Or … Sometimes the More You Find Out, the Less You Really Know
For years I have been under the impression that switching to soy products was a good thing to do for your health. Soy milk instead of cow’s milk. Tofu instead of meat. Edamame instead of peas. Actually I didn’t realize that edamame, tofu and miso were made of soy beans until the day before yesterday, but that doesn’t change the fact that I thought these foods were for the super-healthy and health-conscious.
Then the other day, I was talking soy beans with a super-knowledgeable, food-informed young friend. Or rather, she was talking and I was listening. My friend and her family have been paying attention to healthy eating matters and practicing healthy eating for many years. Food is her "thing." She is paying attention. Here’s what she said:
In their raw state, soy beans are toxic to humans.
Hold the phone! Even I know this is a HUGE clue right there. If it’s not good for you raw, why would it be good for you cooked? According to Wikipedia:
For human consumption, soybeans must be cooked with "wet" heat to destroy the trypsin inhibitors (serine protease inhibitors). Raw soybeans, including the immature green form, are toxic to humans, swine, chickens, and in fact, all monogastric animals.
My friend also said:
While soy products are a great source of protein, they may have other impacts on your body beyond nutrition because of a plant compound in soy beans that mimics estrogen.
In areas where soy products, especially soy milk, are in widespread use, the population’s hormones are being affected, including girls beginning to have their periods as young as nine years old.
Consuming large amounts of soy products increases infertility.
Wow! According to this article in the December 9, 2009 issue of Scientific American Magazine, it’s all true and more:
This brief foray into soy beans has led me to these unsatisfactory conclusions:
- The internet is making us stupid. Well, it’s making me stupid anyway. It is THE source of information, and whoever has the best SEO wins, instead of whoever has the best facts and credibility. Google, can you please get to work on that?
- We need better, objective, conclusive scientific research. There are conclusive answers, they just seem to elude us for now. Maybe that’s where all those brilliant math and science students would be helpful. How many research studies did it take to reach universal agreement that radioactivity was bad for your health? Were there any studies which claimed otherwise?
- Do we need soy? Is it possible to feed all the people on this planet without soy?
- Lastly and most importantly: "Everything in moderation" emerges once again as the best advice. Consume soy in moderation. Of course, that doesn’t help all the babies drinking soy infant formula all day. Or the kids eating soy in their hamburger meat at school every day. Soy is probably in all kinds of products that we don’t even know about. How can you exercise moderation in your soy intake if you don’t even realize you’re consuming soy? Make it a point to pay attention to how much soy you’re actually consuming.
Now you know why I typically let this kind of stuff go in one ear and out the other. I am left suspicious of soy products but without any iron-clad proof. It’s like all the conspiracy theories of the world: Something about them rings true, but it all doesn’t add up in the end. So you file it away in your brain’s X-FILES area and hope to find an answer some day. "The Truth is Out There." "Trust No One."
And I thought being an EnviroSeeker was going to be easy.
7 comments
teri orr says:
January 3, 2012 at 3:09 am (UTC 0 )
Oy…Soy!
Here’s what I know…after I stopped breat feeding I discovered, rather quickly, my son was allergic to cow’s milk. We needed to switch to soy. He grew to be 6′ 4″ tall and a Phd in physics. He played and lettered in socce,r football and basketball. He was on the top tier of the acedmic decathalon team. He skied alongside the guys who became the U.S. Ski Team.
What does it mean? Soy….oy oy….I have no idea.
admin says:
January 4, 2012 at 12:27 am (UTC 0 )
Thanks for the comment. I’ve got to go and drink five gallons of soy milk now.
Ginger Tolman says:
January 3, 2012 at 11:58 pm (UTC 0 )
I’ve recently returned from Japan, and became so enamored with what was happening with soy, I asked around. According to my Kyoto friends its about real soy versus processed replications.Okinawans are the world’s longest-lived people, probably in part because of their diet. For more than five millennia, they’ve eaten whole, organic and fermented soy foods like miso, tempeh, tofu, soy milk, and edamame (steamed). Oh, and they happen to be gorgeous and I can’t even talk about their skin without envy overtaking my entire zen-like being.
Processed soy on the other hand, reminds me of my youth in a family of ten, and something grainy that we added to ground beef to extend its ubiquitousness.TVP. It is a soy product with hints of cardboard and essence of nail.
Then there are those nasty soy protein isolate and concentrates, genetically engineered soy foods, soy supplements, and soy junk foods like soy cheese, soy ice cream, soy oil, and soy burgers. They don’t have the thousands of years of traditional use that whole soy foods do, are processed, and contain unhealthy fats and other compounds.
Whole soy yes. Processed soy no (or treat like a junk food). But that’s just me.
Can’t wait to see what you write next Ms. Whitney.
admin says:
January 4, 2012 at 12:26 am (UTC 0 )
Ginger, You are a soy-vant. Whole soy? Processed soy? We may have to ask you more questions on this subject for further illumination. Are you available for interviews? “Ginger Soyman tells is like it is.”
craftygreenpoet says:
January 11, 2012 at 8:50 pm (UTC 0 )
I have been a vegetarian for twenty years but had always avoided going vegan because I didn’t fancy all that process soya stuff. Then I found out that all that cheese I’ve been eating has meant that despite my being normal weight my cholesterol is high and for various reasons i need to get it right down. The solution is either eat lots of soy products or to go on statins for the rest of my life. I’m 45, it’s an easy choice, i don’t want to be on drugs for the rest of my life….. Infertility doesn’t bother me as i don’t want children, but I could see that being a problem for some.
admin says:
January 11, 2012 at 10:00 pm (UTC 0 )
Thanks for your comment. I am a GIGANTIC cheese eater/lover. What are statins? I literally just started to pay attention to all this stuff! I am thankful to everyone who looks in on me and my little journal with their input.
craftygreenpoet says:
January 12, 2012 at 8:14 am (UTC 0 )
statins are cholesterol lowering drugs. They are very effective in lowering cholesterol but they can have significant side effects. These side effects increase the longer you are on the drugs. If you’re in your seventies and have lots of risk factors for stroke and heart disease then its probably worth your while to take them (though to stop if you get bad side effects) but if you’re in your 40s and don’t have any risk factors other than high cholesterol then reducing cholesterol through diet is probably far preferable, though if a doctor can find an excuse to put you on statins then they will make it very difficult to argue the case for diet.
Soya products reduce cholesterol and are a good replacement for high cholesterol dairy products. Other foods can reduce cholesterol too – oats, pulses (particularly red kidney beans) some nuts (particularly almonds) and proactive margarines.
I’m going to write a blog post about all this soon!