typically will like tear it into chunks by hand. Yeah. Because that also increases the surface area. So like.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:You get all the jagged edges.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, exactly. Like spices and stuff stick to it better. It crisps better. That's just my personal opinion. It doesn't look as pretty though. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:You know you're gonna chew it up anyway yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Like who really cares
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Right we're not trying to get any michelin stars over here no.
Protein Deficient Vegan:No this is not that kind of place we're flavor first over here
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah and this one's also good for if you're trying to reduce your calories and not use as much oil when you're cooking you can just throw this in like a copper crisping tray or an air fryer or something like that yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And if you want it even more crisp um tossing it in cornstarch helps with that You can also do, I guess, breadcrumbs and stuff. Specifically, if you're doing cubed or chunked, you definitely want to be pressing this. Because especially if you're trying to develop a crispy texture on the outside, that means the inside is less likely to have water evaporate from it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh, yeah. Kind of seals it in.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So you end up with a wet blob. Like the other ones, like when you're crumbling it or shredding it or thinly slicing it, I mean, it's, like, less important that you press it because, like, the water has a lot more places to escape from. But, like, cubing specifically, you definitely need to press if you're cubing it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And then if trying to decide what shape you want your tofu in is a little too much mental rigor for you, you can just throw that motherfucker in a food processor.
Protein Deficient Vegan:That's true. The food processor is always an option. i would probably add some liquid to it because like extra firm and super firm tofu they're thick
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Um i think the most common one you use for this is like the high protein ricotta.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right yeah for lasagna and stuff yeah for this i'll usually add a little bit of soy milk and then maybe like some nutritional yeast and some other spices and flavors and then yeah you end up with like a ricotta type of texture which is kind of nice yeah and i would either just use extra or super firm for like a ricotta or do like half extra super firm and half firm tofu because if you use firm tofu i think it's a little too loose and it doesn't really have that like ricotta texture and in my opinion yeah
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And isn't there some kind of trick with like freezing the tofu that i've seen that online.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I think yeah so if you freeze tofu and then you thaw it and then you press it it actually makes it even more meaty okay so if you're wanting even more meaty tofu try maybe try freezing it and you can also do this with silken tofu and the silken tofu is actually more interesting to me because we did this and it creates like um kind of like like individual layers which is kind of interesting yeah
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It did look kind of interesting. I remember seeing that.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So basically, when you freeze silken tofu, it kind of like crystallizes all the water. And then when it thaws out, all the water kind of comes out of it where you can't normally press silken tofu. Yeah. But you can after you freeze and thaw it. So then you press it and then maybe you freeze and thaw it again and press it again. But it like takes all the water out and you end up with like these really interesting like layers. Yeah. And it's very meaty and you can kind of make like chicken nuggets or something out of it. It's all, like...
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Very involved.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's very involved. There's extra time involved. So, like, I think unless you're really going for a certain texture, maybe...
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Don't mess with freezing it, because you can get a good meaty texture without freezing it. But it is an option.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's good to know. We got an advanced technique tip there.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, so that was all mostly for the super firm and the extra firm tofu. But there's also something just called firm tofu, right?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Which is a little less firm than extra firm or super firm. That makes sense. Yeah, so typically firm tofu is around 40% protein as well. All of this is on a calorie basis.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Right. This one is also packed in water. So if you're going to slice it up and stuff like that, you still need a tofu press. But if you're going to food processor it, you can just squeeze the water out with like a cheesecloth, right?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, which is usually what we do because we forget to press stuff. But if I'm going to chuck it in a food processor anyways, yeah, I'll just like either get a cheesecloth and look really, it's a weird thing. You look kind of weird pressing it with a cheesecloth, in my opinion. Yeah. But we also have this, like, metal mesh strainer thing. Oh, yeah. That has really, really tiny holes. I don't even know where I got it or what it's for.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's for noodles and stuff, I think.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Is it? But, like, the holes are so tiny.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, I don't know.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Either way, sometimes I'll just, like, smush all the tofu on the sides of it and it, like, presses the water out for you.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Basically, you're food processing it before you put it in the food processor. Yeah. But it's a good option if you're not planning on, like, you know, cutting it into specific style shapes.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. I think that's probably, the firm is probably the one we use the least often.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because, like, if I'm going to be doing any of the shapes we talked about, I'm going to be using extra or super firm. I'm not really going to be messing with firm.