utne reader: The Dark Side of Soy, July/Aug 2007

http://www.utne.com/issues/2007_142/features/12607-1.html
—By Mary Vance, Terrain
* Risks associated with eating soy: endocrine disruption; digestive problems; deleterious effects on thyroid, fertility, hormones, sex drive, digestion, and a potential to contribute to certain cancers. "For every study that proved a connection between soy and reduced disease risk another cropped up to challenge the claims. What was going on?"

* "Epidemiological studies have shown that Asians, particularly in Japan and China, have a lower incidence of breast and prostate cancer than people in the United States, and many of these studies credit a traditional diet that includes soy. But Asian diets include small amounts--about nine grams a day--of primarily fermented soy products, such as miso, natto, and tempeh, and some tofu. Fermenting soy creates health-promoting probiotics, the good bacteria our bodies need to maintain digestive and overall wellness. By contrast, in the United States, processed soy food snacks or shakes can contain over 20 grams of nonfermented soy protein in one serving."

* "These days the industry has discovered ways to use every part of the bean for profit. Soy oil has become the base for most vegetable oils; soy lecithin, the waste product left over after the soybean is processed, is used as an emulsifier; soy flour appears in baked and packaged goods; different forms of processed soy protein are added to everything from animal feed to muscle-building protein powders. 'Soy protein isolate was invented for use in cardboard,' says clinical nutritionist Kaayla Daniel, author of The Whole Soy Story (New Trends, 2005). 'It hasn't actually been approved as a food ingredient.'"

* "Soy is everywhere in our food supply, as the star in cereals and health-promoting foods and hidden in processed foods. Even if you read every label and avoid cardboard boxes, you are likely to find soy in your supplements and vitamins (look out for vitamin E derived from soy oil), in foods such as canned tuna, soups, sauces, breads, meats (injected under poultry skin), and chocolate, and in pet food and body-care products. It hides in tofu dogs under aliases such as textured vegetable protein, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and lecithin--which is troubling, since the processing required to hydrolyze soy protein into vegetable protein produces excitotoxins such as glutamate (think MSG) and aspartate (a component of aspartame), which cause brain-cell death."

* Clinical nutritionist Ed Bauman, head of Bauman Clinic in Sebastopol, California, and director of Bauman College says, "Genetically modified (GM) soy is the most problematic, and that's probably what most people are eating if they're not paying attention. People can develop sensitivity to a food that has antigens or bacteria not originally in the food chain, as is the case with GM foods."

* "The highest risk is for infants who are fed soy formula. 'It's the only thing they're eating, they're very small, and they're at a key stage developmentally,' says Daniel. 'The estrogens in soy will affect the hormonal development of these children, and it will certainly affect their growing brains, reproductive systems, and thyroids.' Soy formula also contains large amounts of manganese, which has been linked to attention deficit disorder and neurotoxicity in infants. The Israeli health ministry recently issued an advisory stating that infants should avoid soy formula altogether."

* "Bauman believes processed soy foods are problematic but maintains that soy has beneficial hormone-mediating effects. ... Is soy the problem, or is it the handling and packaging and processing of the plant that's the problem?"