Linda Funk: Hi! I am Linda Funk. I'm the Executive Director of The Soyfoods Council, and today we're going to talk about TSP and TVP. They are one and the same; Textured Soy Protein and Textured Vegetable Protein.

You may be asking, so what is it really? It actually comes from the soybean. If the soybean is ground up into soy flour the soy flour is then put through another process to get the little granules that you see here for TVP.

What's so wonderful is the fact that it's pure protein, no cholesterol, very high protein content. So it's great to add to any meal through out the day. Let's take a look at breakfast for instance.

So, to your yoghurt, take a little bit of the TSP or TVP and sprinkle, that's as simple as it gets. What's great about it, it just adds up little of extra crunch. Then take any cereal you would like. Do the same thing. Add just a little bit of the TSP to it, add your soymilk and eat. And again, you have a really high protein breakfast.

Then let's move on to lunch and dinner. Most likely we'll need to re-hydrate the TSP. To do that we'll take about two cups of boiling hot water, add about a cup in 7/8th, almost two cups of TSP to that boiling water. You stir it, let it re-hydrate and let it set for about two minutes. Then what you do is you take it and put it right into the chilly or the soup that you want to serve.

So, to make our chilly this is what we're going to do. You take one pound of Extra-lean ground beef, put it in your saucepan and brown it. When it's brown you add a little bit of oil, about a tablespoon, add your onions and mix that in and make sure that the onions are then starting to cook.

Then you start adding all the other ingredients. You can add your tomatoes, for one package mix of the chilly seasoning and that's one and three quarter's ounce package. And also your black soybeans that you have rinsed and drained, you mix that all together and then what you want to so take that re-hydrated TSP or Textured Soy Protein and add that to the rest of the mixture.

Then after you add that TSP, add that one tablespoon of brown sugar. It just adds a really nice sweetness to the chilly. Stirred around, make sure that's nicely mixed and then put the cover on and let it simmer for about 20 minutes and then serve.

You can take any soup that you want, whether it be canned or freshly made and add the re-hydrated TSP to it. What that does is just gets you a little more protein for that soup and of course, it adds some texture and flavor too.

Okay, now on to cookies. Everybody loves cookies, we're going to make them just tad healthier today and this is the trick. When your recipe calls for oat meal, let's say for instance three cups of oat meal. You will take one half of that. So one half, one and a half cups of oat meal, one and a half cups of TSP and use it as you would in the cookie recipe. What's great about that is it adds a little more protein to that cookie and a little crunch and a little bit of caramely flavor, it's really delicious.

So, we've learned how to add TSP to five easy things that we can eat throughout the day. For more information go to thesoyfoodscounsil.

com where there is a lot more recipes and the most up to date health information on soy protein.