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Usually I use firm if I'm going to be making, like, cream cheese or, like, dips.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Because it's, I don't know, the texture is just a little bit looser than like extra firm and super firm, even after pressing it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Makes sense. And the next type we have here is pretty significantly different than those, and it is silken tofu.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So it's made really similar to the other types of tofu, except the milk is not, the soy milk is not coagulated when it's made. So it leaves it with like a silky and smooth texture, which is why it's called silken tofu.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Doesn't have curds.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So there's two types you can get of silken tofu. There's a refrigerated type, which you can usually find if your grocery store sells it, it's going to be like hanging out with the other tofus in the refrigerated area. But there's also a shelf stable variety. And if your grocery store sells that, at least if you're in the U.S., that's probably going to be chilling out in the international cuisine section. Yeah. Like maybe over by like the Asian vegetables is where we typically find it, like the Asian canned vegetables.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Um, but since it's shelf stable, you can also buy it online and you can even buy it in a 12 pack, which is what we actually do because our store is like not great at staying in stock.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. For the silk and earth, for the shelf stable one.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's not that great.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:But we get the Mori New on Amazon, I think, right?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Yeah. Mori New used to sell it directly from their site, but they stopped doing that like a year or two ago. So we have to buy it on Amazon, but I think there are a lot of other, uh, online retailers that also sell it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:There are a couple of different firmness levels of silken tofu, which you maybe don't know about, because I get this a lot. They're like, how can it be extra firm and also silken tofu?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It is a little confusing.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It is confusing, but it does exist, and I'm not wrong. I get actually told I'm wrong more than I get, like, a question of, like, what does this mean? They're just like, you're an idiot.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:This isn't a thing.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That seems to be, like, how people ask questions now on the Internet. I know. They're like, you're wrong and you're stupid and blah, blah, blah. and then you could just like answer it like that was a question i.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Guess it's very aggressive i don't know why people are acting like this it is weird right yeah like it went from like a question to like you're a fucking idiot let me tell you what's actually true and then i have to be like hey man this exists you want me to show you a picture also google's free you could just google it and you would know yeah uh but anyway it does come in different firmness levels like some of the most common are extra firm firm light firm and soft um we typically will use extra firm because the macros are like a little bit better and this seems to be the one our grocery store socks so i don't know what everyone else's stores stock but we have like i don't know somewhere between five and ten grocery stores near us that stock this and they all stock extra firm silk and tofu so that's just the one we started buying and that's what i use yeah
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, you can't really press silken tofu because it's pretty soft. It would just kind of squish into nothing. But if you, like you said earlier, if you do freeze it, then you could press it.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Silken is mostly used, at least by us, in recipes by blending. So we have a couple of different things that we like to put this in to add protein.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So the first one is sauces. It works really good in creamy sauces like an alfredo or a cheese sauce or a mac and cheese sauce or a base for a gravy. You could also add it into soups or make creamy soups out of it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:A lot of stuff you can do there.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. A lot of the sauces and dips and stuff, it's really good.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Condiments. You can also make high protein condiments. Yeah. Like mayo, sour cream. You can make your own salad dressings, like creamy salad dressings. Yeah. You're obviously not going to make Italian salad dressing out of, or could you? probably not and
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Caveat here since this is tofu based but you're making a mayonnaise or a salad dressing make it when you're about to use it because yeah this can't like sit in the fridge for a month like your normal.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Off-the-shelf stuff yeah that's actually a really good point so if you're blending silken tofu you have about a three-day shelf life on that before it goes bad because silken this is with all tofu like you're really only going to get maybe three to five days in the fridge yeah before you probably should stop eating that yeah um so when we do the condiments It's usually only if we're going to be making a dish that uses those and we don't want 100 grams of fat from using vegan mayonnaise. Right. Right?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Also, something we really use silken in a lot is smoothies. Yep. So, it's like make a protein smoothie, just dump a box of silken tofu in there, blend in some fruits and stuff, and you're off to the races.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It adds thickness and creaminess. You kind of use it in the way you would Greek yogurt. Yeah, exactly. So, you could also just use it how you would use Greek yogurt for the most part.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:In pretty much anything. Yeah. Um, and then, uh, the last thing, and then another thing is, like, desserts.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, yeah. It is great for desserts, and that's probably, I think, what I see most people using it in.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Um, but, like, it's good for puddings and mousses, but also, like, you can make a really hella good cheesecake out of it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:The cheesecakes from this are so good. It's insane.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Actually, my hot take is don't use normal vegan cream cheese for a cheesecake, and don't use blended cashews. use silken tofu yeah like if you want a nice creamy vegan cheesecake just use silken tofu and
