Replies

The websites I referred you to tell the truth about soy.

OK.

The Japanese and Chinese don't eat soy in the amounts or in the forms most Americans eat it

Maybe not the Chinese but the Japanese and other Asians certainly consume a great deal of soy.

Japanese people eat soy basically as a condiment.

When I lived there in the late 80's it seemed that we had some soy product every day. This included tofu, miso, steamed soybeans along with all the condiments. Soy consumption is substantial when looking at Asia as a whole and it's interesting to note that the healthiest people come from places sporting the highest per-capita consumption of soy. Take Okinawa for example, they have the highest soy consumption on the planet and they live longer than any other people on the planet. There have been many studies on Okinawans and it's been shown that Okinawans are at extremely low risk for hormone–dependent cancers, including cancers of the breast, prostate, ovaries, and colon. Compared to North Americans, they have a staggering 80 percent less breast cancer and prostate cancer, and less than half the ovarian cancer and colon cancer.

Is soy the reason for this? I don't know but don't you find it interesting that the lowest cancer rates in the industrialized world are found in an area that also has the highest per-capita consumption of soy?

We westerners, on the other hand, put soy products such as "isolated soy protein" in nearly everything

Nearly everything? Hyperbole seems to be a common thread in your posts. What about isolated soy protein? It's comprised of 90% protein. What is it about the remainder of the product that's so bad for you?

Soy milk is a modern innovation unheard of before modern times and it doesn't have a proven safety record that ancient foods, like miso, tempeh, etc. have.

What is it about soy milk's safety record that you don't like? Did you ever stop to think about all those children who are born allergic to milk? If they can't have milk, what other source will supply them with a source of protein as high in quality as soy? The track record of soy milk is seen everyday with much healthier children. Additionally, soy milk provides more than 10 times as much essential fatty acids as cow’s milk. Cow's milk contains more than nine times as much saturated fat as soy milk, so is far more likely to contribute to heart disease. Soy milk is cholesterol-free, while cow’s milk contains 34 mg of cholesterol per cup. Soy milk lowers both total and LDL cholesterol levels, while cow’s milk raises both total and LDL cholesterol levels.

If it's not natural, if it doesn't have a millenia-long track record of providing good health, it shouldn't be eaten.

I couldn't imagine going through life being unable to enjoy so may foods. What do you eat? How do you ever manage to go out to a restaurant and enjoy yourself?

I see you've chosen to link me to more junk science from your friends at the Weston Price Foundation. Let's look at what they have to say.

First among them are potent enzyme inhibitors which block the action of trypsin and other enzymes needed for protein digestion. These "antinutrients" are not completely deactivated during ordinary cooking and can produce serious gastric distress, reduced protein digestion and chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake

The authors couldn't have overstated this issue any more than they have. While it's true that the protein found in cooked soybeans is slightly less digestible than proteins from animal foods, the amount is so small as to be insignificant. Of course, fermented soy products will offer better digestibility than animal foods. Even considering minimal reduction in digestibility, cooked soybeans are so high in protein, and in all the essential amino acids, that they could be utilized as the sole source of protein in a person's diet.

Trypsin inhibitors and hemaglutinin have been rightly labeled "growth depressant substances

This nonsense is all based on animal studies where they fed amounts of soybeans to the animals that have no relationship to real world human consumption. This is a typical ploy in much research today and it is absolutely wrong to draw conclusions from animal studies even with species that seem quite closely related because they function quite differently than humans at a molecular level. I've read about tests where baby rats didn't thrive on soy milk so the researchers made all sorts of wacky conclusions and then asked for more grant money. What these researchers didn't tell you was that the baby rats didn't survive on human breast milk either. The research the Price Foundation is citing is a lot of BS.

"Soybeans are also high in phytic acid or phytates. This is an organic acid, present in the bran or hulls of all seeds, which blocks the uptake of essential minerals-calcium, magnesium, iron and especially zinc-in the intestinal tract. Although not a household word, phytates have been extensively studied. Scientists are in general agreement that grain and legume based diets high in phytates contribute to widespread mineral deficiencies in third world countries.

This is a common refrain used by the toxic terrorists and, as usual, it's based on grossly overstating what's real to create alarm. The issue of phytates might be important if you only ate foods high in phytates. Of course, that's not what humans do. We like variety in our diets. Phytic acid levels found in a plant-based diet including a serving or two of soy a day are not high enough to cause mineral absorption problems for most people eating varied diets. When soy products are fermented phytate levels are reduced to about a third their initial level. Other methods of soy preparation such as soaking, roasting and sprouting also significantly reduce phytate content.

For every alarmist claim about soy, and most other foods approved for consumption, there is a rebuttal based on sound-science. Unfortunately, the alarmists get all of the attention because people, who really don't understand enough about biochemistry and physiology, read what they say and believe it because they sound like they know what they're talking about. The soy debate, IMHO, is the most complex and contentious. HFCS is pretty simple. So is MSG. Artificial sweeteners also create a lot of needless anxiety. To buy into all this nonsense though, you have to believe that the FDA is aware of all the criticism being leveled at these ingredients but is ignoring them and the health and safety of the American public. The FDA doesn't serve industry. They have nothing to gain in doing so. The adversarial relationship between the FDA and the food industry is only exceeded by that between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry. If there were any truth to all this stuff you linked me to, the FDA would have acted on it a long time ago. Fortunately, they know junk science when they see it and I'm pleased to know that more rational people are overseeing what products are available to us for consumption.