16/10/2026
Now you know why we sell it from as little as M39.99
Tofu just outranked meat, fish, and dairy in a scientific comparison of popular protein sources.
And its environmental advantages were only part of the reason.
A study published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems evaluated 20 commonly consumed protein-rich foods using a scoring system that considered their impact on both human health and the planet.
Researchers examined environmental measures such as greenhouse gas emissions, land requirements, freshwater consumption, and water pollution.
But the ranking went beyond sustainability.
It also factored in saturated fat, sodium, cholesterol, protein quality, cost, and how readily available each food is to consumers.
After combining all of those measures, tofu claimed the #1 spot overall.
It earned a perfect 16 out of 16 for environmental performance and scored 20 out of 24 on the portion measuring benefits and practical considerations for people.
The next highest-ranked foods were chia seeds, beans, quinoa, sunflower seeds, and lentils.
Chicken breast was the highest-ranking animal-based protein, coming in at #7.
And one of the most striking differences came down to environmental impact.
Using the data included in the study, producing tofu containing 100 grams of protein was associated with approximately 0.61 kg of COβ-equivalent emissions.
Producing the same amount of protein from beef was associated with roughly 64 kg.
That's an enormous difference.
Of course, this doesn't mean tofu has been officially crowned the world's healthiest protein, or that every other protein source should disappear from our plates.
The researchers developed a new scoring framework, and they acknowledged important limitations. For instance, affordability was assessed using prices from a single UK supermarket, and the model cannot capture every aspect of nutritional value.
Still, the findings raise an interesting question about how we evaluate the foods we eat.
Protein is often discussed almost entirely in terms of how many grams a food provides.
But what happens when we also consider the resources required to produce it, its nutritional characteristics, its affordability, and its broader environmental consequences?
In this comparison, plant-based proteins dominated the top of the rankings.
And tofu finished at #1. π±