Dried tofu powder

Claim 1

Process of recovering a stable nutritious soy protein product which comprises hydrating soybeans; grinding said hydrated soybeans to form a mash and autoclaving said soy bean mash under conditions and for a period of time to extract a soy milk from the soybean mash while inactivating the lipoxydase content thereof; said soy milk being extracted from said soybean mash during said autoclaving over a period of at least five minutes; separating said extracted milk from the soybean mash; salt-precipitating the milk to yield a coprecipitate of protein-oil curd and whey; centrifuging the coprecipitate and whey to develop distinct curdbed and whey phases wherein a major depth of the bed exists as a continuous cohesive matrix; centrifugally skimming the whey phase and associated water soluble components, washing the centrifugally separated curd to an extent sufficient to remove residual whey solids, excess precipitating chemicals and polysaccahrides therefrom; subdividing the curd and forming a dispersion of curd particles; and spray drying said dispersion.