Tofu
soy-based food used as a protein source
Tofu (Japanese: 豆腐, Hepburn: Tōfu; Chinese: 豆腐; pinyin: dòufu;
Korean: 두부; RR: dubu) or bean curd is a food prepared by pressing the curds of coagulated soy milk into solid white blocks of varying softness: 'silken', 'soft', 'firm', and 'extra (or super) firm'.
It originated in China and has been consumed for over 2,000 years. Tofu is a traditional component of many East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines; in modern Western cooking, it is commonly used as a meat substitute.
Nutritionally, tofu is low in calories, while providing a rich source of protein. Cultivation of soybeans has one of the lowest needs for land use (1.3 m2/ 1000 kcal) and emits some of the lowest amounts of greenhouse gas emissions per gram of edible protein of any food (1.6 kg CO2/ 100 g protein).
Etymology
The English word "tofu" comes from Japanese tōfu (豆腐, see below), which in turn borrows Chinese 豆腐 (Mandarin: dòufǔ or tòufu) 'bean curd, bean ferment'.
The earliest documentation of the word in English is in the 1704 translation of Domingo Fernández Navarrete's A Collection of Voyages and Travels, that describes how tofu was made. The word towfu also appears in a 1770 letter from the English merchant James Flint to Benjamin Franklin. The term "bean curd(s)" for tofu has been used in the United States since at least 1840.
History
Tofu making was first recorded during the Chinese Han dynasty.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Tofu” as soy-based food used as a protein source. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as soy-based food used as a protein source. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q177378. The Library of Congress control number is sh85135793. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1000, 1704, 1770 and 1840.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tofu” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.