One difference in the effect of soy on Americans and Okinawans is the manner the soy is prepared. An article I read some time ago detailed the differences in how our industrial food producers process soy protein for edibility versus how traditional Asian cultures prepare soy. Soy in it’s raw form is not digestible by humans.
Needless to say our methods take short cuts. Those short cuts result in product that is less healthy than traditionally produced soy. Even traditionally produced soy has been identified as potentially stunting growth and its effects evidenced by the dramatic differences in height between Asian born and raised parents and their American born children raised on a low soy, western style diet.
How does that matter exactly and what foods does it include? The most popular forms of soy in the US today are tofu, soy milk, soy sauce, miso and tempeh. Those all seem traditional to me and are similar to the most popular forms in Okinawa.
An article I read some time ago detailed the differences in how our industrial food producers process soy protein for edibility versus how traditional Asian cultures prepare soy.
What is it specifically that we're doing to the beans when processed that impacts their edibility or makes them bad for us in any way? Is it soy four, soy protein concentrates or isolated soy protein that you have a problem with? All three require different processing and have different applications.
Soy in it’s raw form is not digestible by humans
Raw soybeans can certainly be digested by humans but this is not a desirable way to consume them. There are many popular foods that people probably shouldn't eat raw. Have you ever tried to eat rice without soaking or cooking it first? Again, so what?
Needless to say our methods take short cuts. Those short cuts result in product that is less healthy than traditionally produced soy.
Huh? What shortcuts do we take and how do these shortcuts result in a product that is "less healthy" (whatever that means)?
Even traditionally produced soy has been identified as potentially stunting growth
If you look long and hard enough you can find research proving just about anything. Research showing that soy stunts growth is either bogus from the start, manipulates data for a desired outcome or deals with quantities that have no basis in real world usage. This is nonsense.
....and its effects evidenced by the dramatic differences in height between Asian born and raised parents and their American born children raised on a low soy, western style diet.
If you spend enough time on FR you'll learn that we eat a lot more soy than Asians because soy is in just about every food found in the grocery store. I don't listen to that any more than I listen to those who think there is a direct correlation between the amount of soy consumed and the average height of Asians. It's just more nonsense being fed by all the new snake oil salesmen the internet has spawned.