Almost two years ago I had the pleasure of visiting a sushi parlor in Washington, DC. There I had, among other things, inarizushi. I loved it. Later I found that one of the primary ingredients is tofu. That's okay for me, since I'm fine with soy products, but it did mean I wouldn't be able to share that taste with certain members of my family.
Anyway, that was the first time I'd ever had tofu. The second time was yesterday, when I tried adding it to some stir fry. It was weird stuff but I was assured that it had just as much protein as meat and was a lot healthier. So why was I craving a steak afterward?
I decided to do some checking, after all, one can't simply take these claims of health value on word alone.
For complete transparency, I'm using figures from Nutrition Data for both samples.
Sample 1: 100 grams of MORI-NU Tofu, silken, firm
Sample 2: 100 grams of ground beef 70% lean meat/30% fat, patty cooked, pan-broiled
I'm using ground beef because that's the sort of meat I'm most often able to afford, besides liver.
A zero means that there may be some in there but the amount is too small. A tilde (this thing ~ ) means that the substance isn't in the sample at all.
Fat
Sample 1: 3g Sample 2: 16g
Cholesterol
Sample 1: 0mg Sample 2: 78mg
Sodium
Sample 1: 36mg Sample 2: 92mg
Carbs
Sample 1: 2g Sample 2: 0g
So far tofu seems to be winning, at least by contemporary standards of health. But what about protein and other nutrients?
Protein
Sample 1: 6.9g Sample 2: 22.9g
Vitamin K
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: 2.8mcg
Thiamin
Sample 1: .1mg Sample 2: 0mg
Riboflavin
Sample 1: 0mg Sample 2: .2mg
Niacin
Sample 1: .2mg Sample 2: 5mg
Vitamin B6
Sample 1: 0mg Sample 2: .3mg
Folate
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: 10mcg
Vitamin B12
Sample 1: 0mcg Sample 2: 2.4mcg
Pantothenic Acid
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: .6mg
Choline
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: 76.6mg
Betaine
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: 9.9mg
Calcium
Sample 1: 32mg Sample 2: 37mg
Iron
Sample 1: 1mg Sample 2: 2.4mg
Magnesium
Sample 1: 27mg Sample 2: 20mg
Phosphorus
Sample 1: 90mg Sample 2: 194mg
Potassium
Sample 1: 194mg Sample 2: 308mg
Zinc
Sample 1: .6mg Sample 2: 5.8mg
Copper
Sample 1: .2mg Sample 2: .1mg
Selenium
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: 19.2mcg
Fluoride
Sample 1: ~ Sample 2: 22.4mcg
In short, I think I'm going to be sticking to real burger.
No comments:
Post a Comment