News Brief: Soymilk has excellent proteins - Nutritionist

Rich in high-quality protein and low in cholesterol, soymilk is healthier than cow's milk and good for the whole family, nutritionist Liu Yi-li (劉怡里) told TW-News (full Chinees-language article here).

Protein is not just a key nutritional need for childhood growth, Liu said, but is a good source of energy for adults. Drunk at breakfast, its lecithin (卵磷脂) can help improve children's concentration at school and reduce their father's pressure at work, while its isoflavones (異黃酮) can help ease mothers going through menopause.

                                                       

                                                             Text and photos © Jiyue Publications 2011

News Brief: Starbucks "explains" why soymilk coffee also goes up in price

Following consumer complaints that the recent NT$10 price hike on coffee at Starbucks due to rising milk costs had also included soymilk coffee, the head of Starbucks marketing, Mr. Zhong (仲), said "What we provide is a more intimate service, allowing customers to pick and choose their own ingredients in accordance with their own requirements. As a consequence, in the holistic planning and consideration, we apply a holistic approach to formulate our conceptual basis." [or some such B.S.] (我們提供的是一種比較貼心的服務，讓顧客可以根據他自己本身的需要，來調整他所使用的原料。所以在整體的計算跟考量，我們是用整體的概念來做整個構思的基礎。) see full article here

                                                                                                                      Text and photos © Jiyue Publications 2011

Recipe: The BEST soymilk coffee (unless you know better) II

Following Shad's comment (here), NOMM bought some Oat Soya Milk (燕麥豆奶; NT$39, or less in supermarkets) manufactured by IMei (義美).

As she said, its lower soybean flavour does allow the coffee flavour through more intact.

Vegan and made from ingredients imported from Australia, it is available in both regular and sugar-free (無糖) versions.

                                                                                                                      Text and photos © Jiyue Publications 2011

Review: Hot Pot resaturant, Taipei

With this week's topic in mind, NOMM went in search of a cup of soymilk-creamed coffee. A quick Internet search brought up two possibilities: Starbucks and Loving Hut.

Starbucks, which like 7-Eleven is owned by Taiwan's largest food manufacturer and retailer Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業), deserves credit for offering a soymilk option at all branches. This is possibly the WORST CUP OF COFFEE IN THE WORLD, however, since the coffee's flavour is almost completely hidden by a nasty, sweet taste that is presumably the soymilk. Moreover, at NT$105 for a small cup is not cheap (though again, Starbucks deserves credit for its NT$10 discount to customers using their own cups).

Regular soymilk users say that Uni-President's brand is among the worst available, and since Starbucks uses the sweetened version, staff are incapable of complying with a request for a sugar-free drink.

Loving Hut, which has 28 restaurants in Taiwan out of 135 worldwide, offers a vegan cappuccino. Each branch has its own menu; NOMM visited the Guangfu store, which sells hot pots and stews, with sides of pancakes, skewers and kimchi, cakes for desserts and various beverages.


The soup of the hot pot (NT$199) was tasty enough--NOMM chose Southeast Asian pumpkin and coconut from the half-dozen available--and free top-ups were taken. The other ingredients included too many processed and fake-meat items, however, and more than half of the vegetables was simply cabbage.

The pancake (NT$50) flavoured with Chinese toon (Toona sinensis; 香椿), which is becoming increasingly popular both on and off the local vegetarian scene, was good. Another positive point for Western vegetarians is that Loving Hut offers garlic and onions, unlike most Buddhist and Yiguandao restaurants in Taiwan.
On the other hand, however, whereas most of the nation's vegetarian establishments play quiet music or chanting as the soundtrack to one's meal, LH restaurants have large flat-screen TVs continuously broadcasting programming from the Supreme Master Television station, which seems largely to be the ideology of the exotic bleach-blond Supreme Master Ching Hai. Her message of "save the planet - go vegan" is the ethos behind the brand.

The soymilk cappuccino (NT$70) was also more than adequate. A staff member explained that the more authentic flavour was due to the imported US creamer being a "bean milk" (豆奶) using mixed ingredients rather than a pure soybean milk. Although not officially for sale, she offered some to NOMM for NT$80 per 930ml bottle.
Many of the menu items are also available to take away for cooking at home, as are cups of coffee. This is good news for tired shoppers in Taipei's Zhongxiao E. Road district, since purchasing only a coffee for inside consumption is not possible due to LH's NT$120-minimum purchase for restaurant patrons.


Address: No.30, Lane 280, Guangfu S. Rd., Da-an District, Taipei City
Tel: (02) 2777 2711

                                                                                                                      Text and photos © Jiyue Publications 2011

Feature: Milk and coffee price hikes make soy option worth another glance

When switching from dairy creamers, many would-be vegans find that soymilk tends to dominate the sought-after pleasant taste of coffee, often citing it as one of the common hurdles encountered in trying to change lifestyles for ethical or health reasons.

Explanation of product price change: Due to a rise in the price of fresh milk, the price of drinks containing milk are being changed with immediate effect (Americano and Iced Coffee remain unchanged. ... City Cafe

        Perhaps this week’s 10-15 percent hikes to the prices of take-away coffee imposed by at least three of Taiwan’s largest convenience-store chains (and following a similar price rise at Starbucks) will encourage vegetarians and other consumers (as well as more coffee vendors to join Starbucks) to give the environmentally friendlier soymilk another chance. The price increase comes on top of last month’s rise of NT$1.9/litre set by the Council of Agriculture (COA) for milk bought from local farmers, which has raised retail prices to around NT$70/litre in supermarkets and almost NT$90/litre in convenience stores. This compares to prices of NT$20 to NT$40/litre for soymilk.

        While those whose vegetarianism is inspired by desire not to kill animals can maintain that drinking milk does not harm the producing cow (even though the male 50 percent of her necessary offspring as well as many of the females enter the food chain), this argument is not available to environmentally concerned vegetarians. A cow emits climate-changing methane with each exhalation whether it is being fed to make steak or to make milk.

(On the other hand, of course, imported soybeans, which essentially means all soybeans sold in Taiwan other than the immature, green “hairy bean” 毛豆 snack, are not without their own carbon footprint. In addition to the emissions associated with shipping them—mostly from the Americas—there is the nastier issue of destruction of forests to make way for soybean plantations if consumers do not buy “Amazon-friendly” soy products [1].)

        Not surprisingly, Taiwan’s coffee drinkers (who consume around 5 million cups per day according to the London-based International Coffee Organization) are peeved by the news, with some talking about boycotting take-away coffee until prices are lowered. Similarly, the Consumer Foundation has suggested the convenience stores are operating a cartel, since three of the largest, 7-Eleven, Hi-Life and Family Mart, imposed hikes of the same magnitude on the same day. It has demanded the government’s Fair Trade Commission undertake an investigation, and even threatened to take the FTC to the Control Yuan if it fails to act. The COA under the Executive Yuan said it suspected coffee vendors were taking advantage of milk farmers.

        Perhaps the soft-power solution amidst these hard-sounding responses is, therefore, to give the soymilk (or other non-dairy creamer) option a chance, or better still, to drink coffee black and sugar-free. 

It is possibly with this in mind, and to soften the blow of its price increases, that 7-Eleven is also offering a "buy-1-get-a-second-cup-half-price" on Americano coffee this week.

       

                                                                                                                      Text and photos © Jiyue Publications 2011

---

[1] More problems relating to soybean consumption will be discussed in a future column.

---