We've been had, episode 2,348: soy

Every once in a while you learn about something that has the potential to bring on an existential crisis.  I'm 40.  For most of my adult life, I have been under the impression that soy was a health food.   I have actually attempted to gag down that wretched soy "milk" in the interest of health and weight management.  I never did think that stuff tasted right, but I convinced myself to like it because it was "better for me" the uber-dreaded saturated fat-laden dairy products.  I used to like those fake chicken burger things, especially heated up in the George Forman grill because they get nice and crispy that way.  I ate veggie burgers.  I ate edamame.   Sometimes tofu but only crispy fried in Thai food.  They said it was good for us. 

Like hell.

Though often promoted as "healthful" with the phrase "no cholesterol," many brands of soy cheeses contain dangerous partially hydrogenated fats. The brands that taste the best often contain high levels. The main ingredient of Tofutti brand soy cheese, for example, is water, followed by partially hydrogenated soybean oil. The Citizens for Science in the Public Interest found that "each 2/3 ounce slice contains 2 grams of artery-clogging trans fats."31

Fabulous.  Really, do you think what comes from nature could possibly be worse for you than something food scientists created in a laboratory out of a crop that originally wasn't eaten but used for putting nitrogen back into the soil??  Soy freakin' cheese?   WHY do vegans insist on attempting to replicate animal products if they despise them so much? 

Moving on...

Soy is high in phytic acid, which is an antinutrient.   It chelates important minerals from your body.  Phytic acid is so good at chelating, the actually use it for uranium removal.  A high soy diet can make you deficient in calcium, magnesium, zinc, and iron as well as the vitamin niacin.   But hey, what's a little mineral deficiency?

Magnesium plays important roles in the structure and the function of the human body, involved in more than 300 essential metabolic reactions, including energy production. The adult human body contains about 25 grams of magnesium. Signs of magnesium deficiency include low calcium, hence the diseases associated with it, low serum potassium levels (hypokalemia), retention of sodium, low circulating levels of parathyroid hormones (PTH,) neurological and muscular symptoms such as tremors, muscle spasms, tetany, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, and personality changes. 

Trypsin inhibitors in soy interfere with the digestion of protein, among other things.  Soy phytoestrogens mess with your endocrine system, and are also antithyroid, which can cause hypothyroidism.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Are you beginning to feel violated?  (emphasis added)

How could something so bad for you be promoted as a health food, you may ask? Like many other things, it's all about big business, marketing and profits. Even the holistic doctors promoting soy usually benefit from it financially, in their associations with companies that make foods containing soy. One has to assume they are ignorant of the problems with soy or think them insignificant, as evidenced by the fact that Christiane Northrup, M.D., promoter of the high-isoflavone Revival soy products, was recently diagnosed as hypothyroid (soy isoflavones suppress the thyroid). Growing and processing soy is a big business. All the various components of soybeans are highly processed to create the wide array of soy foods now on the market, as well as adding soy components to many existing foods, like meats at fast food restaurants. No part of the soybean is thrown away--every part of it is processed into some type of food product for humans or animals. There is a huge profit to be made in selling all these soy products. The soybean industry therefore puts a spin on the supposed health benefits of soy and downplays the levels of toxins in them. For instance, soy is promoted as helping alleviate the symptoms of menopause but there are numerous studies showing that soy is no better than a placebo for this. Soybeans have replaced indigenous crops in many countries around the world. According to The Whole Soy Story, soybean farming has caused more loss of Amazon rainforest than cattle ranching. So if you are eating your soy burgers to spare the rain forest, you are actually causing more destruction of it.

And so a myth is shattered, that going vegan will save the planet.   Heh.

Then there's the manganese, which we're not supposed to have too much of.   When a crop of soybeans is putting nitrogen into the soil, it's sucking up massive amounts of manganese. 

The soybean plant has the ability to absorb manganese from the soil and concentrate it to an extent that soy-based infant formulas can contain as much as 200 times the level of manganese found in natural breast milk.  In babies, excess manganese that cannot be metabolised is stored in body organs.  Around eight percent of the excess manganese in the diet is stored in the brain in close proximity to the dopamine-bearing neurons responsible, in part, for adolescent neurological development.

The implications are that the one in eight infants raised on soy formula during the first six months of life may be at risk of brain and behavioural disorders that do not become evident until adolescence...

But...but...what about all those Asian people who eat loads of soy and are so healthy?  Yeah, not so much really. 

Just how much soy did Asians eat?

In short, not that much, and contrary to what the industry may claim soy has never been a staple in Asia. A study of the history of soy use in Asia shows that it was used by the poor during times of extreme food shortage, and only then the soybeans were carefully prepared (e.g. by lengthy fermentation) to destroy the soy toxins. Yes, the Asians understood soy alright!

Many vegetarians in the USA, and Europe and Australasia would think nothing of consuming 8 ounces (about 220 grams) of tofu and a couple of glasses of soy milk per day, two or three times a week. But this is well in excess of what Asians typically consume; they generally use small portions of soy to complement their meal. It should also be noted that soy is not the main source of dietary protein and that a regime of calcium-set tofu and soy milk bears little resemblance to the soy consumed traditionally in Asia.

I'm not going to tell you what to do, but knowing all this (and of course tons more info at the links and I highly encourage you to research this much further) you can make a better informed decision whether or not you and your family eat soy. 

Don't even get me started on cholesterol and lipids.