Earlier this week, there was an up, when Hodo Soy Beanery opened its organic tofu shop in Oakland, Calif.

On Thursday, there was a bit of a low when Quong Hop & Co., a South San Francisco tofu company, was ordered to pay $90,000 in fines for failing to keep its plant clean.

The San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office announced the fines that covered the past two years, reporter Sean Maher of the San Mateo County Times wrote.

The company – which says it was one of the first tofu businesses in the United States – essentially did not keep its food area free of pests, according to the article.

It also reportedly maintained poor plumbing and lacked enough areas for employees to wash their hands.

The company has made tofu since 1906 and markets its products under Soy Deli, Soy Fresh and Raquel’s.

Prosecutors said the company’s products have not caused anyone to become sick and state of California health officials determined on Wednesday that the food plant met safety codes.

Maher quoted San Mateo County Deputy District Attorney John Wilson:

These fines are about law violations in the past….Part of the injunction going forward forces the company to comply with basic laws, but goes above and beyond and requires the company to take extra steps to ensure the food will be safe.

Reporters in the San Francisco Bay Area called the company for comment but were unable to reach a representative.

The company said on its Web site that it distributes its products in California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Alaska, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Illinois, Indiana, Wyoming and Montana.

In the past, inspectors in Washington state found that one pack of the company’s tofu was contaminated, according to information posted on the Quong Hop & Co. Web site.

The company conducted tests for Listeria monocytognes, which are found in water and soil. The company said they can enter food products before packaging.

The company reported that they are “bacteria which can cause serious or fatal infection and temporary illness, and in rare instances, miscarriages and still births.”

Some of Quong Hop’s 12- and 30-ounce packages of white tofu showed trace amounts of the bacteria. In 2007, the company issued a recall for these tofu batches.

Sing Hau Lee started the company, which made tofu daily and sold it to Chinese in the San Francisco Bay Area from a grocery store.

The San Francisco Chronicle also reported on the case.

AFC Trading & Wholesale of California has placed stickers in English on some of its Chinese-made frozen bean curd sheets and sticks after officials found undeclared sulfites in them, the company reported.

The lack of English labeling prompted the Los Angeles company to issue a recall Sept. 7 with the federal government.

AFC warned people who are allergic to sulfites not to eat products with the “PO# 378″ on them.

The problem occurred because this batch, which was shipped in March or April, contained sulfites but that was only noted in Chinese, AFC owner Jackson Wu said Wednesday.

WebMD reports that companies use sulfites – which are sulfur-based compounds – to enhance food flavor or act as a preservative.

They can appear naturally in food and one out of 100 people are sensitive to sulfites, WebMD said, citing the Food and Drug Administration.

People who are allergic to sulfites could face ”serious or life-threatening” reactions, AFC said in a statement.

“People who are allergic may not understand Chinese,” Wu said.

The Food and Drug Administration requires this labeling and Wu said distributors either have or will put stickers indicating sulfites on this batch. He has not heard of any reported illness because of the labeling issue.

The bean curd sheets come in 8- and 16-ounce packages. The bean curd sticks are sold in 8-ounce bags. The federal government has posted images of the products in question as well as the company statement.

Wu encouraged people who bought these products and have questions to contact the store where they were purchased. AFC can be reached at (323) 223-7738. 

An inspection by the Food and Drug Administration revealed the lack of proper labeling, Wu said.

The company encourages anyone who has bean curd from the batch “PO# 378″ to return it to where it was purchased for a full refund or exchange.

Sulfites reportedly are no longer used on raw fruits and vegetables. But people might see them used in potato chips, canned vegetables, trail mix, baked goods and soup mixes, according to WebMD.

My wife and I used AFC Frozen Beancurd Sheets when we made a dish called sprouts rolled in bean curd skin.

I encourage people – especially those who are allergic – to talk with store owners or to call AFC before they use these sheets to make this recipe.

You kind of expect it from this West Coast crowd - what with their entrepreneurial ways and toasted wheat bread sandwiches with one piece of organic lettuce stuck in the middle.

Oh, wait. I’m from Northern California. And I dig bean curd.

But for a long time, Northern Californians have thought in different ways.

Stanford Hospital & Clinics this week continued this trend by announcing that patients staying there can dine on local, organic food that will largely come from companies within 200 miles of Stanford, Calif.

What caught my attention on the menu: Smoked tofu.