Muscle Deficient Vegan:A bonus that makes it have a lot of protein yeah but it also yeah just it just uh really tastes a lot better.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So you can also make like um like creamy like silky pies with it yeah a really really easy thing you can do is just blend up silken tofu add in melted chocolate chips and that's a really good like creamy pie base yeah or also like i guess you could just eat that as a moves too yeah um the the last thing i'll say about silicon tofu is you can also use it as like an egg replacement oh yeah so you can use that in baking or like what i whatever else you're going to use an egg in mostly baking i guess yeah
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then there are also if you have a if you're like oh all this tofu stuff sounds really cool but i have a soy allergy yeah there are a couple of non-soy tofus now.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yes. The most popular I've seen is fava bean tofu, which is like over 90% tofu, which is over 90% protein, which is like wild.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Also kind of hard to find.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. We haven't been able to find it yet, but I hear good things.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:There's also a chickpea tofu and a pumpkin seed tofu that we have been able to find. The macros aren't nearly as good and they're pretty expensive, so... I think, like, unless you have a soy allergy, I probably wouldn't be looking at those as good options, in my opinion, unless you're making, like, a homemade version that's cheaper. Yeah. Or maybe you have an endless budget and you don't care about the cost.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Right. And we've also seen some people making their own tofu out of lentils and other stuff.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Apparently, you can make tofu out of nearly anything with a good coagulant.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then, so, tofu is, you know, made out of soybeans and there is kind of a stigma around soy sometimes. So you might be wondering, like, how much tofu can I eat? Can I eat tofu all the time? So some people try to limit soy. There's not really a lot of basis for that. Like, there was one case, I think a study a long time ago, and then the title of the study was actually an unusual case. That's what it was called. And there was, like, one guy who ate or had, I think he was drinking a bunch of soy milk, and he had some, like, estrogen changes and stuff like that. He stopped drinking soy milk and it went away. but basically like every time they've ever tried to reproduce that it doesn't pop up again so it's just like all this stigma that circulates around this one case of this one guy who might have had some like genetic you know yeah disposition kind of thing so that's kind of led to people saying like okay you can eat soy but maybe don't eat too much soy and things like that uh so one thing to know is that like people in other cultures eat soy on a really regular basis especially in you know asian cultures where tofu originated i mean soy is a big part of the diet over there it's usually small portions and it's not like you're eating a big chunk of tofu or anything but they're eating soy you know all the time all the time yeah so i think even even if you do follow kind of the the quote-unquote limits that are in some of the stuff from the studies it's more tofu than you would ever actually eat i think that's.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Almost like three or five entire blocks of tofu or something is like when you start hitting a limit which like
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Wow. Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:You have more calories than I've got.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And even that limit is like, there's not really a basis for it. They just say like, okay, so the thing is like soy has something called isoflavones and it has phytoestrogens and it's like a weaker version of estrogen you have in your body, basically. So kind of the theoretical basis is if you had too much phytoestrogen, it might impact your actual estrogen levels. But, you know, they've done a lot of studies on this and that just doesn't really happen in the body in reality. So, as far as I'm concerned, I don't limit soy at all, and I don't see any problems, and I don't really see any reason to limit soy based on everything I've read about it. Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Enjoy your soy.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Right. But, you know, some people tend to think that. But I wouldn't worry about it, personally.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And I guess if you're really worried about it, like, go do some lab work before and after. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Like, this is, like, a really big concern of yours, but you don't have a soy allergy.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. You can check your estrogen levels.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's a blood test, so. Yeah. Also, estrogen, by the way, is not necessarily a bad thing. Estrogen is, you know, protective of the heart, even in higher levels, even in men. So even if you do get higher estrogen levels from anything, it's not really an issue until they're like extremely high and causing other side effects and stuff. But just in general, there's not really a reason to be concerned about that.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. If you eat a block of tofu a day, you're not going to magically get double Ds.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's going to do nothing to you. I guess it's not going to noticeably, even in a blood test, a block of tofu a day wouldn't noticeably even impact your estrogen levels at all. So, yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. If tofu really gave people boobs, there would be less plastic surgery.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yes. Exactly.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Because tofu is definitely cheaper than plastic surgery.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Also a lot less hormone replacement therapy. Oh, yeah. There are people out here taking medical estrogen. Right. They could just eat soy, right?
