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Estimates are as high as 60 percent of the Mayan population here in Guatemala suffers from anemia or lack of protein in their diets. As much as 65 percent of the typical diet is corn based. To keep them from crying, mothers often feed their children nothing but sugar water for lack of any other food in the house. Proper nutrition and improperly balanced diets are a major problem here. One of our goals at Mayan Hope is to improve this situation as much as possible.

Soy Milk Project

The immediate project that we are working on is the establishment of a soy milk production facility using a device called a SoyCow or VitaCow. We hope to provide each of the children in our schools with a daily quantity of soy milk as well as the pregnant and lactating women in the villages. Any excess product would be packaged and sold as a low cost and nutritional substitute for traditional milk and would be especially beneficial for those who are lactose intolerant. We feel that the sale of excess milk and other products produced from this facility could not only provide funding for the free milk provided to school children and pregnant mothers but could also help fund the overall project. We hope to use the milk and the soybean residue called okura in conjunction with a bakery project that could not only provide additional funding but a source of several jobs and assist in the area's economic development.

The VitaCow is a multi-purpose food production system that can process a variety of foods including cereals, grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables. When used to process soybeans into soymilk and its derivative products (such as yogurt, tofu, sour milk, etc) the system has traditionally been referred to as the "SoyCow". The system can provide high-quality, low-cost nutrition while creating work for semi-skilled workers and income for its owners. It has successfully been used in both non-profit and business settings and if operated 3-4 hours per day, can usually pay for itself within a year. The grains, cereals and legumes can be transformed into high-energy gruels or "milks" while fruits and vegetables can be processed into purees, soups or juices. These value-added products can then be distributed directly, sold as is or in simple packaging or heat-treated in containers for long shelf-life (mango juice for example can be kept for up to 1 year this way) - providing nutrients year-round. The powerful grinder combined with a steam boiler process all foods very quickly and produce a sterile, nutritious product. System capacity is 40 liters/hour of soymilk or 60 liters/hour of other foods such as fruits or vegetables. Two people can easily operate a system while others can work at packaging, distribution, promotion and sales. There are over 3,000 systems in 40 countries around the world, mostly located in the former Soviet Union and India.

The system includes a grinder/cooker vessel, a manual press, a steam boiler, tofu boxes, refractometer (to measure product density), spare parts and an operating manual with numerous recipes. All components are stainless steel or food grade materials and include safety devices to avoid over-pressure build-up.

The system is very robust, and can operate for ten years or longer with appropriate maintenance. Yearly maintenance costs are low and do not require specialized skills to carry out.

The average healthy adult needs approx. 0.75 g of "high-quality" protein for every kg of body weight. These requirements go up for infants (up to 2 g per kg), adolescents (up to 1.2 g per kg) and pregnant women. Protein deficiency can cause a host of ailments which can progress slowly or quickly, depending on how healthy or sick the individual is. Protein deficiency can be mild or severe, and affects up to 70% of the children in some developing countries. Soy is comprised of "high-quality" protein, that which the body most easily digests, and is the only plant to have all essential amino acids in adequate proportion. Each liter of soymilk contains approximately 25-30 g of protein and each kg of tofu, approximately 100-135 g.

This table assumes a 300ml soymilk serving and a 150 g tofu serving:

	Weight (kg)	Protein needs(g/day)	Protein % needs met in above servings
Young Child	10-15 kg	10-15 kg	Double the needs
Older Child	15-30	15-30	85-175 %
Adult woman	40-60	32-48	55-80 %
Adult man	50-80	40-64	40-65 %

While the soy milk, yogurt, cheeses, cream, and ice cream that could be produced from this facility would likely be readily accepted, some products like tofu are a more acquired taste. We hope to work with or develop a women's cooperative that may be able to develop recipes or other uses of these products. We believe that numerous bakery products or things like a corn-tofu chowder or black bean-tofu sausage could make these products readily acceptable to local tastes.

Anticipated start-up costs for this project are 10 to 12 thousand U.S. dollars. We believe this to be a very important project for this area not only for the nutritional benefits that it can provide but for the economic benefits to the area. In addition, numerous studies have shown that children that have a proper diet do much better in school.

If you or your organization would like to help develop this project, please write us today. If you would like to make a donation today to this project, please click here. Thank you.