The Other Milk: Reinventing Soy in Republican China

About this book

Throughout the winter of 19371938 soybean milk fortified with calcium and vitamins came to the rescue of starving malnourished children in Shanghais refugee camps. In tin bowls grasped by little fingers soybean milk symbolized how a beleaguered China could struggle forward and protect its future. As a fortified food designed and distributed for the expressed purpose of combating malnutrition soybean milk had traversed ontological distance from its former incarnation as a tonic for aging ailing bodies.from the introduction In the early twentieth century China was stigmatized as the Land of Famine. Meanwhile in Europe and the United States scientists and industrialists seized upon the soybean as a miracle plant that could help build modern economies and healthy nations. Soybeans protein-packed and domestically grown were a common food in China and soybean milk (doujiang) was poised for reinvention for the modern age. Scientific soybean milk became a symbol of national growth and development on Chinese terms and its competition with cows milk reflected Chinas relationship to global modernity and imperialism. The Other Milk explores the curious paths that led to the notion of the deficient Chinese diet and to soybean milk as the way to guarantee food security for the masses. Jia-Chen Fus in-depth examination of the intertwined relationships between diet health and nation illuminates the multiple forces that have been essential in the formation of nutrition science in China.