Protein Deficient Vegan:If that was a thing. Right. Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, lots of reasons that doesn't really make sense.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So, like, we kind of threw in a myth in our section, but, like— A mini-myth. Yeah, a mini-myth.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:But anyway, yeah. There are some other forms of soy that are great, since soy is really the basis, like, the complete protein. Tofu is just one version of soy.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, so, like, if you hate tofu in all the forms—and you've already tried it in all the ways we've already mentioned, there's some other options. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Some of those are edamame and dry-roasted edamame. So edamame is like typically kind of, you cook it a little bit and you eat it, but you can also eat it in a dry roasted whole bean form. And then there are edamame puffs.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yes, those are great.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And again, edamame is just a young soybean, not a mature soybean. Right. So it's all still soybeans.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Edamame puffs, we use those a lot in like Rice Krispie Treats. Yeah. And like homemade protein bars, but it's basically, you'd use kind of similar to puffed rice, but it's like 80% protein. Right. It's basically like a soy protein isolate plus a little bit of rice starch and now it's puffs of little balls.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And then there is TVP, textured vegetable protein. Um, we use that for all kinds of stuff. Yeah. We talked about it a lot before.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Savory and baked goods.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Uh, soy curls.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Soy curls is a good one. Yeah. About 40% protein and it has a shit ton of fiber.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Very easy to use.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Um, also TVP chunks. Yeah. So normally TVP is in like granule form. Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Kind of like minced.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So these are kind of bigger. Uh, and then there's also a brand called Say Grace and they make a unique product. So you just kind of have to call it Say Grace. which.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Gets us into so much trouble because if i even mention it i'm being told i'm making an ad for say grace which i'm absolutely not
Muscle Deficient Vegan:We're not chilling it's just a unique product and that they didn't give it a different name it's not.
Protein Deficient Vegan:My fault they didn't name it okay
Muscle Deficient Vegan:But it is great we do eat it we do.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Eat it we do buy it
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So it's basically concentrated soy so it's very high in protein it's like 90 protein but also if you're worried about the soy issues and kind of the stigma we were talking about. SayGrace specifically mentions on their website that they put their product through a process that removes all the isoflavones. So you might be thinking, oh God, concentrated soy, what's that going to do to my estrogen? Well, they decided to just avoid that issue entirely by taking the isoflavones out of the product. So it's a very high protein, soy-based product that literally doesn't have the thing that people are even theoretically concerned about in it.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And it comes a lot of different shapes and sizes. You use it kind of similar to soy curls. So basically you soak it and then add spices and cook it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And then there's also soy milk, which, you know.
Protein Deficient Vegan:35 to 40% protein.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, surprisingly.
Protein Deficient Vegan:The best of the plant-based milks as far as protein.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Makes every cereal high protein, right?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, totally.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Then soy flour and then soy protein powder.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So soy flour is like, I use it in some baking. I've used it for pizza crust and stuff. It's usually like, I think, 50 to 60% protein. But then you have soy protein powder, which is normally like the 80 to 90 percent range. Very concentrated.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And then tempeh is like a fermented soy that a lot of people really like.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, especially like the whole food plant-based crowd because they say it's a little less processed.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then if you don't want to try to make your own recipes, but we've convinced you to maybe try tofu. Usually your best bet are like Asian restaurants. Yeah. Mainly because, like we said, they've been using it for thousands of years.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Don't go to white people restaurants if you want to try tofu for the first time. that's just true man yeah like unless they have a lot of dishes around tofu like if it's a vegan restaurant you're probably safe but if this is just like a random white person owned omnivore restaurant and they're like yeah you could sub in tofu for this thing don't don't do that to yourself it's probably no offense it's probably not going to be good yeah you know that's just my A lot of restaurants, especially if they're not vegan or, like, they don't really care about the vegan option. They're just trying to, like, throw you a bone. Yeah. They're not, like, treating it special.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:They're just kind of, like, chucking it on your plate. Right.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's almost like, oh, I have to give tofu as an option, whatever.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Exactly. Like, they keep messaging me, so I guess I'll put tofu as an option. Yeah. But, like, a noodle bowl place, that's going to impress you.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, noodle bowl. Thai usually has tofu as an option.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, Thai, their tofu's always good.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:You can get a vegan pad thai with some tofu on top. Yep. Awesome. So good. Indian places will have tofu a lot of the time. Not always, but a lot of the time.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Indian tends to favor more vegetarian food. Yeah. But there are a lot of Indian places that you can get some vegan dishes and you can add tofu.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And then I would say maybe avoid the frozen dinners from the store that have tofu. Yeah. They're usually not very good.