Stanford Hospital has tapped Chef Jesse Cool, who is known for her restaurants and passion for healthy, sustainable food.

Serving fresher, organic food that is easier on the body makes sense.

Why?

Well, many people have equated institutional hospital meals with what you were served at your school cafeteria when you were a kid.

You know: When texture trumped flavor.

Stanford and Cool certainly aim to change all of that with dishes and ingredients that were outlined by the hospital and include:

• Strawberries from Watsonville, Calif.
• Olive oil from Napa Valley
• Grass-fed range beef from Sonoma and Marin
• Range chicken from the same areas
• Whole grain bread from San Francisco

Robert Robbins, a Stanford doctor and chair of the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department, had dined at one of Cool’s restaurants and returned to the hospital inspired, according to a statement from Stanford Hospital:

Once people are in the hospital, especially when they have major surgeries, their digestive systems do not work quite as well. This kind of food is perfect.

Martha Marsh, hospital chief executive, also offered her thoughts:

Delicious comfort food such as a beautiful basil corn soup can also lift your spirits and that is another way to promote healing. Not only are we feeding people well when they are in our care, we are encouraging them to go home and think of cooking differently. That’s an important message in this program.

I appreciate those thoughts.

While soybean cake shouldn’t be eaten by the truckload daily, the protein-rich, low-fat food has health benefits.

Some experts believe it’s one way to prolong a person’s life – and researchers have long been fascinated with the elderly and their long lives on Okinawa.

If Cool or the hospital officials post the recipe for the smoked tofu, please let me know.

Stanford Cancer Center lists bean curd recipes for tofu fried rice and tofu marsala.

One of the most impressive things about universities and learning is accomplishing what you thought was impossible, strange or different.

As in: A Stanford professor who mapped his genome with two other people for about $50,000 – instead of hundreds of millions of dollars and a much larger staff.

Anyway, back to the point:

Those Northern Californians and their tofu.

Don’t they have anything else better to do?

Police in Indonesia this week apparently seized gallons of formalin that were used to make tofu in a Cipinang, East Jakarta factory, according to a Jakarta Post article.

The public informed Jakarta police about the use of the ingredient, which the University of Minnesota reports “is used as a fixative to preserve tissue samples in health care laboratories.”

The article neither listed the tofu brand name nor stated whether the product is shipped to other countries. Investigators also did not provide a motive.

A police spokesperson identified as Adj. Sr. Comr. Mahbub told the newspaper:

The factory, which produces a well-known brand of tofu, had been selling a lot of tofu to several markets in Jakarta for a while now.

The factory is located  on Jl Harapan II, Cipinang Melayu Makasar, East Jakarta, the newspaper reported. Police also confiscated production equipment from the factory.

Indonesian officials have outlawed the use of formalin, which typically includes formaldehyde, methanol and water, in food. The article did not say whether prosecutors expect to file charges.

The University of Minnesota notes that:

low to moderate exposure to formaldehyde can irritate the eyes, nose, mouth, throat and skin, and cause headaches. Formaldehyde may be carcinogenic, and toxic or fatal to humans at high concentrations.

The formaldehyde and methanol also make formalin waste toxic.

It appears that the Jakarta Post was one of the few, if not only, media outlets to report the tofu factory raid. Soybean consumption reportedly is high in Indonesia.

Concerns about food quality in the United States have grown in recent years, especially with more items made overseas and then imported.

When I was searching for information about the diets of centenarians on Okinawa, I came across this CNN video.

Michael Booth’s recent article in The Sunday Times about people living so long in this part of Japan sparked my interest. Of course, tofu was involved.

It looks like there is a combination of factors – including eating bean curd – that is contributing to long and active lives for many Okinawans. Apparently, there is a high percentage of residents who live past the age of 100.

One observation: Okinawans are living their lives with the thought that something – longevity in this case – is possible.

And they don’t have the diseases that have surfaced in North America, according to CNN.

In the video, Craig Willcox, a Canadian gerontologist and medical anthropologist who has studied Okinawans and their diets, pointed out differences in thinking:

We still refer to these types of diseases as age-associated disease back in North America. Well, people don’t do that anymore here. There’s tremendous amount of control that people have over these diseases if they live the right lifestyle.

I know it’s easy to dismiss certain ideas or dreams as impossible to achieve.

And I know it’s easy for people to scoff at others doing group exercises to music that isn’t popular in the United States.

