A healthy diet can contribute to mental health, and
there’s good reason to include soy in its various forms in everyday meals. These days most supermarkets carry a number
of soy products including tofu, meatless burgers and sausages using soy
substitute, cooked soybeans, edamame beans, miso, soy milk, and soy nutrition
bars. Erika Dillman provides helpful
information about what soy is, its healthy properties, and how to prepare and
cook it. Probably the most useful part
of The Little Soy Book is its 59 pages of recipes, including Double
Chocolate Soy Brownies, Brunch Quiche (with soy ham and tofu), Tusc-Asian Bean
Soup with Garlic and Sage, Vegetarian Chili over Mashed Potatoes, and Curried
Red Lentil Stew with Tempeh. The
sections explaining different soy products, including soy milk, soy sauce,
tofu, tempeh, miso, soy nuts, soy nut butter, soy ice cream, soy yogurt, soy
cheese, and soy flour. It would have
been helpful to have more information about different brand names and maybe a
franker discussion of the taste and texture of the different products. For example, not everyone is going to agree
that soy milk tastes as good as cow’s milk, and it would be useful to know
which brands are most like cow’s milk. 
Of course the book is little, so there are no photographs and the
explanations of ideas are brief. I’d
imagine that most readers planning to start cooking with soy would want more
information and pictures, and so they might look for vegan cookbooks, but The
Little Soy Book may be useful as an introduction to soy.

© 2002 Christian Perring. First Serial Rights.

Christian Perring, Ph.D., is
Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College, Long Island. He is
editor of Metapsychology Online Review. His main research is on
philosophical issues in psychiatry. He is especially interested in exploring
how philosophers can play a greater role in public life, and he is keen to help
foster communication between philosophers, mental health professionals, and the
general public.

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