Protein Deficient Vegan:No, don't do that.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Definitely not if you're like, okay, I'm going to try tofu again. Please don't go use this.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yes. If you're trying to make yourself fall in love with tofu, but you don't want to cook, just don't do that. Yeah. Go to a vegan restaurant.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Like, if none of these sound interesting to you, try to find a vegan restaurant near you.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Look on Happy Cow.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Check it out. Although, honestly, like most vegan restaurants we've been to don't even have tofu on the menu, which is awesome.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:No, a lot of them use like seitan or maybe TVP. A lot of them use seitan these days, actually. So, yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:But yeah, Asian places, that's where it's at, in my opinion.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Yeah, you make a good point. I've actually noticed a lot more of the hybrid restaurants use tofu than actually fully vegan restaurants.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, it's kind of weird.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So some of our personal favorite tofu dishes, and these are actually going to be recipes from the Protein Deficient Vegan website that you can try to make at home. Mine are any of the cheesecakes. They're all really good and they're kind of interchangeable depending on what kind of flavors you like.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, and those use silken tofu.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Right. You have a high protein lasagna made with tofu that's really good. Yeah. And then my other favorite is the shredded barbecue sandwich that we were kind of talking about earlier. Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And that one kind of uses both because it's like shredded extra firm or super firm tofu.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:But then it has coleslaw made with silken tofu.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh, the coleslaw is amazing.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And I'm picky. It's a twofer. I'm really picky about coleslaw, but that coleslaw is really good. Yeah. Coleslaw is so weird because it's like, sorry, this is a tangent, but coleslaw, for whatever reason, it's like you order coleslaw at a place and there's like a 50% chance it's going to be the type of coleslaw you like. Yeah. There's so much variety for something that's like three ingredients.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And a lot of times it's really flavorless.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Which is always a bummer.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Right. And then is it going to be like wet coleslaw or are you just going to bring me like the purple cabbage in a bowl and call that coleslaw? There's a whole thing.
Protein Deficient Vegan:There was one place we went to where it was just like there wasn't a creamy sauce to it at all. Exactly. It was like a vegan coleslaw, but it was like just straight up vinegar on cabbage.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:A little cabbage salad with vinegar.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I'm like, don't call it coleslaw.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I want to see every menu that offers coleslaw should have a picture of how do you make your coleslaw.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I agree. We need picture.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:There have been way too many times I've ordered it and I'm just like, I'm not eating that.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Dude, I remember I worked at a fast food restaurant in high school and I remember them making coleslaw on the back. And there's like this big ass, this massive tub. It had to be like a two-gallon tub of coleslaw dressing, and they just get this big bowl, and they just toss in like five pounds of shredded cabbage, and then they just like mush it around with their gloved hands. And that's just like a memory I have. I didn't get to do that. They wouldn't let girls work in the back because of knives. Okay. I don't know. It felt a little sexist. Yeah. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So this reminds me okay i think we mentioned i'm just gonna another tangent uh one time okay i think we mentioned before on the podcast that i sold knives for a very.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Short time so anyway did they allow females to sell knives
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Sure they did okay that's not but there was one person i went to it was like a friend of a friend of a friend it wasn't anybody in my family or anything but it was an older lady and i went to give her this whole knife presentation and she sat there very politely through the entire thing and then at the end i was trying to like close the sale or whatever and she said oh no they won't let me have sharp things oh my.
Protein Deficient Vegan:God maybe i was on a don't give this girl sharp things list and i didn't know
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Maybe they.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Were like yeah no girls can't work in the back but it was just me
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah oh shit yeah so yeah i think it might be a whole thing you know that's interesting.
Protein Deficient Vegan:How do you get on a list how do you know you're not allowed to have sharp things
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I'm not sure. We should have asked her. I was just a little.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I would have had to ask questions. Like, do you have a doctor's note that says this? Like, how do you know?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, it seemed like it wasn't a lot of that. It seemed like prying, you know?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, I don't know. I'm kind of nosy.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:My guess is because she maybe couldn't hold on to it and drop it. Oh, okay. That'd be my guess. I don't know.
Protein Deficient Vegan:She didn't stab things. She just didn't have good grip strength.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I didn't stick around long enough to find out.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I think when someone says that, you don't stick around long enough. Like, you can't have sharp things. That feels like a warning. It's like when you see a snake with a rattler, like, I'm going to bounce. Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I mean, it's a good way to get somebody trying to sell you something out of your house. I'll say that.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, I can't have sharp things. And then you got to stare.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:While all the knives are on the table.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, fuck. well i'm glad you're alive that would have been really sad if you got stabbed to death by my own knives yeah oh that would have been a story and
Muscle Deficient Vegan:They would have worked too they were good.
