Soy in your diet

The soy bean is widely marketed as a 'healthy choice' in the food industry, but is it really healthy? This article seeks to understand what the soy bean is and if it is really as healthy as it’s promoted to be.

The soy bean is a southeast Asian annual leguminous plant (Glycine max),  cultivated for forage and soil improvement and for its seeds. When fermented with yeast, soy beans make soy sauce. Unfermented soy products are made using soy beans in different forms (ie: drying and grinding to a powder to be used in food processing as a bulker or food additive).

Some food scientists believe that when soy is consumed in its unfermented form in foods like tofu milk, tofu ice cream, or even just plain tofu, you are ingesting toxins that create side effects and even illness such as serious gastric distress, reduced protein digestion and chronic deficiencies in your amino acid uptake. Studies show that ingesting 100 grams of soy per day is also the estrogenic equivalent of the Birth Control Pill.

Further more, soy has been widely used in processed foods to bulk out proteins (ie: in sausages and deli meats) or as a meat protein substitute in veggie foods. The irony here is that vegetarian foods are highly processed and contain more additives, preservatives and food colorants to make them ‘look’ and ‘taste’ like their meat counterparts.

If you consume soy products in your diet on a regular basis and are experiencing stomach upset, gas, cramping or any other abnormal health symptoms you might be sensitive to soy or even allergic.

Our advice is simple: Do your own research. Never assume that because a product is on a store shelf that it is safe for daily consumption.

The following are excerpts taken from the article Cinderella's Dark Side by by Sally Fallon & Mary G. Enig, Ph.D. For a complete copy of the article, please click here - http://www.mercola.com/article/soy/avoid_soy.htm

SOY & PESTICIDES: A very large percentage of soy is genetically modified and it also has one of the highest percentages of contaminations by pesticides of any of our foods.

SOY & ESTROGEN: One hundred grams of soy protein - the maximum suggested cholesterol-lowering dose, and the amount recommended by Protein Technologies International - can contain almost 600 mg of isoflavones, an amount that is considered toxic. Also, in 1992, the Swiss health service estimated that 100 grams of soy protein provided the estrogenic equivalent of the Birth Control Pill.

SOY & DISEASE: Toxicologist Mike Fitzpatrick. PhD uncovered evidence that soy consumption has been linked to numerous disorders, including infertility, increased cancer and infantile leukemia.

SOY & THYROID DISFUNCTION: In 1991, Japanese researchers reported that consumption of as little as 30 grams or two tablespoons of soybeans per day for only one month resulted in a significant increase in a thyroid-stimulating hormone. Diffuse goiter and hypothyroidism appeared in some of the subjects and many complained of constipation, fatigue and lethargy, even though their intake of iodine was adequate.

SOY & COST TO CONSUMER: Soy milk sales are rising in Canada, even though soy milk costs twice as much as cow's milk (and twice as much to produce!). Soybean milk processing plants are sprouting up in places like Kenya. Even China, where soy really is a poverty food and whose people want more meat, not tofu, has opted to build Western-style soy factories rather than develop western grasslands for grazing animals.

SOY & BABIES & GROWING CHILDREN:  Approximately 25 per cent of bottle-fed children in the US receive soy-based formula - a much higher percentage than in other parts of the Western world. Toxicologist Mike Fitzpatrick. PhD estimated that an infant exclusively fed soy formula receives the estrogenic equivalent (based on body weight) of at least five birth control pills per day. As for girls, an alarming number are entering puberty much earlier than normal, according to a recent study reported in the journal Pediatrics. Investigators found that one per cent of all girls now show signs of puberty, such as breast development or even pubic hair, before the age of three; by age eight, 14.7 per cent of girls and almost 50 per cent of African-American girls have one or both of these characteristics.

Here are more interesting articles about the dangers of consuming soy in our diet:

The Soy Controversy by Mary G. Enig, PhD - http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/soy_controversy.html

Is Soy Healthy by Marc Leduc - http://www.healingdaily.com/detoxification-diet/soy.htm