More Anti-Soy Hysteria

Young Again.org

More Anti-Soy Hysteria

- Roger Mason

You may have gotten an ad in the mail from the Health Sciences Institute. Please read the article Horse Sh*t Institute in our free library. They publish a pitiful newsletter under the same. They will shamelessly promote anything for profit. The "newsletter" is really just a monthly advertisement for the products they promote from other companies for a per cent of the profits. Free enterprise is wonderful if it is honest and accurate, but such is not the case here at all. For example, they are pushing a cortisol test for $112 when you can get your cortisol accurately tested for $30. They are also pushing a Malaysian aphrodisiac called Tongkat Ali, they won't even identify by the botanical name. If you believe herbs will boost your flagging libido you'll always have a flagging libido. Good sex depends on good health and good relationship, not Magic Sex Herbs.

In this ad they are promoting Jonathan Wright's newsletter "Nutrition and Healing". Wright promotes himself as a holistic doctor and has a clinic. He is obviously an endlessly self promoting overachiever who is far more interested in promoting Jonathan Wright and his "credentials" than natural healing. His big diatribe is the "dangers of soy!" currently. If he knew anything about natural health he would have much more to do than warn you about nonexistent dangers of a very valuable food.

Wright claims that feeding an infant soymilk is, "getting the hormonal equivalent of five birth control pills a day." Right here we see a man who is not dealing with reality in the least. First of all, soybeans do not contain estrogen of any kind or any so-called "phytoestrogens". They contain plant pigments called "flavones". Soybeans contain mostly the isoflavones genestein and daidzein. These have been studied extensively for decades and have been found to be very valuable for human and animal health with no side effects. Billions of Asian people over centuries have shown soy to be very healthful. Birth control pills generally contain a powerful synthetic estrogen called ethinyl estradiol. This is even worse than the natural estradiol and is strongly linked to uterine cancer and many other problems in women. To compare plant pigments with synthetic powerful estrogen is prima facie stupidity.

Wright goes on to say that until the 1930's the only place in America you could even find soybeans was in paint and varnish. Let's hope he's on drugs because at least he'd have an excuse for this kind of babble. Nearly all Asians have been eating various soy foods for hundreds of years. We all know that. People in Korea, Japan, China, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Burma, Thailand and Indonesia have been eating a wide variety of soy foods. Billions of people over the centuries have shown no negative effects from eating soy products as a staple of their diet. Quite the contrary, Asians generally enjoy far better health than Westerners largely due to a superior diet. Doesn't that pretty much decide the question for you?

Wright goes on to say that due to "rigorous chemical processing" soy foods contain products that cause breast cancer, etc. He doesn't name them much less cite any studies to show this. What carcinogenic substances are in processed soy foods? What cancer causing chemicals are in tofu, soymilk, tempeh, soy flour, natto, and other soy foods? "Soybeans have been shown to cause everything from cancer to birth defects", Wright proclaims. Wright can't explain why Asian people, who eat soy foods as a staple, have much lower cancer rates and birth defect rates than Americans and Europeans who don't eat them. Such senseless rantings are indicative or mental imbalance.

It's a shame because Wright really does have some good things to say at times when he's not quoting his many "credentials" and promoting himself. He's a big believer in testosterone supplementation for both men and women who have low levels of testosterone. He knows about the benefits of progesterone supplementation and other natural hormones. He does often promote natural supplements instead of prescription drugs. Unfortunately he doesn't know very much about supplements.

The bottom line on soybeans is that soy isoflavones are very beneficial to our health in many ways from lowering cholesterol and protecting women from cancer to prostate cancer in men. The published international scientific literature is very clear on this. We are never going to eat enough soy foods in our American culture to make any difference. Exhortations to eat more soy foods are very impractical. The only way you could do this would be to drink an 8 ounce glass of soymilk every day, but this would add 120 calories a day to your diet and a staggering 3,600 calories a month or over 43,000 calories a year. Soymilk is best for cooking and cold cereal rather than a beverage. Tofu is a heavily refined food without much nutrition. Please read the article Tofu Is Not a Health Food. You aren't going to eat tempeh, natto, or seitan regularly and most people have never even tried them.

The only realistic way to get the many clinically proven benefits of soy isoflavones is to take a 40 mg capsule of a good brand every day. Make sure the label says EACH capsules (not two capsules) contains at least 40 mg of genestein and daidzein. This is inexpensive and something you can literally take for the rest of your life.

Please remember that the anti-soy hysteria on the Internet is the product of the dairy industry basically. The worst is the Weston Price Foundation who wants you to eat more meat and meat fat in your diet. As people get more educated and realize that milk and dairy products- no matter how low fat or no fat- contain LACTOSE which is indigestible and allergenic they turn to soy products. All adults of all races are allergic to lactose (milk sugar). The dairy protein casein is also very harmful. Wright should have spent his time telling people why they shouldn't drink milk and eat dairy products. If you want to learn more please go to www.notmilk.com and www.milksucks.com on the Internet. You will actually come to prefer soy or almond or oat or rice milk to cow milk. Chain groceries now carry eight different flavors of soy cheese including cheddar, jack, provolone, feta, mozzarella and others. You can use these in any recipe at all that calls for dairy products. The soy yogurt is just too full of sugar to be health though.

Soy is good food and thousands of years and billions of people prove it.