Is your soy milk really cooked? Beware of "false boiling"!

□ Ruan Guangfeng

Many people advocate starting their breakfast with a cup of soy milk, especially in summer. Soy milk paired with fried dough sticks makes the mouth feel sweet and the stomach warm, and then starts a beautiful day.

However, recently, a 7-year-old girl named Keke from Hangzhou and her father had breakfast as usual, drinking homemade soy milk as usual. However, due to being in a hurry, her father immediately poured out the soy milk after it boiled, let it cool a little, and drank it with Keke. Unexpectedly, a few hours later, the two were poisoned and rushed to the hospital.

Some people wonder why drinking soy milk can cause poisoning? How can you drink homemade soy milk safely? This nutrition lesson will answer your questions.

Don't drink uncooked soy milk.

Soy milk is a very traditional and common food that people have been drinking for thousands of years without any problems. Why did Ke Ke and her father become poisoned? It turned out that it was because the soy milk they made was not thoroughly cooked.

Soy milk contains some anti-nutritional factors, such as trypsin inhibitors and saponins. If it is not cooked before drinking, these ingredients will cause poisoning, leading to symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea.

When raw soy milk is heated to 80-90℃, a lot of white foam will appear, and many people think it is cooked. In fact, this is a false boiling phenomenon. The soy milk is not cooked thoroughly at this time. If you drink it at this time, it may cause poisoning. The father and daughter mentioned above were poisoned because they drank false boiling soy milk. Therefore, homemade soy milk must be cooked.

Therefore, it is recommended that you use a soymilk maker directly. The big brand soymilk makers on the market are all scientifically developed. They will set the time to fully cook the soymilk before finishing, which is both convenient and safe.

Don’t worry about soy milk containing hormones

There are always people on the Internet saying that although soy milk is good, it contains hormones and will cause premature puberty in children, so it should not be consumed. Especially when making homemade soy milk, one should be more careful. In fact, this statement is just groundless worry.

All bean products, including homemade soy milk, contain certain phytoestrogens. Phytoestrogens are a class of non-steroidal compounds that exist naturally in plants. They are named because their biological activity is similar to that of estrogen. Soy isoflavones in soybeans are one of them. Phytoestrogens are widely distributed in food. For example, lignans in lentils and grains, and coumarins in soybean sprouts are all phytoestrogens. However, there is no direct scientific evidence that drinking soy milk is not good for children.

In fact, phytoestrogens are different from human estrogens. Phytoestrogens have a similar molecular structure to estrogen and can bind to estrogen receptors to produce similar effects to estrogen, but their effects are smaller than those of estrogen in the human body. Moreover, the biological activity of phytoestrogens, soy isoflavones, in soybeans is only one thousandth of that of drug estrogens. In addition, the content of soy isoflavones in soybeans is not high, and the normal dietary intake is very small. There is no need to worry that soy milk will cause children to have precocious puberty.

Some suggestions for drinking soy milk safely

Soy milk is not only known as "plant milk", but also has a protein content comparable to that of milk, both of which are high-quality proteins. To drink soy milk safely and healthily, you must pay attention to the following points:

First, homemade soy milk must be cooked thoroughly. As mentioned earlier, homemade soy milk will have a false boiling phenomenon during the heating process, giving people the illusion that it has been cooked, but in fact the soy milk is not fully cooked. The correct way is to continue to cook it on low heat for more than 5 minutes after the soy milk boils to ensure that the soy milk is fully cooked.

Second, you should drink it in moderation. The content of soy isoflavones in soybeans and their products is very low. Except for those who are allergic, everyone, regardless of age or gender, can drink soy milk. According to the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents", adults should consume 15-25 grams of soy products every day, which is equivalent to about 300 milliliters of soy milk.

Third, specific groups of people can appropriately increase their intake, such as people with high blood pressure, high blood lipids, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, etc., can appropriately increase their intake of soybeans and their products.

(The author is the deputy director of the Kexin Food and Health Information Exchange Center and a member of the expert committee of the China Internet Rumor Refutation Platform)