Soy tricks and tips:

Soy is also available in most health food stores as a powder that can be mixed with juice or water, blended with a variety of fruits, and made into delicious drinks that pack a powerful nutritional punch.

How to Deliciously and Creatively Incorporate Soy Into Your Diet

Here are some tricks to try:

• Purchase soy milk (fortified with vitamin D and calcium) and use on cereals and in soups and puddings.
• Add small cubes of tofu to spicy soups and pasta dishes. Tofu itself is bland; by adding it to these spicy dishes, it simply absorbs the seasonings you have already chosen and gives you a nutritional boost.
• Use silken tofu to replace all or part of the ricotta or cottage cheese in pasta or casseroles. Again, the tofu will absorb the flavor of your already seasoned dish, and the silken texture will be as smooth as the cheese it replaces.
• Use textured vegetable protein (or soy -- they're the same thing) to replace part of the ground beef in chili, meat sauces, meat loaf and meatballs. Available in health food stores, textured vegetable protein (TVP) looks like coarse oatmeal and absorbs water to develop the texture of ground beef. For a recipe calling for a pound of ground beef, use instead 1/2 pound meat and one cup TVP. Simply add tomato juice, milk or canned chopped tomatoes to the TVP to get the texture of the ground beef, then mix in the meat and continue with the recipe. No one will be the wiser!