Vegetarians and vegans are often exposed to a plethora of soy products, ranging from tofu to "Tofurkey". Is soy too much of a good thing? What's the great debate about health benefits of soy?
Many anti-soy researchers including
Dr. Mercola, support the view that soy is not a magical health food. Are they correct? After all, these guys do have PhDs and fancy "doctor" labels.
So, soy oh so soy, what's the big fuss about?
It turns out, Dr. Mercola and other folks are largely behind the meat industry and have financial interests rather than public health. Dr. Mercola, for example, claims that soy is "dangerous" and instead recommends many animal products such as his "krill pills" on his website. Weston-Price Foundation, or those associated with the groups like Dr. Kaayla Daniel, are also anti-vegetarian, pro-meat & dairy. Theses anti-soyers all make negative and incorrect comments about vegetarianism and soy.
And you know what? This sort of anti-soy movement (especially on the web) is hugely done by the meat/dairy industry. After all, so much public misinformation is out there, why not confuse the public even more? Of course, the deep pockets of the meat and dairy industry can afford to spend a few millions of dollars to pour into this type of movement, to fuel the public misinformation and move the soy products into the public "fear" zone, just like the FDA did with
tomatoes.
Personally, I take on the following view on the controversy over soy, because it cites many reliable sources and studies.
What about Soy?In summary, the following are noteworthy:
- Since the medical research began accumulating, affirming that soy consumption reduced heart disease and cancer risk, that it lengthened lives and enhanced their quality, and that it provided an almost ideal protein to substitute for animal proteins. Demand for soy skyrocketed as the evidence of soy's health benefits kept accumulating.
- Sally Fallon & Mary Enig claims that the above is a "tragic mistake" because soybeans contain "toxins" or "antinutrients. Why?
- Fallon & Enig's accusation is based on a 1985 study that showed soy increases the risk of pancreatic cancer in rats, when fed with 100% soy diet.
- However, researchers with the National Cancer Institute point out that rats are extraordinarily sensitive to dietary protease inhibitors such as those found in soy. Humans do not have this kind of sensitivity.
- In
The China Study,
rats fed with 20% soy protein decreased their chances of getting cancer by 100%, even when injecting them with powerful carcinogens. By contrast,
rats fed with 20% animal protein (casein, which is milk protein) were all dead after 100 weeks.
-
The China Study proved that the similar happened in humans, after following 6,500 adults' dietary patterns and their diagnosed disease patterns in 20 years.
- No such intensive research has been done on 100% soy diet on humans. Personally, I highly doubt that anyone is willing to eat 100% soybeans for 20 years, however.
- Fallon & Enig's accusations that "soyfoods block calcium and cause vitamin D deficiencies" are not provided with any supporting evidence. Westerners have higher rates of osteoporosis than their Asian counterparts who consume more soy products such as tofu, rather than meat/dairy products such as cheese.
- According to the Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association officially recommends the inclusion of 25 grams or more of soy protein, with its associated phytochemicals intact, in the daily diet as a means of promoting heart health.
- Soy pooh pooh-ers say that lowered cholesterol levels, even those lowered by diet are, get this, dangerous. Wow!
- However, in the past 30 years, everything that has been learned about heart disease and cholesterol has a strongly high correlation in the medical science. Charles Glueck, M.D. director of the University of Cincinnati Lipid Research Center, noted: "For every one percent reduction in total blood cholesterol level, there is a two percent reduction of heart disease risk."
- Vegetarian diets that include moderate amounts of soy have consistently shown profound benefits for pregnancy and lactation, including much lower levels of the toxic chemicals that typically concentrate higher on the food chain in meat, fish and dairy products.
- Anti-soyers say that soy is high in estrogen, and that soy formulas are "birth control pills for babies."
- A major study published in the August, 2001, Journal of the American Medical Association found that infants fed soy formula grow to be just as healthy as those raised on cow's milk formulas.
- For adults however, studies found that
higher consumption animal protein such as cow's milk, increases the level of blood hormones such as estrogen. This is quite the opposite of what the anti-soy movement claims! Doesn't that mean
cow's milk and animal foods are actually the birth control pills for adults?!
- Fallon & Egnig, insist that only with the regular consumption of lard, butter and other full fat dairy products, and beef, can people derive the nutrients they need to be healthy. Joseph Mercola, for example, a Chicago osteopath who has authored a series of vehemently anti-soy articles that have circulated widely on the internet, is an ardent advocate of eating beef, chicken, turkey, ostrich, and other meats.
- Other anti-soy crusaders, most notably the U.S. dairy industry, clearly have a financial agenda. In recent years, the dairy industry has been waging war against soymilk, i.e. claiming that the term "milk" should only be used for cow's milk and not for other milk alternatives. ...
Of course, not all soy products must be healthy for us, but many of them are definitely better than drug-induced cow's milk and meat products. Furthermore, animal protein is a heavy contributor to many types of cancer, heart diseases, osteoporosis, and diabetes and I have personally seen it happening to my own family as well as other families. And that is one of my main reasons for going vegetarian.
At the same time, however, I'd also prefer to go with organic tofu and whole foods versus heavily processed products. This one very knowledgeable nutritionist who spoke at a world health festival in LA also talked about this issue briefly along with tips on nutrition, and I decided to follow her view as well. Here is a short article that summarizes her tips on how to disease-proof your diet:
How to disease proof your diet from World-Fest.The China Study also uncovers pretty much everything that we need to know about nutrition and health in the scientific sense, including the emphasis on whole foods, plant-based diet. (
For more information on The China Study, you may want to read here.)
So why yes, I will continue to be powered by tofu, thank you.
