Over the years, I've become terribly allergic to soy, we're talking full-blown allergic reaction here...and if you are not currently allergic to soy, it doesn't mean that you will never be.
Soy is one of the TOP 8 Food Allergens in the entire world. This is not something to be brushed aside.
And because it is used in so many commercial products (even products where you think you'd never dream of finding soy), it doesn't help matters either, because as a population, we end up consumming WAY TOO MUCH of it.
Remember: Eat everything in moderation. As Tamara and my other Vegan and Vegetarian friends have commented, there's lots of ways to get your protein without having to rely (so heavily) on soy.
Over-consumption of soy can be extremely detrimental to your health.
Even if you are not vegetarian or vegan, do you know how much soy there are in commercial products and how much you're consumming on a daily basis?
All of those "Weight Loss". "Diet", "Lean" and "Weight Control" products (everything from Instant Oatmeal to chocolate drizzled 100 calories snacks, to all the Diet Frozen Entrées, etc) are loaded with soy!
Why? It's simple:
1) It helps these companies drastically REDUCE the number of calories in their products, so more people who 'watch their weight' or 'watch what they eat' will buy them.
2) It helps these companies reduce the fat content/calories from fat in their products, thus again, resulting in an overall lower caloric content, and so people buy them to 'stay on plan'.
3) It makes people who are dieting think that they can have their cake and eat it too.
4) It reduces production costs, and it helps to keep the overall protein content of the product at a high enough level.
Like I said, everything in MODERATION is key... but when it's in almost every single product, then that can become a serious problem, since so many people end-up developping soy-related health problems over time:
"...Epidemiological, clinical and laboratory studies link soy to malnutrition, digestive problems, thyroid dysfunction, cognitive decline, reproductive disorders, even heart disease and cancer."
If you haven't read this book yet, I highly recommend it, and it's on sale at a really great price at the moment:
For my US friends - You can read about it here & purchase it on Amazon.com
(also read the many reviewer comments - it's quite informative):
The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food
The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food
And for my Canadian friends , you can purchase it here on Amazon.ca,
and it's cheaper than the US Sale price - not a bad deal!!!:
I'm not saying to stop eating it altogether, but you should be made aware that over time, you can develop some allergies and other serious health complications if you eat too much of it.
The more information we share, the more we have....
Peace :)
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5 comments:
Take this book with a HUGE grain of salt. While a person can develop an allergy to any food (particularly high protein foods), soy has been used as a large portion of the diet by billions of people with no identifiable ill effects. Soy has not been meaningful linked to any of the things you list above (unless perhaps it's the only thing in your diet). Obviously, the best way to eat soy is the best way to eat all things: in their least processed forms (in the case of soy this means: tofu, miso, tempeh, edamame, soymilk made with whole soybeans).
The woman who wrote this book is part of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a group that believes that soy will make your children gay and that raw milk and organ meats will fulfill all of your nutritional issues. Examine their "evidence" with care, as most of it cannot be substantiated or is based on faulty research. They depart from the evidence-based nutritional views of almost the entire world of nutrition experts.
-Ariann
Wow you are really doing your research, good for you! Even I learned a few things in this blog. You are doing a great job!
Hi Ariann, I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to reply to your comments any sooner. It's been rather hectic here the past few days.
Obviously, soy or any other food product isn't going to make anyone gay or purple or green or grow antennas, but Soy is one of the TOP 8 Food Allergens, and that has been proven by many other people, and I am not basing my comments on just this book.
I *do* know of Vegans who have developped hypothyroidism (sp?) from eating soy and they can no longer eat soy. This is not a rare occurence, but a serious health concern, on top of the allergies themselves and other health problems that develop from consumming *too much* soy.
Indeed, like you, I agree that it is best to consume all foods in their least processed form, but unfortunately, a lot of people (vegans, dieters, and other folks) rely way too much on highly processed soy products (soy hot dogs, soy chicken nuggets, soy burgers, and all the 'regular' commercial processed foods that include a LOT of soybeans, and Soybean oil, and Soy Lecithin, etc).
People end up consumming way too much of it. They often don't read labels, or they don't stop to think at how quickly it adds up at the end of each day, of each week, of each month. Soy is almost everywhere in commercial products - I should know, I read labels because I have to avoid it or become extremely ill.
In Asia, soy is eaten in its least processed form, and it is never eaten alone - it is usually accompanied by a fish or some meat, and rice. They don't have the health problems that we do here in North America.
Over here, we consumme so much processed foods, that we end up overeating that stuff, and it's the 'highly processed stuff' like that which is not good - it's in all the DIET foods, frozen entrées, snacks, etc. It's a plague, it's too much.
But dieters don't stop to think about it, they're just trying to find low-calories treats and favorite food 'equivalents' to the junk they are used to shoving down their throat.
They think that they're doing their body some good, and they are eating a TON of it. Just go on the WW message boards and you'll see, it's scary.
They are not eating the least processed form of soy, it's the highly processed 'crap' - and that is certainly a concern.
The more people read about it, the better.
Like everything, no matter which side of the coin, take what you want from it and leave the rest. That's what I do :)
I would say the more people read about it, the better, only if what they're reading has some factual basis. Soy is one of the top eight allergens, yes, but that doesn't mean that it will harm someone who is not genetically susceptible to the allergen to begin with or who is not introduced to it too young. After all, when was the last time you heard anyone railing against eating too many almonds as an adult because you might become allergic? The campaign against soy is unfortunately as much political as it is science-based. And the campaign FOR soy (at least in its processed form) is much the same.
