Where has all the Soy Milk gone? When will it ever return?
You must have noticed how every so often some imported grocery staple simply disappears off the shelves of the stores where foreigners shop in Bali. Most often it’s booze. Not so long ago all the wine imported to Bali got swept from the shelves. On one famous occasion, a few years back, it was beer, including the local Bintang. When it comes to alcohol, we sorta figure it must be some kind of Indonesian combo ‘sin & lux’ tax, compounded by the vagaries of duty and importation licensing and tax regulation, plus a dash of good old-fashioned profiteering by someone somewhere.
Right now it’s imported soy and rice milk. Last I checked, there wasn’t a litre pack of soy milk to be had on the island. Completely vanished it was. I checked the usual outlets in an ever widening gyre from my homepatch in Sanur, from Hardy’s, and The Pantry, to Dijon and Carrefour, onto Tiara and Hero’s, then Bali Deli and Gourmet Garage. Notta sniff! And no one had an earthly, why? I couldn’t even find those sickly sweet little cans of the stuff manufactured by Singapore-based Chinese food conglomerates with none of the health pretensions and marketing smarts of the Australian and US brands, I’m sometimes reduced to purchasing from K Marts in other times of drought.
Quite apart from disappearance of a staple tipple in our household I had always been puzzled by the bizarre pricing of these products. Mostly imported from Australia under two or three labels the price for a litre pack could vary anything from Rp17,000 to Rp45,000. Before the current Great Soy Drought prices had of course been escalating with food prices generally and they now vary anything between Rp26,000 to Rp55,000 for essentially the same product.
Seeking enlightenment I turned to Bali’s Great Grocery Guru, Purveyor of Fine Foods to the Gentry, Lord of Supply Chain Logistics and all round nice guy, in the person of Bill Busch of Lotus Distribution. “What”, I asked him who knows all, “is going on?”. Now I suspect soy milk is not exactly top of Bill’s menu or radar and the Great Soy Drought was news to him. After some thought he felt the cause had to lie in the import registration system whereby every single item imported into the country has to be approved and registered. Of course this was a slow process and the main food importers in Jakarta just got on with business registering products progressively as they went along. Failing which there would be far fewer foreign products on sale in Indonesia than there obviously are. But the law is the law, even if it is an ass at times, and every so often, for reasons one can only guess, a product category comes under compliance scrutiny. When that happens, the hapless product is yanked off the market until things get sorted, as they eventually always do.
Whence cometh our help….?
With no soy or rice milk in my morning bowl of porridge oats, a delicacy to which I’ve even habituated my French wife - who only pretends not to like it, I fell to musing on our island-wide predicament. Oh God! We’d probably end up having to make the stuff ourselves. At least then it‘d be genuinely fresh and organic. That pretty quickly moved onto: Why didn’t somebody else do it? Much better! Is there not a great economic opportunity here or, very least a worthy cottage industry of righteous endeavour? From the dim and distant past I dredged up visions of Krakatoa and Temuku. Did they not once sell freshly made soy milk in 1/3 pint pots? You had to use it quick as it went off after the second day of purchase and of course you had to go all the way to Seminyak to get it. But they must deliver! Just like the milkman of old. And why not, indeed? Nowadays we get our organic veggies delivered to us. Should be a small matter to add fresh soy and rice milk.
I shared my solution to our problem with my wife, who said she thought buckwheat pancakes might make a nice change, adding she had heard from her sanyassin friend that Bali Buddha in Canggu might have soy milk and that they may even make it fresh themselves. Canggu! That’s 10 miles and 20 traffic jams away. Do they deliver? My wife thought not.
So there it is, my hot tip for green SME’s, free of all fee and obligation so long as you deliver in Sanur.
Yes, But is it Good for You?
Having said all that, the old question of whether soy is good or bad for you re-surfaced. Actually the answer is it’s both. I’m not a vegetarian but I don’t eat meat. Unfortunately nice meaty steaks of fish are all so chokka with mercury you can’t push the boat out too far with a nice slab of swordfish, tuna or mahi mahi, or even fish-farmed salmon from a slimy tank abrim with hormones and antibiotics. That leaves many other delicious fish lower down the food chain, but they’re so bony and if there’s a fish bone going however filleted the fish, I get it. Still, mustn’t complain.
That leaves soy of one sort or another both as protein and as a substitute for cow’s milk. It means in our house we eat rather a lot of soy, from tempe, tofu, edemame, tamari to milk. Given the qualified health rap for soy, it occurs we might be getting too much of the stuff.
So Good.....!?
Soy is about the only plant-based complete protein, meaning that it contains all 20 of the amino acids we need to build bone and muscle as well as maintain body functions that are found in animal protein. It makes a great substitute for meat, loaded as meat is with cholesterol and saturated fats. Packed in every soy bean are estrogen-like molecules called isoflavones which help prevent heart disease, endometriosis, osteoporosis, breast, prostate and other cancers, plus other life-threatening conditions. Since 1999 the FDA has permitted food manufacturers to extol soy’s cholesterol-lowering properties on packaging. Soy is also an excellent source of phytochemicals, antioxidants and other healthy oils and nutrients. Wow! Bring it on!
‘Ang on a mo’, tho’. We’re also being told that soy may speed the ageing of brain cells. A survey in Hawaii in April 2000 showed that the brains of elderly people who ate tofu at least twice a week for 30 years aged faster than normal. Their brains functioned as if they were four years older than their actual age. It is highly allergic to some people and those estrogenic qualities may dampen thyroid function leading to hypothyroidism.
“People ought to know there ain’t no free lunch,” grumbles Dr. Lon White, senior neuroepidemiologist at the University of Hawaii, who conducted the research. “If these molecules are as potent as we think they are...., there will be potent (adverse) effects”.
And so.... what are we poor confused punters supposed to do? I’ll give you one guess. Yes, I’m afraid it’s called MODERATION. So if you’re a body with a healthy appetite who uses soy as a meat/protein substitute and enjoys filling in any spare time or empty corners with a smashing soy smoothie with nuts, fruit & all the trimmin’s, not only are you liable to put on weight but you might also be addling your brain and slowing your thyroid. If you’re a guy, you could grow breasts....
We don’t want that.... do we? So here are a few hints. Fermented soy has few if any of the negatives and all of the positives so miso and tempe are good (watch the tempe if you’re prone to gout, tho’). No need to give up your power smoothie, there’s nothing wrong with incorporating soy into a healthy diet including fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Just don’t eat soy for breakfast lunch and dinner. Mark Messina, author of ”The Simple Soybean & Your Health” recommends a daily serving of just 1 cup of soy milk or 3 to 4 ounces of tofu and the UCLA Hospital System says up to one serving per day should provide all the benefits without worry of any possible negative side effects. What’s a serving, I ask? Don’t sound like much of a meal does it?
Now if candidates for Bali’s Green Entrepreneur of the Month will kindly contact me about deliveries in Sanur.....
