The Anti-Soy Hysteria

- Roger Mason

     

There has been a lot of propaganda recently on the "dangers" of soy foods. This has taken place mostly on the internet but also in various magazines and publications. Of course liberals stay up at night making up endless crises- the solution for which is always bigger government and more laws. You would think these people would spend their time warning you about the dangers of eating too much fat, eating too much sugar, eating too much period, the dangers of hydrogenated fats, the dangers of prescription drugs and the many other real dangers in the world. I mean, why make up problems that don't exist when so many real problems abound?

Anyway, this anti-soy hysteria seems to be coming from places like the America Dairy Association and the Weston A. Price Foundation more than anywhere else. The ADA obviously wants you to keep drinking lots of milk and ruining your health. The Price Foundation (www. westonaprice.org) has the strange mission of getting you to eat more lard (seriously), beef fat, lamb fat (where does one go to buy gallon buckets of lamb fat?), BUTTER! and all the poultry fats (have you ever seen duck fat for sale?). More and more people are tired of stuffing themselves with saturated animal fats and ending up with a long list of diseases like cancer and heart attacks. The switch to healthier foods like soy milk threatens their wallets.

In this column we have repeatedly said it is not practical for Americans to eat more soy foods in order to get the valuable soy isoflavones daidzein and genestein contained in them. One cup of soy milk a day will add 6,000 calories to your monthly diet. Are you really going to eat a half cup of soy flour or a half cup of tempeh (you never heard of tempeh?) every day? The only practical way to do this is to buy a reliable supplement with 40 mg of combined soy isoflavones per capsule stated on the label. .

Four years ago I did not take soy isoflavones and had no idea of just how beneficial they are. I eat a wide variety of natural foods but found it almost impossible to eat a serving of soy food every day that would provide 40 mg of isoflavones. As I researched different diseases and conditions like cancers, menopause, prostate health, heart and artery disease the studies on isoflavones kept coming up over and over. Studies from clinics around the world in major medical journals kept finding new or confirmed benefits for soy supplementation. The evidence was nothing less than overwhelming. Let's look at some of the anti-soy propaganda. The claim is made that Asians really don't eat much soy after all. That's ridiculous as anyone will tell you who has visited Japan, China, Viet Nam, Indonesia and other countries. They have been eating soy for centuries and a wide variety of soy foods have been a basic part of their culture.

Next we hear that the original soybean (Glycine soja) is different from the modern soybean (Glycine max) and the new bean is "genetically engineered". Caught them in another lie. Yes, all plants are continually grown to produce more and better crops. The modern Glycine max bean has been to produce a higher oil and higher protein content, but it has NOT been genetically engineered at all.

Next you hear that eating soy causes dire illness like thyroid conditions, diabetes, nutritional deficiencies, pancreatic problems, endocrine disorders, brain dysfunction and even various cancers. Now this would be funny if everyone in the world was intelligent and laughed at such allegations. But most people are far from intelligent and take such ravings seriously. When you try to find the proof of these allegations it starts to evaporate. I am personally going to hunt down many of these so-called "studies" and look at them in minute detail next month.

Let's take a look at cholesterol for example. There have been so many studies published on the value of soy supplementation for lowering total cholesterol and LDL (the bad kind) cholesterol you can hardly count them. Soy added to the diet also raises HDL (the good kind) cholesterol levels. And all this is without any change in diet or exercise. When soy supplements are added to lifestyle changes, the benefits are even more dramatic. How can soy improve your blood lipids so powerfully if it is "dangerous". Kind of doesn't make sense does it.

You're also told this is an "insidious" plot by Archer Daniels Midland Corporation to push these dangerous soybeans and profit off your gullibility. Well, certainly ADM wants to sell soybeans and certainly wants to publicize the proven benefits of soy foods, but I haven't heard one word from ADM that wasn't factual and verified. I do want to clear up something here. Even medical journals keep calling these flavones "phytoestrogens". In fact EVERYBODY calls them phytoestrogens. The problem is they aren't related to estrogens or any other hormones in any way, shape or form. Flavones are flavonoids which are plant pigments. Estrogens (estradiol, estrone and estriol) are steroids secreted by the endocrine (ductless) glands and found only in mammals. No relation at all between the two but no one in the world seems to understand such an obvious scientific fact even in medical journals.

If you want to improve your health, buy a soy isoflavone supplement with about 40 mg of combined genestein and daidzein and take one a day. This will cost you all of about $3 a month and will benefit you in ways we haven't even discovered yet. New studies are being done all the time in clinics around the world.