Vegan French Toast

I really expect nasty letters from France for this.

As usual, there are a couple of ingredients that need explanation. Presumably by this time we’re familiar, generally, with tofu and soy milk.

Nut milk is nuts, soaked in water, and then blended into more water. (Sorry if you had visions if your almond milk being made on a big press. Essentially you’re having almond butter that someone poured tap water into.)

Lecithin is an emulsifying agent; the common source for this is egg yolk, so for a vegan French toast, specifying soy is important. If you’re using a full-fat tofu, this will help blend the tofu into the milk to thicken it.

Carotene is a collection of various hydrocarbons that occur in some vegetables; collectively, they’re high in Vitamin A. And for the purposes of this recipe, it’s helpful that they’re orange, since that avoids your French Toast from being pale tofu white.

Colloidal assimilable sulfur… okay, take a deep breath. Colloidal is a fancy word meaning finely ground to a particulate size that can’t be easily filtered out. Assimilable means, essentially, possible to assimilate; the idea is that a colloidal assimilable substance is one that is finely ground enough that it’s “bio-available.” That is, when you eat it, your body can absorb it and make use of it.

Do you need sulfur to digest this recipe because it’s from the pit of Hades? No. (I mean, it is, but that’s not why you need sulfur.) Sulfur has a lot of functions in the body, but there are two primary ones. One is aiding in the absorption of the amino acids methiorine and cysteine. The other is as a component in some enzymes, proteins, and hormones, particularly the hormone insulin. I don’t know exactly what function it’s serving here, other than as a component of a larger vegan diet, where sulfur is not exactly in high concentrations. Chicken and beef are where most people get dietary sulfur, though kale, asparagus, and a few other vegetables have (very) small amounts.

From a box sold in Chicago, Illinois.

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