Protein Deficient Vegan:They can rip through freaking tomatoes and paper yeah i know yeah all
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Right well what are your favorite tofu.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Wow i heard to follow that up um i'm gonna have to go with and this isn't high protein but like the silken tofu pie that i always bring to gatherings dude that one's so good that That one's just like blended silken tofu with melted chocolate chips, and it sets up really nice. And then I put like a peanut butter drizzle on top, and it's super, super good.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Definitely not high protein.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's not diet friendly at all. No, that's like holiday. Yeah. Everyone likes it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's like a birthday pie.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's super good.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Mm-hmm.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And it's really easy. It takes like 10 minutes to make.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:My next one is going to be the Philly cheesesteak, which was like finely sliced tofu.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:In a marinade, I think that one's really good.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I agree.
Protein Deficient Vegan:And then I'm going to have to go with the spinach and artichoke dip because I've always liked spinach and artichoke dip. Anything I can put tortilla chips in.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that's always one of my favorites too. So it's cool to have a vegan version. Yeah. So, yeah, that's pretty much it for tofu. We do want to hear, though, if you guys have any tofu tips or ways that you like to use tofu that we didn't talk about. I'm sure there are many, many ways to do it that we haven't done. So please share that with us, comment or reach out or something.
Protein Deficient Vegan:We like to learn.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. So now let's move into our myth of the week. The myth of the week this week is that you can be in a calorie deficit and not lose weight.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Didn't you get in a fight on threads about this?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It wasn't really a fight. It was just a discussion.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, okay.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Nobody, nobody, there's no winners. Not heated? No winners or losers.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Did you win?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:No, I don't think so, actually. That's a, did I win? What does that mean? So winning would be like, they agree with me.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, you're never going to win on threads.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, I know.
Protein Deficient Vegan:No one wins on threads.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:That's what I consider a win.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Nobody wins on threads.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Just know that if you're ever, ever, ever responding to like some anti-vegan shit on threads, they're never going to let you win. Yeah. They actually just want engagement.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And this one isn't really vegan specific. Sure. It still falls in the same, in fitness and nutrition.
Protein Deficient Vegan:A lot of it's very much click-baity. Like, I'm going to say this outrageous thing to see how many people will engage with my comment.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. My goal is just to leave a little education in the replies, even if they don't end up agreeing.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Like, in case someone clicks on it and wants to see that debunked, right? Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So, anyway, for a calorie deficit, the gist of it is basically you're not in a calorie deficit just because you're eating the number of calories that a calculator told you is a calorie deficit.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Like a calorie deficit means that you're eating fewer calories than you are expending in a day, if we're talking about a daily deficit. So the reason you might think you're in a deficit and you're not losing weight, the most common reason by far is inaccurate tracking, whether that's intentional or unintentional. Like there are a lot of behavioral things where you feel like your calories are really restricted. So you'll like sneak snacks and not track them and things like that. So you kind of trick yourself into tracking different things. and then there's also just like maybe there i've seen a lot of things like people don't track condiments so they'll have like mayonnaise and they don't track it they don't understand problem or they have like they don't track oil or they don't weigh stuff yeah they don't weigh things another big one because you trust the um like the scoops and the tablespoons and all that stuff they.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Lie to you especially with powders
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah so tracking is a huge issue and that's almost always the reason that like the number that should be a deficit for you isn't causing you to lose weight but it's really important to understand that like you shouldn't be attached to the number like you know whether you're not you're in a deficit based on if you're losing weight yeah it's not really based on the number you could.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Also have something happening with your metabolism like yeah um i've had thyroid issues for like the last uh many years basically my thyroid levels went high and then my thyroid had to be uh obliterated i don't know what the hell they call it ablated obliterated it's way more fun to say but i had to take like uh an iodine radiation pill or whatever and it like destroyed my thyroid so anyways now i don't have a thyroid and i'm on thyroid medication but like sometimes it'll get low and it's like oh why am i gaining weight all of a sudden even though i'm tracking and i'm doing everything right yeah
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And that's a great example of a situation where a tdee calculator is probably not going to give you an accurate number.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Right so i think that's like a good point though like if you are tracking everything yeah and you have like come down on your calories to a point where you're like man this doesn't really make sense for like my height and weight and like what's going on this looks like an anomaly right maybe go do some blood work
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh for sure and there are definitely a lot of reasons why like your expected um calorie expenditure would be way off from your real calorie expenditure there's like there's hormones there's something like an actual medical condition like that. There is something with like, if you've been in a deficit for a while, your stress increases, which increases cortisol, which causes you to retain more water. So even while you're losing body fat, you're kind of retaining more water and it's kind of hiding the fact that you're losing that body fat. So sometimes people will like temporarily increase their calories. They call it like a diet break or a refeed or something like that. And they'll think like increasing the calories caused them to lose more weight. It doesn't really work like that. What does happen there in some cases is like you increase your calories so your body stops kind of freaking out and it lowers your cortisol level and then suddenly you lose a bunch of that water weight.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Oh, that's interesting.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:And they call that the whoosh effect because all the water kind of whooshes out.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. I've seen that happen with like changing my macros too.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. And if you change your carbs, that can happen quite a bit because carbohydrates retain water, but like that's how they work. Um, so that's why I like people go on a low carb diet and then they suddenly lose 10 pounds.