It’s easy to chuckle at an elderly woman dancing and swaying her hips.

But the CNN video is worth a look.

Besides, it’s rare when you get to see a 90-year-old woman anywhere in the world scramble up citrus trees to pick fruit.

I think it’s a good idea to ask more questions about why people live so long on Okinawa. You know, I am a former journalist.

But it is worth taking time to investigate.

There are many places in the world that I’d like to visit. This place is one of them.

UPDATE: As a journalist, I came across the topic of living longer when I interviewed Leroy Hood, a medical doctor, biologist and leading visionary based in Seattle.

He is the co-founder of the Institute for Systems Biology. He believes that a person’s DNA map can help doctors predict and prevent disease and illness.

The fascinating question-and-answer article with Hood is here.

SECOND UPDATE: Here’s an article that gives more information about Okinawa and tofu.

Eating soybean cake on a regular basis as part of a balanced meal might actually help extend a person’s age, experts believe.

In a June 7 article in The Sunday Times, author Michael Booth wrote about traveling to Okinawa to investigate why so many residents of this group of Japanese islands are living to at least 100 years old.

That number is estimated to be more than 800 people, he said.

On Okinawa, Booth quoted Craig Willcox, a Canadian gerontologist and medical anthropologist who has studied the residents and their health.

Among many factors, Willcox gives the nod to soybean cake as contributing to better health for Okinawans. “They have lower cholesterol and suffer less from heart disease, arteriosclerosis and many cancers,” he told Booth.

Then, Willcox listed a typical diet for an island resident:

Plenty of fish, whole grains, vegetables and soy products….They eat more kombu (a type of seaweed), kelp and tofu than anyone else in the world, and lots of squid and octopus.

Other factors on Okinawa, Booth noted, that help residents live longer include exercise, strong spirituality, solid social networks and a less stressed outlook toward time.

Last year, author Dan Buettner told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that bean curd, which is low in calories, is beneficial to people.

“Tofu is probably the best longevity food ever invented,” he told writer Randy Salas.

I know American eyeballs roll when you say ‘tofu.’ But tofu is very high in protein, very low in fat, full of minerals and has all of the amino acids necessary for human sustenance….It can also help keep your skin looking younger longer.

Buettner is the author of The Blue Zone, a book about longevity. He examined areas in the world, including Okinawa, in which people have long lives. 

One diet lesson that Booth learned after visiting Okinawa: “I now eat more fish, more vegetables and as much seaweed and tofu as I can.”

To learn more, one place to visit is the Web site of the Okinawa Research Center for Longevity Science.

These reports are certainly worth investigating. I should say it’s probably best to read as much as possible about this topic and talk with as many doctors and researchers about it.

But if tofu does help contribute to a longer life, then Liu An, the Chinese man who reportedly helped invent the food might not have been too far off in his goal of finding a long-life medicine.

As the story is told in China, he instructed his assistants back in 164 BC to find such a medicine. Why?

He believed in Daoism (Taoism) and wanted to live longer. But instead of making medicine, his assistants created tofu – by accident.

These are some of the conclusions of dietitian and author Jo-Ann Heslin, who recently posted a piece - “Tofu – Think Outside the White Block” – on HealthNewsDigest.com.

Using tofu can help reduce the risk of heart disease, she writes in her post. “No one is suggesting that tofu alone is a magic food but as a substitute for higher fat, higher cholesterol, lower calcium choices it is a healthy addition to your diet,” she says later.

She touches upon one controversy swirling around soy – specifically isoflavones used in supplement form. That is, if eaten as a supplement in large amounts, the risk of breast cancer might increase.

“But, regularly using a concentrated isoflavone supplement is far different than making an occasional stir-fry with tofu,” she writes. “Stick with soy as a whole food.” 

Why? As a whole food, there is much “intact” soy protein, she says. “Eaten in this form, experts believe it is safe and the health benefits are clear and positive,” she notes.

I’m glad she posted her article online. I’ve never studied food nutrition to the extent that she has. And I don’t follow the tofu debate as closely as others – I just like eating it.

You can read her work and decide whether you agree with her conclusions.

I should note – which she does at the beginning - that she wrote her piece after attending a cooking demonstration sponsored by House Foods, a tofu supplier.

She includes a recipe for Tofu Gnocchi, which the company supplied.

You can read more about soy in this Food and Drug Administration online essay.