The Lemon Fool

This is my last chance saloon in trying to find a way of consuming legumes in a way that my gut can tolerate. Tempeh for the uninitiated is fermented soya beans usually but can be any legume or even seeds. You take your legumes, add a bit of culture, keep them warm until they start to form spores, it sort of solidifies in a few days into a slab of something akin to cheese or tofu. The difference between tempeh and tofu is that tofu is not fermented, it's quite different.

It seems so obvious now but I've discovered recently I can't tolerate legumes in any form. Being mainly plant based I consumed a lot of them and just thought I had some sort of irritable bowel type thing. I recently cut them out completely for a couple of months, problems went away, then had some hummus - bang problems started all over again. Waited til that had passed then tried again with tofu, same reaction. So I know it's legumes. I mean I knew certain beans affected me so I avoided those but I never made the connection with the wider legume family, lentils, chickpeas etc.

I've since read that the fermentation process breaks down the parts that some people find indigestible so I thought I'd give it a go before giving up on them completely. They are after all a good source of protein and fibre for non meat eaters.

I'm currently trying to get hold of some culture so I can kick off my first batch.

Fluke wrote:I'm currently trying to get hold of some culture so I can kick off my first batch.

Have you tried ebay?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from ... &_osacat=0

Personally I'm not a fan of Tofu and Temeph seems far too similar to me.

I have had tempeh a couple of times, only available mail order for me. I saw that it's in Lidl now https://www.lidl.co.uk/p/meat-free-janu ... peh/p57621
Not sure if it's Veganuary only product or full time, I will buy it regularly if it stays on the shelves as I like to add fermented foods and non animal proteins to my diet.

Urbandreamer wrote:

Fluke wrote:I'm currently trying to get hold of some culture so I can kick off my first batch.

Have you tried ebay?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from ... &_osacat=0

Personally I'm not a fan of Tofu and Temeph seems far too similar to me.

Can you eat ebay?

I lived in the Far East for a long time and tofu is considered a normal part of a diet but I think it is horrible. ebay as well.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:
I lived in the Far East for a long time and tofu is considered a normal part of a diet but I think it is horrible. ebay as well.

I'm not a huge fan but you can zhuzh it up with marinade and rolling it in breadcrumbs before air frying to add a bit of spicey crunch to your katsu curry, quite nice but that's tofu, tempeh is quite different, tofu is bean curd, tempeh is fermented whole beans.

Thanks, I can also get the culture on amazon, just haven't got enough in my basket to make it free postage, currently I'm being nobbled for a further fiver. I've been into several health/Thai shops, none of them do it. I can buy the tempeh itself easily enough, it's the culture, which is just dried powdered tempeh, that is difficult to find. You can't turn shop bought tempeh into culture because it is steamed to remove the spores, or so I read.

A silly question perhaps, Fluke, but have you tried tempeh to see whether you are allergic to it? Before going to the faff of making your own it is (as you say) easily available now (even Sainsburys stocks it). I rarely use it unless a recipe calls for very firm tofu, because I find it absorbs other flavours far less than tofu, though tempeh has the better (to my palette) texture.

Eb.

Thanks Eb yes I had thought about that but then if I react I'll be wondering if maybe it wasn't fermented long enough or something, whereas if I do it myself I can be in control of how long I leave it for. That and the fact that home made is supposed to be very much nicer than shop bought.

Closer to home the Netherlands have a large Indonesian diaspora, I expect you could source what you need from there. Though it being a pretty basic staple for some, like pasta say, IME people in Se Asia just buy it pre-made.