(the story of Hoffman's HI-PROTEEN)

"Everybody's Doin' It!"

by Bob Hoffman

ARE you old enough to remember the old song, "Everybody's Doin' It", which first came into popularity more than 40 years ago? The present application of the old title means that nearly everybody, particularly in the physical training world, is making high protein food in some form, or at least consuming it.

Most of these products have a soy bean base. The soy bean has been used in Oriental countries as a chief food staple for thousands of years. I first had my introduction to soy products in 1914, when my greatest ambition in life was to succeed in athletics. In 1914 I first patronized Chinese restaurants with soy sauce and soy bean sprouts. I like them from the beginning and, though the years, particularly when traveling, have been very much addicted to Chinese food.

Soy beans were little known in this country in 1935. In 1938 we had a few acres devoted to their culture on our nearby farm. Since 1935 the entire nation's production of only a few thousand tons has grown to over 200 million tons. More and more people have learned the great merits of the soy bean.

I was first introduced to a product similar to our present HI-PROTEEN around the year 1938. At that time Eddie Polo, a professional strength performer, paid me a visit. We spent a lot of time together and he was the man who showed me how to break chains with my chest and with my hands. Eddie Polo went into the promotion of a health food which was marketed under his name. It had a soy bean base, and as soy beans are literally crammed with protein and vitamins, the addition of a few synthetic vitamins made Polo's food a veritable mine of protein, calories, minerals and vitamins. I didn't care for the taste of Eddie's food, but I used a few jars of it and do not doubt that it did me good. For at that time I was coming up as a bent presser from 202 at my 39th Birthday show, to 263 1/2 at my 40th birthday show, to 270 the next year, to 275 the next year and to 282 on my 43rd birthday. It was during these years that I came to weigh 266 1/2 with a 52-inch chest and 58-inch should circumference.

To obtain best results from a food, it must be something you like. Your stomach knows and even if you hold your nose while something goes down, your stomach will not feel right afterward. I didn't like the taste of Eddie's food and I was slightly allergic to milk, with which it was mixed. It took me a long time to learn that their are over 3,000 kinds of soy beans, so just the label "soy bean" on a package does not mean that you have a product that taste good and is good.

Anyone can make a soy product. They beans can be purchased by the hundred pounds at a nomial cost. In fact, if you can stand the taste of soy flour alone, you can purchase it at most health stores at a price considerably less than that for which Hoffman's HI-PROTEEN is sold. For years we were searching for the right product, experimenting with various health foods with soy bean bases. But we had not found one sufficiently palatable to expect anyone but the most rabidly enthusiastic bodybuilder to take.

Then we were able to offer a flavored product that seemed fairly palatable, but found that many users did not like the taste and would not repeat orders, even though they got good results from its use.

So we took our problem to chemists, laboratories, and food processors and finally - with this expert help - we developed the product which is nos known as Hoffman's HI-PROTEEN. People who could not use other soy products like it, and the first rule to be successful with a food is that it must "taste good". HI-PROTEEN not only tastes good, but people who use it say that as a milk shake it is better than any "malted" they every had.

It is a balanced formula, an almost complete food. The ancients believed that all foods contained the same material, that any one food was enough. All through history there has been an attempt made to make this one food which will not only sustain life, but keep its user at the peak of strength, health and energy. They soy bean, in Oriental countries, has come nearest to doing this. Porters in Oriental countries have a flour which will sustain them on the march for days, and keep them strong enough to carry apparently impossible loads.

Remember that just the words "soy bean" on the label does not guarantee the merit or taste of a product. The food must be made from a properly arranged and manufactured formula.

Your body can only utilize so much of any vitamin, mineral, protein or carbohydrate. More than this amount is waste and must be digested and eliminated from the body after considerable effort. So you don't want too much of anything, you wand a food as nearly perfect as possible, one that is BALANCED with the correct amount of each ingredient. It has been our effort in working with the world-famous laboratories and processors who helped us developed this food to make a food which alone would be nearly perfect. I am willing to go on record as saying that no other single health food is as complete, as near perfect as Hoffman's HI-PROTEEN.

Hoffman's HI-PROTEEN is rich in minerals, vitamins, protein, carbohydrates, sugars and starches which produces 95 percent of the body's energy, but it is almost entirely lacking in fat. The soy bean itself is rich in fat, but the beans used in Hoffman's HI-PROTEEN have fatty oil pressed out until the finished product contains only nine tenths of one percent fat.

Regular users of HI-PROTEEN mix it with fruit and vegetable juices and soups, but the average person will probably like it best as a milk shake. We recommend three heaping teaspoonful of HI-PROTEEN to a half pint of milk with a scoop of ice cream, for a tasty nourishing meal. Many also mix a raw egg or two in the milk shake, for additional protein with an animal factor.

I have found HI-PROTEEN is good in apricot or pear juice, in V8 juice, in tomato soup or on ice cream, where it tastes like powdered sugar. A case was brought to my attention recently in which a York boy had gained 16 pounds in a comparatively short period by eating HI-PROTEEN just as it came out of the box. He did not like milk, but one day when he was hungry he started eating it by the handful. Thus he gained 16 pounds. His father came in to purchase a 16 pound, family size package and told us this story. I can't eat it dry like that, but if you can it is beneficial. Some day soon, however, we may be able to offer HI-PROTEEN in lozenge form to be eaten like candy.