For everyone who thinks soy is a harmless food or even a healthy food, you may want to do some research. The first thing I would like to state is that fermented soy foods are, in fact, healthy but it is the processed soy foods where you are being deceived.
Fermented (Healthy) Soy foods include Natto, Miso, Tempeh, Soy Sauce, Fermented Tofu and Fermented Soymilk
Unfermented Soy Foods include Tofu, Soy Milk, Soy Flour, Soy Sprouts, Soy Nuts, Soy Vegetable Oil, Soy Protein Isolate and Fresh Green Soybeans
The next thing you need to know is that the reason soy is touted as such a health food is because the soy industry has done an amazing job at marketing their product and the waste from their product. When butter and saturated fats were vilified and vegetable oil became the new craze, the soy industry grew a lot of soy in order to extract the oil from it. Once the oil was extracted, they had tons and tons of leftover soy waste that they decided to try and profit from. Profiting they did. They engineered a few studies, spent millions in advertising, did some aggressive lobbying with the FDA and voila, unfermented, processed soy is the new “Health Food”…. And that is how easily we fall victim to corporate greed.
It’s not just the vegetarian world that needs to worry about this, if you eat a lot of processed foods (meaning anything that comes in a bag, box or packaging) then you are eating a lot of soy. Pretty much any label that says Vegetable Oil (in any form), soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, texturized vegetable protein or hydrolyzed vegetable protein is a soy product. Check the labels, you’ll soon see there’s very few that don’t contain soy in some form.
One reason that nonfermented soy products are unhealthful is because they contain phytic acid which binds with certain nutrients like calcium, magnesium, copper, iron, and zinc, among others, and inhibits your body’s ability to absorb them. Fermenting soy, on the other hand, decreases the effects of phytic acid and encourages growth of the healthy bacteria that you hear about in yogurts and probiotic supplements, which help to improve digestion along with numerous other health benefits.
One of the most important minerals that soy blocks is iodine, which is used by the thyroid gland in the production of thyroid hormones. To find out how important the thyroid gland is to our growth and metabolism please see my previous post:
https://wisdomthatheals.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/how-important-is-the-thyroid-gland/
In addition, all soy foods, fermented or nonfermented, contain Phytoestrogens (also known as isoflavones) which can either mimic or block the hormone estrogen. Soy contains such a large quantity of phytoestrogens that drinking as little as two glasses of soymilk a day for one month has been shown to alter a woman’s menstrual cycle and that doesn’t even include all the soy you find in processed foods. This is the reason it’s so dangerous to give babies an infant formula that contains soy or to feed your growing children a high soy diet. Soy has been shown to impede the sexual maturation of boys and accelerate the sexual maturation of girls. Ever wonder why girls are maturing sexually at younger and younger ages? Could it possibly be all the processed foods we are feeding them or the high soy diet we’ve been told is so healthy?
Soy has also been proven to promote the formation of kidney stones, weaken your immune system and contribute to food allergies and digestive disorders. The Trypsin inhibitors in soy can interfere with protein digestion and may cause pancreatic disorders. The phytoestrogens can cause hypothyroidism and thyroid cancer while soy foods, in general, contain high levels of aluminum which is toxic to the nervous system and kidneys. You get enough aluminum from your antiperspirant, you don’t need any more of it in your diet. If you eat soy based veggie burgers you should also know that most of them are processed using hexane which is a neurotoxin and EPA registered air pollutant… Yum.
Another problem with all this soy is that over 75% of our soy crops are now Genetically Modified (GM). Genetic Modification of our food supply has detrimental effects that we are not even aware of yet. No one knows what the long term effects of GM foods will actually be and we are serving as the guinea pigs of this experiment. One caution I remember hearing in an audio lecture with Jeffrey Smith (Author of Genetic Roulette) regarding GM foods is that the gene that is spliced into the plants DNA doesn’t stay where it has been inserted. It essentially jumps around, turning genes on and off with no predictability. This could potentially cause mutations, disorders or even latent prehistoric viruses in our gut that we no longer have defenses against to come to life. Pretty scary stuff if you ask me. If you must consume soy I would definitely opt for organic varieties.
Next you are going to ask “what about all the Asian cultures that eat a lot of soy and remain healthy?” This is a fallacy. “The soy industry’s own figures show that soy consumption in China, Indonesia, Korea, Japan and Taiwan ranges from 10 to 90 grams per day. That is grams of soy FOOD, not grams of soy PROTEIN alone. Compare this with a cup of tofu (250 grams) or soy milk (240 grams).” (1) You can surely see that they do NOT have the high soy diet that we have been led to believe.
I can certainly give a big kudos to the soy industry for turning their waste products into a billion dollar business but I can’t say that I recommend soy as a healthy addition to your diet. As always, the choice is yours though and you should listen to your body.
Other Alternatives to Milk: Almond Milk, Hemp Milk, RAW Milk, Hazelnut Milk, Coconut Milk, etc…
Recommended Reading: The Whole Soy Story by Kaayla T. Daniel
– For Educational Purposes Only
– Not meant to diagnose or treat any medical condition
-These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA
– These statements are my opinions and conclusion from the knowledge I have thus far
Updated 04/30/10 to include Veggie Burger Hexane Info
References:
1. http://www.naturalnews.com/022630.html
Accessed: 03/19/09, Author: Teya Skae
2. http://uwstudentweb.uwyo.edu/L/LPETER11/Factsheet%20Genetically%20Modified%20Crops%20in%20the%20United%20States.htm
Accessed: 03/19/09,
3. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/08/04/fermented-soy.aspx
Accessed: 03/19/09, Author: Dr. Joseph Mercola
4. http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/thyroidproblems.html
Accessed: 03/19/09
5. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2005/02/26/soy-myths.aspx
Accessed: 03/19/09, Author: Dr. Joseph Mercola
6. http://www.naturalnews.com/025513.html
Accessed: 03/19/09, Author: Barbara Minton
7. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2005/03/23/soy-part-ten.aspx
Accessed: 03/19/09, Author: Dr. Joseph Mercola
8. http://www.naturalnews.com/028683_soy_burgers_hexane.html
Accessed: 04/30/10, Author: Ethan Huff
Wisdom That Heals 