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As you might have guessed, I am a big Bonsoy fan. I think their soy milk absolutely blows their competitors out of the water in terms of taste and texture in coffee. It doesn’t impart an overt soy flavour to the coffee, rather, it sits in the background and just adds substance.
Bonsoy’s superiority is obviated by its use by most serious coffee places.
So, it is with great sadness that I need to alert you all that Bonsoy has been recalled due to excessive iodine levels (from the seaweed concentrate). The amount of iodine present in the quantity of Bonsoy in even a small latte is around 10x the daily limit.
You need to take this very seriously, as excessive iodine can cause thyroid problems. My friend Matt has had troubles with his thyroid for a while now (affecting his heart) and they had been unable to pinpoint it until now. His doctors now suspect Bonsoy had a lot to do with this.
I also have had some lethargy and energy problems (especially in cycling races and training and running), and it now appears Bonsoy had something to do with this (as well as a virus).
Sadly, there is no replacement for Bonsoy that is of a similar quality. I’ve just spent 2 weeks trying Vitasoy, SoGood and Coles Soy. All are woeful replacements. I’ve tried skinny and full cream coffees, but of course, that burnt-fat milk taste is a taste killer.
As soon as I hear more about release of Bonsoy without the seaweed, I’ll let you know.
Read more here or on the Bonsoy website.
Update 7 Jan 2009
I dropped an email to the PR contact for Bonsoy, asking what was happening with the recall, and could we expect to see Bonsoy re-released.
The response is shown below, so obviously as Spiral Foods learns more, they’ll release updates.
Tim
Thanks for your email. Testing is currently underway to try and establish exactly what the issue is. Unfortunately, until we have the results of those tests, it is very difficult to make any further comment. We will of course be looking to relaunch Bonsoy once we have firmly identified the issue.
Stay tuned…
Great to read your article. I am on a regular hunt for places that use Bonsoy – I can only assume cafes that insist on using Vitasoy have never actually themselves tried drinking a soy latte before. (It's no wonder some people are under the impression that soy milk tastes bad!)
Looking forward to Bonsoy being back in action!
Thanks for the compliment, Jayne.
Me too, and more and more serious places use it, as they obviously care about coffee. I'm told my Eamon over at Volley (now called Espresso 3121) that Bonsoy is way better to work with, compared to Vitasoy which is very inconsistent. I did have a *very* respectable Vitasoy latte on Monday at Espresso 3121, but, it's not consistent.
I think most coffee shops are dying for Bonsoy to re-release sans seaweed. I'm actually surprised this didn't show up earlier. I've heard comments than Bonsoy won't care about this problem, but given its seriousness, I can't see them not doing anything about it (internationally).
As a side note, I dropped into Globe on Chapel St (Melbourne, AU, in case you're not a Melbournite) and they were still serving Bonsoy. I asked what that was about, given the recall, and the girl seemed indifferent – “it hasn't been recalled by our supplier.” That won't look good on their review I post tonight at all.
Personally, my endocrinologist says that my thyroid issues – which were pretty serious – were certainly caused by the excess iodine. Thankfully the body gets rid of it over time (up to a year!), but, given the symptoms, I am lucky I didn't have a heart attack when bike racing. My HR is about 10-20 bpm higher than it normally is, and I can tell.
I'll be dropping Bonsoy an email about this, so if I hear anything, I'll let everyone know.
Tim