Protein Deficient Vegan:But then when they add carbs back,
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's back. Exactly. So there are a lot of little things like that, but.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Or like your period can like really change your, your weight measurements for even a week or two at a time.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Water retention on a period is another huge one. Yeah. Um, another thing that can kind of happen that also I think confuses people is if you go into a deficit, um, your body will kind of turn down some of your, they call them neat non-exercise activity basically um so stuff like fidgeting or just like how often you kind of get up and move from room to room naturally you don't think about it like your body will kind of make you do less of those things because it.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Thinks you're dying
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Sort of yeah to try to preserve energy yeah basically but that i mean that's really just causing you to expend less calories so there are some cases where you can slightly increase calories and you'll kind of feel more energized and maybe you like start going to do your workouts more you're like walking around more and things like that. So it's not really that like increasing your calories fixed your deficit. It's just increasing your calories gave you a little more energy and then therefore you were able to go burn more calories.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, like took you out of your hibernation stage.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Sort of, yeah. But those are usually like an edge case and that's not going to be like, I saw something online. It was like, I was in a deficit for a long time. This wasn't a conversation I was a part of. I just saw, I was in a deficit for a long time and then I like suddenly, somebody told me to try to eat 1,000 more calories a day, and I did that, and then I started losing weight. That's probably a little bit of a exaggeration because eating 1,000 calories a day, unless that caused you to burn more than 1,000 calories extra in a day, that's not really going to be beneficial in the long run because it is still, it's called an energy balance, basically. So the calories you take in versus the calories that you expend. And you also see that as calories in, calories out. So there are a lot of things that will affect the calories outside of that, like the hormones, the medical conditions, all that stuff. But at the end of the day, the math still has to work out where to lose weight, you have to eat fewer calories than you expend.
Protein Deficient Vegan:The math has to math.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Right. So, yeah, I mean, basically, you can't be in a calorie deficit and not lose weight. But there are a lot of things that will kind of make you think you should be in a calorie deficit when you're really not. Yeah. But, you know, the conversation I was in was basically like, I've been in a calorie deficit for two years and I haven't lost any weight. And it's like, well, no, I mean, you're not. It's just for whatever reason, you've been at your calorie maintenance for two years. So you're either going to have to increase activity or you're going to have to lower the calorie intake. Like there's not really, other than those edge cases, it's probably, and because that person was at maintenance and not really in a deficit for that, it's like, there's not really a situation where you're going to increase your calories and you're going to start losing weight for most people. So, yeah. So that's basically the myth. Like if you're not losing weight, you're just not in a calorie deficit. But there are a lot of reasons why you might not be in that deficit. Right. If you do want to see your actual expenditure, I would recommend tracking your food with an app called Macrofactor. Because that will basically take your weigh-ins every day, kind of average those out, assuming you weigh in every day. It'll take them however often you do it. It's best if you do it every day. And then you track your food intake in there, the same as like MyFitnessPal or Chronometer or something like that. and then it tells you your actual expenditure because that's the only two data points you need to know to actually know your daily calorie expenditure is how much did I eat, like if you're tracking accurately and everything, and then. How much did my weight change over time on average, and that is like your actual, you don't even need a TDE calculator if you've already been tracking your food and you've tracking your weight for like more than two weeks you know everything the calculator is going to tell you and you know it a lot more accurately. As long as you know how to do the calculation or you use an app like Macrofactor, All right, so that's pretty much it for the myth.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Debunked.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, so what are the updates on protein-deficient vegan land this week?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Man, well, we've had some personal stuff going on, so we've been a little depressed over here lately, and I haven't been very productive this week. But I did finally post about the bean bowl.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh, the famous vaunted bean bowl that you definitely hated on for a long time. No, no, no. And now is your favorite food of all time.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's not your bean bowl. It's my bean bowl. Your bean bowl is the beans in a bowl.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Are there beans in this bowl?
