Before You Make That Tuna Loaf...

You might want to check your cupboards for any canned tuna you have on hand. Does it say 'in water'? Do you think it's actually in water?

The labels! They lie!

Sort of. Chances are there actually is water in that can. It may even be listed right after tuna on the ingredients label. But right after that is going to be something else, something I wasn't expecting.

Vegetable broth. Yes, that's right, vegetable broth. What the heck is vegetable broth doing in a can of tuna? The vegetable in question is almost certainly soy considering that the label also read, "contains: fish (tuna), soy"

The fish part is something of a duh. The soy part was a great deal more surprising.

So I checked and discovered that every can from every brand of tuna had the same thing. Vegetable broth listed as an ingredient and that little warning that the can contained soy. All, that is, except for one. StarKist Gourmet Choice. There might be other brands out there that are soy free, but that's the only one available in the local grocery.

Just want to mention here that I am in no way affiliated with the StarKist company nor any parent company or child company associated therewith. I just happen to buy canned tuna from time to time and have a mom who's allergic to soy.

Now, I'm apparently not the only one who noticed. I'd actually be a little worried if I were. After a search for the terms 'canned tuna contains soy' I got a lot of blog posts on this very subject. I does bear repeating, though, as I didn't run into any that specified any particular brands that have remained soyless. Maybe they're worried that any brand mentioned might start following the trend of adding soy broth to the tuna. Be that as it may, I did want to mention that I was able to find a source of soyless canned tuna. How long it will stay that way is something we shall all have to wait and see.

Tofu, the plant equivalent to meat?

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.