The Other Milk: Reinventing Soy in Republican China

by Jia-Chen Fu

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 cow's milk reflected China's 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 Fu's 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.

288 pages, Paperback

Published December 18, 2018

Reviews

[Sunjay]

Soy. Is it a traditional food with hidden superpowers? A solution to widespread malnutrition? A substitute for dairy milk? What can the history of soy tell us about how nutrition science, with it's talk of vitamins, protein, and scientifically measurable chemical analyses, came to China? What can the history of soy tell us about how Chinese nationalists in the early twentieth century used nutrition science as part of their state building?

Jia-Chen Fu follows a number of fascinating historical figures, from the anarchist turned soy manufacturer Li Shizeng, to the US-trained nutrition scientists Xian Wu and Daisy Yen Wu, to the social worker and refugee nutrition administrator Nellie Lee, and a dozen other scientists and activists in the early twentieth century. It's a fascinating read, if a bit beyond me as someone with only passing familiarity with the history of the late Qing and Nationalist periods of Chinese history.

[Catherine Wan]

hate milk big fan of the soy bean