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah, but there's other stuff. There's other stuff.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I don't need to hear the details. Okay.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Okay. You can put your bean bowl on the website if you want. Okay.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Tell me about the bean bowl.
Protein Deficient Vegan:But it's going to have to have your name by it.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:We'll see. Okay. We should do a vote about who. No, we shouldn't do this. No, no. I was going to say vote for which bean bowl is better, but that doesn't make sense because yours is just better.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So yours
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Has more stuff and it's better.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I had a few people comment on because i made an instagram reel about it yeah well and a reel on other places but i had a couple people on instagram be like oh this is the bowl because i'm like oh shit i think i'm really talking about this a lot yeah
Muscle Deficient Vegan:You are really hating on me a lot.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I think i've been talking about this stupid bowl a lot
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Anyway you've come around.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's not your bowl it's beans
Muscle Deficient Vegan:In a bowl jesus all right uh.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Anyways so that's there and i'll probably i guess i'm gonna put it as a recipe on the website you know i feel like it's not really a recipe but i think i'm gonna put it on there anyway because like a lot of people were like oh i like that it's really really easy and i can just go like go make this right now which i realized there's not very many of my recipes where you can just like yeah go to your kitchen and make a thing. This doesn't feel like a recipe, but I don't know. Is it a recipe?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:It's just a simple recipe.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Tell me if it's a recipe, guys. It feels like it should be a recipe. There are numbers next to the ingredients, so... I don't know. I think I'm going to do it. But I am going to take a different picture because I had a couple people say that, like, the bowl I used was, like, this really pretty black bowl. But the inside has, like, a pattern, like a greenish blue and yellow. And somebody was, like, I thought this was mold. And you've been only eating the same bowl of beans for a month. And I was, like, oh. Now I will only be filming with black bowls now. So good to know.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:They probably, like, formed a whole idea of your life.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Yeah, I am a disgusting, gross person who eats moldy beans. I'm not.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Out of the same bowl.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Over and over. Oh, man. We do dishes here.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:So, yeah, I guess I'll be using my boring-ass black bowls from now on. What about you? You got any updates?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. The clients from the Veganuary training contest are going into their second block of four-week training. So, some people changing it up quite a bit. Some people kind of just doing the same thing because they're making good progress.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Are they all killing it, though?
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Oh, yeah. They're all doing a great job. And they're all still, as far as I know, they're all still having fun. I have a weekly survey, and part of that is, are you still having fun? And they all say yes, so.
Protein Deficient Vegan:They're lying to you because they think you're going to make them do horrible things if they answer wrong.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Well, it does say, I'm going to reach out to you if you say no.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Nobody wants to talk to you.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:I know. That's how I get them to say yes. Satisfaction guaranteed.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I'm going to tell a marketer your ass if you say no.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:So, yeah, that's most of what I've got going on.
Protein Deficient Vegan:Are you having a good time? Yes.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:All right, guys. Well, thanks for sticking around with us. If you look down in the show notes, you see a link, first of all, to the Discord. We're getting a couple more people in there. Still pretty busy. They were up to 50.
Protein Deficient Vegan:It's a fun place to be.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah. Lots of sharing. Got a couple different channels about, like, accountability and recipes and nutrition and fitness and a little bit of conversation in each of them every day, it seems like. Yeah.
Protein Deficient Vegan:I think we got a lot of really good people. Yeah. I like everyone in there a lot.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Me too. Yeah. So you can join that. And then also, if you could rate and review our podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And then if you're on Spotify or YouTube, you can also leave comments on the podcast. We love hearing from you guys. And then also on the show notes are our websites, proteindeficientvegan.com for the recipes, muscledeficientvegan.com for like fitness stuff. And then our social medias. You want to follow us there, send us a message, reach out.
Protein Deficient Vegan:See my moldy cheese beanpole.
Muscle Deficient Vegan:Yeah, that's enticing right there. yeah uh we hope to hear from you guys and hope you enjoyed the podcast so i think that's it you want to say bye bye guys bye everybody.
