Ted Nordquist hesitated a moment before picking a mini-cup of yogurt from the shelf at Whole Foods in Sonoma. “Why is this so good that people would pay $3.99 for it?” he asked the cashier, who had no inkling that the customer holding the tiny container of cultured coconut was a vital link in the evolution of non-diary alternatives found everywhere today. Yet Whole Soy & Co., the most popular yogurt of Ted’s career, can no longer be found on any store’s shelves, anywhere.
Following World War II, dairy milk was considered the healthiest food available, yet for some, it caused bellyaches. People with allergies or lactose intolerance were delighted when soy alternatives came along. The first soymilk in the United States was canned and sold in 1931, but the product didn’t take hold until baby boomers refined it in the 1980s.
Since then, dairy and soy industries have fought fiercely for shelf space in ads, medical journals, health magazines and news outlets. Which one has better nutritional value, a smaller carbon, water and phosphate footprint, or better health benefits versus risks? Do soy estrogens cause illness? Ted says no: soy has gotten a bad rap.
Born in Alameda, Ted spent 30 years in Sweden, where he married, earned a doctorate and learned to create soymilk, yogurt and ice cream. He was instrumental in the creation of Silk Soymilk and other alternative products, and today consults for small dairy-alternative companies. His journey with soy was a remarkable one. Each time outside forces blocked him, he moved on to find new possibilities.
In 1975, Ted left Sweden to spend a year at Ananda Cooperative Village, in the Sierras. There he met Bill Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, the authors of “The Book of Tofu” who introduced tofu and miso to Americans. At the time, there were no non-Asian soymilk or tofu companies in the U.S., but by 1978, the Soy Crafters Association of North America had 280 members. That year, Ted attended a conference put on by the association, along with legends in the dairy-alternative world: Steve Demos of WhiteWave, Jeremiah Ridenour of Wildwood Natural Foods and David Mintz, who created Tofutti.
Two years later, Ted started Sweden’s first tofu factory. In all of his products he used the traditional Chinese method, which he says produces phytoestrogens that do not cause diseases like breast cancer, infertility or sex organ abnormalities. “All of [the research leading to warnings about soy-derived estrogen is] based on misleading information, mostly using any negative research that’s been done with isolated soy protein,” he said.
Like many legumes, soy must be processed to digest. Ted explained: “Natural soy has trypsin inhibitors, which inhibit the body’s absorption of soy protein, and oligosaccharides, which cause gas and bloating. The traditional Chinese method involves soaking beans for hours and cooking it into an oatmeal-like goo that results in easily digestible soyfoods, like soymilk, tofu and tempeh.”
Unlike the traditional method, modern techniques use hexane to extract oil and leave a protein cake, which is further processed into isolated soy protein. But medical experts remain uncertain about soy and many prescribe soy supplements to treat menopausal symptoms. In October, The British Journal of Pharmacology determined that there is still not enough proof that the benefits of phytoestrogens outweigh the possible risks.
Back in California, Ted developed Silk Soymilk. Wildwood was working on extending soymilk’s shelf life and the owner knew that Ted had a unique process for making soymilk, so they joined forces, packaging it in extended shelf-life cartons. But when Wildwood failed to market it, Ted took it to WhiteWave, which designed new packages and named it Silk. The product took off and the company’s revenue rose to $23 million. Ted developed WholeSoy yogurt for them but, after two years, WhiteWave’s owner abruptly left. Ted and his financial partner, Henry Glasser, kept the yogurt and found a new distributor.
The name WholeSoy was meant to distinguish their products from those made with soy isolates. They created an unsweetened yogurt made with a new plant-based culture developed at the University of Ukraine and invested in their own soymilk plant in Modesto, where they processed non-G.M.O., organic beans.
But soy came under attack in 2005, when Kaayla Daniels published “The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Health Food,” an unapologetically partial book that claims soy releases estrogen that causes a wide range of disturbing illnesses. According to Ted, much of the research cited in the book relied on isolated soy proteins, not soy processed by the traditional Chinese method.
Ted and Henry pressed on, moving from dairy to dairy; and, each production day, reformulated their product and employed extensive cleaning and allergen-testing procedures. In 2010, they moved to a family-owned facility in Visalia and installed equipment dedicated to soy. By March 2013, Ted said WholeSoy was the number-one soy yogurt in the country, capturing about 95 percent of the market.
In yet another twist of fate, a month later, the sheriff of Visalia informed Ted that the family who owned the facility was being evicted. “We had essentially two days to evacuate,” Ted said. “We brought in semi-trucks, moved all the packaging and ingredients to our plant in Modesto and leased new filling equipment.
“Two things didn’t work: The project manager told me we would be back up and running by September, but we were not selling WholeSoy yogurts until March of 2014. Secondly, we weren’t able to acquire the money necessary to do it that quickly. A lot of people worked for free and did everything they possibly could, but we just lost too much money. We couldn’t buy supplies. On March 20, 2015, we just closed.”
Looking down, Ted said, “Henry died late last year. I’m a firm believer that the universe works as it should. I’m convinced that whatever happens, happens for a very good reason, so I’m rolling with the times, you might say.”
In Sonoma, after struggling to answer Ted’s question about the expensive yogurt, the cashier recalled a little-known store policy: each employee is allowed to give away one product a day. And so, the culture master, a free product in hand, cheerfully left the store.
Peggy Day lives in Point Reyes Station. On Thanksgiving, she enjoyed a dinner suitable for relatives who are vegans, pescatarians or carnivores or eat dairy or are gluten-free.