Vegans may become hypothyroid, but more importantly, lots of non-vegans who eat minimal to no soy also become hypothyroid as they age. Hypothyroidism is an extremely common malady and I have yet to see any serious research showing that soy causes thyroid problems - all of the research I have seen on it says that people who already have thyroid problems are negatively affected by eating soy (and many other things which would otherwise be considered extremely healthful foods for the general population like cabbage and broccoli).
-Ariann
Hi Ariann,
I guess we will have to 'agree to disagree' on this topic.
You see, I'm only trying to say that Soy is everywhere (pretty much) and that people (vegans and meat eaters) are subject to eating A LOT MORE of it than they think they are, and that one should be careful, especially about the HIGHLY processed kind, not the natural kind that you were talking about in a previous comment.
When you say this here: "...lots of non-vegans who eat minimal to no soy also become hypothyroid as they age..."
Soy is found in approx. 95% of ALL commercial foods, but people do not know that it's there unless they read the ingredients. Soybean oil, soybeans, soy lecithin, are everywhere and everybody eats it, whether they think they do or not. Now, THAT is my problem with the whole thing.
Everybody eats donuts. Do you know what is in commercial donuts? Soybean oil.
Do you know what is in the icing on donuts? Yesterday I ate a bite of what I thought to be a regular good ol' fashion 'honey glazed' donut. Never stopped to think that the ICING would contain soybean oil.
Guess what I spent the rest of the day doing. Having a major allergic reaction. I'm finally feeling better this morning. 1 bite.
Processed Soy is everywhere (please read labels), heck, it's in 'tomato' sauce for pasta... why would soy need to be in there? Why would soy need to be in a 'honey glaze' on a donut, for that matter.
So, saying that non-vegans who eat minimal to no soy = that doesn't exist. It's everywhere.
My mom bought a (forgive me, she is not vegetarian) commercial Meat Loaf that is pre-cooked and she just had to reheat it. SHe wanted to try it. I looked at the list of ingredients... what did I find? Soybeans.
The only place Soy isn't these days, is if you cook entirely from scratch using fresh ingredients.
And how many people do that these days?
I am forced to do this (and I don't always have the time to cook from scratch nor do I feel like cleaning a kitchen full of pots and pans all the time), but other than this, it is not safe for me to eat out or grab commercial products to get a break from cooking all the time from scratch.
My dad bought himself some oatmeal (the instant stuff). What did I find on the ingredients list? Soy... in oatmeal!
Stop at a fast food restaurant and grab a quick burger, or breakfast sandwich (with saussage or something), there is soy in there.
Buy a kiddy snack pack with chicken nuggets, there is soy in there...
Kids are exposed to it at a very young age, even babies (soy milk formulas, very popular, sold everywhere)...
So, there is no proof that the Soy is not the cause of everybody's hypothyroidism in the end. Soy is everywhere, and people cannot avoid it unless they read labels and stop eating at restaurants.
SO yes, hypothyroidism is a very common malady. So is finding Soy absolutely everywhere.
And as far as other allergies are concerned. A person can develop allergies to anything they eat over time. It doesn't have to do about the quantity, but you can develop sensitivities.
You are not born with those, they develop over time.
When I was a child, I was eating bananas and many other fruits. All of a sudden, at age 6 (I remember my age, we had moved into a different home when it started happening), whenever I would eat a banana, my ear canals would start itching and so would the roof of my mouth.
I didn'T know to link this to an allergic reaction, I was a kid and that was 37 years ago.
One day, I ate one, and I ended up in hospital with an anaphalactic reation.
After that, I didn't eat bananas (my parents have no food allergies btw, and I'm an only child). For about 30 years after that, bananas were my only food allergy. I ate strawberries, pears, melons (all kinds), no problem what-so-ever.
A few years ago, I started having the itchy roof in my mouth and itchy ear canals whenever I would eat a pear (the same kind I've always eaten since I was a kid), and started having the same reaction when I eat cantaloup and honey dew melon (but I'm ok with watermelon)...
I did not go and eat truckloads of these fruits for nearly 40 years, and I had no reactions for all those years... so if I was susceptible 'genetically' don't you think that it would have taken less than 40 years for me to develop those food allergies?
I am so allergic to strawberries now (and that has been my favorite fruit since I was a kid), that I cannot eat those nor the other fruits listed. Whether I used to eat just a few of them per year or every week on a regular basis.
Strawberries are also in the top 8 food allergens, but pears, and cantaloup and honey dew melons are not.
I can at least control and select whether I want to risk eating one of the top 8 allergens (peanuts, strawberries, etc), but Soy is a different story. Soy is incorporated into everything.
Companies NOW create some of their product lines in "Peanut FREE" facilities... because so many people are now allergic to peanuts. If there weren'T so many, these companies wouldn'T bother but they were losing a TON of money with their snack foods being banned from schools and so on.
So, with Soy (soybeans, soybean oil, soy lecithin) also being on the list, and used in everything from tomato sauce, to oatmeal, to being mixed in to the vast majority of commercial food products, why should everybody be subjected to eating it daily? Ask anybody, they think they are not eating soy - read your labels on all commercial products you use, and it's in all the diet products out there, diet snacks, diet frozen entrées (how do you think they keep the calorie count so low yet you get a decent portion of 'meat balls' with your diet spaghetti entrée).
It is almost everywhere - And that is not good in my opinion. That's where you cannot say that there's people that eat minimal to no soy. It's impossible to eat minimal to no soy unless you cook absolutely everything from scratch.
And there ain't many of those people (unless they are like me - and there are a lot like me - people that are allergic to soy).
This topic is now closed - This post is from last month, and comments are moderated on it and I am not getting the blogger notifications (I don't know why) that people are posting comments. I found your comment by accident when I logged in here for the first time since I last posted. My blogger is buggy on my computer, I even have problems posting my own commment on old posts. I don't know why.
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