Soy Disinformation  -Roger Mason

There has been a lot of propaganda on the "dangers" of soy foods. Also, read the Soy Disinformation article. This has taken place mostly on the Internet, but also in various magazines and publications. Of course, the moron newsletter doctors like Mercola, Sinatra, Williams, and Sears warn people of the non-existent dangers of soy foods. You would think these people would spend their time warning you about the dangers of eating too much fat, consuming so much sugar, eating too much period, the dangers of hydrogenated fats, the toxicity of prescription drugs, and the many other real dietary threats in the world. There is endless independent, clinical, published human research on the value of soy foods, and soy isoflavones. You'll find these studies in the major scientific journals of the world.

This anti-soy hysteria is coming from places like the America Dairy Association (ADA) and the Weston Price Foundation more than anywhere else. The ADA obviously wants you to keep drinking lots of toxic dairy milk and ruining your health.  Read our article Milk is Gonna Kill You. The Price Foundation has the strange mission (www.westonprice.org)  of getting you to eat more lard (seriously), beef fat, lamb fat (where does one go to buy lamb fat?), butter!, and all the poultry fats (have you ever seen turkey fat for sale?). They hate whole grains and beans of any kind, and tell you soy is “poison”. Read the Weston Price Foundation article for more information. Whole grains are the very basis of your diet, the very staff of life.  What do they recommend? Red meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy foods- the most unhealthy foods on earth. These are full of saturated fat, cholesterol and cancer promoting animal proteins like casein, carnosine, and carnitine (read the China Study article). 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 and artery disease. This switch to healthier foods like non-dairy milks, and meat alternatives, threatens the meat and dairy industry very much financially.

It just isn’t practical for Americans to eat more soy foods in order to get the valuable soy isoflavones daidzein and genestein (and equol) contained in them. Using soy milk is the easiest way. Taking an isoflavone supplement is another way. Isoflavones are not “phytoestrogens” as they are completely and totally unrelated to any kind of estrogen. Hormones only exist in animals and not plants. Isoflavones are PLANT PIGMENTS, not phytoestrogens. Our estrogen receptors will not accept soy isoflavones. No one else on earth is telling you that there is no such thing as "phytoestrogens". What a farce!

Our culture is just not geared towards soy foods as are many Asian cultures. Soy milk is your best source. Read the article Non Dairy Milks. Boiled soybeans just don’t taste very good. Soy yogurt and soy ice cream are full of sugar. Are you really going to eat a half cup of soy flour, or a half cup of tempeh (ever heard of tempeh?) every day? Never heard of seitan either, right? Tofu is heavily refined, lacking in nutrition, and not a health food. Read the Tofu is Not a Health Food article. Natto is unknown. Miso is rarely eaten. Soy sauce is merely a condiment. The only practical way to do this is to use soymilk, or buy a reliable supplement with 40 mg of combined soy isoflavones.

When you look at the published, international, clinical research you see just how beneficial they are. The studies are almost endless here, and go back for decades. Our files on this include over one hundred published clinical human studies going back over 40 years to 1970. Eating a wide variety of natural foods will still not provide 40 mg of isoflavones. As you research different diseases and conditions like cancers, menopause, prostate health, heart and artery disease, the studies on isoflavones keep 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 is nothing less than overwhelming. First, 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, Vietnam, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and other countries. They have been eating soy for centuries. A wide variety of soy foods has been a basic part of their culture. The Okinawans are the healthiest and longest lived people on earth. They eat an astounding 12% soy foods in their daily diet. Who are the second longest living and healthiest? The Japanese, and they eat a lot of soyfoods. So do the Taiwanese, Vietnamese, and other cultures. Billions of Asian people over the last 100 years are indisputable proof soy is good food. This is inarguable proof of how health soy foods are.

Two articles were published in the Journal of Nutrition (v 131, 2001 and v 132, 2002) on the value of soy isoflavones for heart and artery health. In the first study, 208 women were studied. The doctors concluded, "These data suggest a protective role for dietary soy intake against CVD in post-menopausal women." The women with the highest intake of isoflavones had lower body mass indexes, lower body fat, smaller waists, and much lower insulin levels. High insulin leads to diabetes, heart disease, cancers, and other illnesses. Read the two insulin articles. The second study was from the famous Framingham Study. Here doctors studied 939 women. "High intake of phytoestrogens in postmenopausal women appears to be associated with a favorable metabolic cardiovascular risk profile."

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 does produce a higher oil and higher protein content, but it is naturally strain selected, not genetically engineered. Yes, now we have GMO soybeans, but that is a completely different matter. Make sure all your soy foods are marked “organic” or “non-GMO” so you avoid GMO soy. Another lie is that Asian people eat mostly fermented soyfoods that are not harmful. This is ridiculous. Most soy foods are not fermented, and this would not change the isoflavones.

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. This is too ridiculous to comment on. Too many people, however, take such ravings seriously. When you try to find the proof of these allegations, they start to evaporate. If you actually hunt down any of these so-called "studies" and look at them in detail, you'll see they have no validity at all.

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. All this without any change in diet or exercise. When soy supplements are added to better diet and lifestyle changes, the benefits are even more dramatic. How can soy improve your blood lipids so powerfully if it is "dangerous"? 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 wants to publicize the proven benefits of soy foods, but almost none of these studies are from ADM, nor funded by them. There are many more soy growers.

What is the biggest killer disease all over the world? Coronary heart and artery disease by far. The Framingham Study is the largest and longest ongoing CHD study of all. This study concluded, “high intake of phytoestrogens in postmenopausal women appears to be associated with a favorable metabolic cardiovascular risk profile.” In fact, they found a huge 34% difference in CHD disease between women with low soy intake and high soy intake. 34% folks.

If you want to improve your health just drink soy milk and use it in cooking. Or take a 40 mg isoflavone capsule daily. This will benefit you in ways we haven't even discovered yet. New studies are being done all the time in clinics around the world. Soy is good stuff. Science has proven for decades that soy is good stuff. Billions of Asians for centuries have, too.

 

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