Soy: The Great Debate

I was once a big eater of soy. I loved it because it was such a simple way to get protein. Then I discovered I had something called atypical ductal hyperplasia in one breast. Soy and its phyto-estrogens are thought to be a contributor to breast cancer. So, overnight I stopped eating all soy. Asian diets contain soy but not at the volume that many of us in the West consume it. I think it's better to eat soy in moderation.

I consume moderate to low amounts of soy. I like soy based vegetarian "meats" and I'll eat those every now and then. I also eat soy sauce sometimes and it's probably in a few other things I eat. I definitely agree with you, Jim, about the diversity factor in one's diet. I suppose you'd have issues if you ate a butt-load of soy stuff every day for most of your life, but you'd also have issues if all you ate all day were carrots or eggs or bread and baloney. The studies they do to get these conclusions (like about phytoestrogens causing cancer, etc.) involve dosing animals with probably more soy than you could ever eat in your life. They have to prove it was the soy that caused it, not environmental factors. So I wouldn't worry too much about eating soy if you eat it in moderation. But if you eat soy every day, you may want to cut back a little.

MMM soy dogs and soy burgers are so yummy.

Soy like any food is mostly fine in moderation,
but I’d check with your doctor if you have breast cancer running in your family.
Get protein from a bunch of different sources.
For vegans you might want to try beans, seeds, legumes, wheat meat if you aren’t allergic.

Its all about a diet with variety isnt it.
And as for vegetarians, I always say, "Are you vegetarian because you want fake meat or are you a vegetarian because you want vegetables"

Anytime you limit you diet to a specific food, it will cause problems. Too much of anything will be bad. Soy products are usually good, but they are not the only food. Variety is key.

Anytime you limit you diet to a specific food, it will cause problems. Too much of anything will be bad. Soy products are usually good, but they are not the only food. Variety is key.

Soy is not an essential food.

It's basically a filler for junk food. A lot of low carb bars contain this soy.

The hormonal affects of soy are a concern.

It's funny how people say you shouldn't restrict the use of one type of food.

Are you guys saying that evegetarians are off their rocker, because they exclude animal products?

It seems the only reason to eat soy, would be because you are vegetarian. But then again they can get protein from other sources.

I love soy. I eat tofu or tempeh about three times a week and I add a little soy milk (from whole soy beans) to my smoothies or popsicles on some days. I think this is a good balance of soy usage; I could maybe eat some more tempeh. I do prefer to not eat the soy isolate things on a regular basis, because in general I like to eat foods that I can make in my own kitchen.

I also read the Guardian article, but did find it a bit too much on the scaremongering side. Like any other food, soy has benefits and drawbacks. Some people, like those with thyroid problems, should not consume soy. Other people could benefit from soy. People who eat a healthy diet do not have to worry at all about the antinutrients they mention (and people who don't eat a healthy diet have more pressing concerns than phytic acid). No natural food item is just good or bad. Phytic acid blocks some minerals, but it is also a potent anti-carcinogen. The mineral blocking effect is a concern for third world populations where people get most of their calories from unfermented soy/other beans and grains, not in the western world where people also eat vegetables and other foods. Here, the mineral blocking effect may be positive: many people get way too much iron, which causes diseases.

I agree that basing your diet on any one food item is not a good idea, especially if that has not been done for ages. I do believe that some Asians eat far more soy than those anti-soy people suggest (I know for a fact that they drink soy milk, for example), but probably not to the amount some western people eat. But if indeed we eat so much soy because it is in all those processed products, I think there are more immediate dangers, because those products are also high in salt and sugar.

I would not feed my child soy formula, but then I would not feed it cow's milk formula either. I think research has shown that soy formula is no worse than cow's formula (see here). Of course this can never be conclusive, but I think that if it were really as bad as some people make it out to be, we would have seen some of those terrible effects on a large scale by now.

You are right that the health effects of soy are heavily promoted by the soy industry. Each time I read on my soy milk carton that I should drink one cup of soy milk, and eat three soy desserts a day, to get enough "healthy" soy protein I cringe. That's just wrong, it would make a terribly unbalanced high sugar diet. But I also think the dangers of soy are heavily exaggerated by people with ties to the meat and dairy industry. It is difficult to get independent information these days.

I use to eat a lot of soy protein but now I focus on mostly the complete protein chicken, fish, steak, etc. Thank you for the post as I see there are many benefits of soy protein and will try to consume more every day.

Soy products helped to ruin me!

Did the Atkins thing quite a few years back to lose a few pounds quickly. Worked well but was really hard to do because of the lack of food choices. When I did it again about 5 years ago - there were all these "wonderful" products out that I could use - like breakfast bars, low carb "processed" foods, protein powders, pancake mixes, low carb chips, etc... Guess what one of the major ingredients is in all those foods - Soy Flour or soy protein isolate. Within 3 weeks of consuming these substitute "low carb" foods I had completely upset my female cycle! Never got it back on track....

Within just 3 years I went from no health problems to the following:

1) enlarged growth on the right side of my thyroid. Diagnosed as a "follicular neoplasm" - fancy words for a growth that will most likely eventually become cancerous. Tried thyroid "suppression" therapy - this only caused me to pack on more weight in a very quick period of time. Needless to say - it failed. Surgery performed.

2) A uterine fibroid the size of a baseball causing me to have my period everyday of the year. So bad I was rushed to the emergency room because I was "bleeding" to death. Prescribed hormones to try and control the situation - nothing worked - surgery performed.

It is proven that excess estrogen in the system causes both of these issues. Do I believe that soy caused them soley - NO. Do I believe I would have had these issues anyways - Yes, but not until later on down the road. Do I believe that soy was a major contibuting factor for these problems to grow out of control and my needing surgery long before I should have - YES.

Now - No foods that contain any form of soy. I eat very little processed food. Nothing with added hormones of any kind including milk, cheese, or meat.(Thank you Trader Joes!) Organic fruits and veggies - as pesticides have been proven to increase estrogen in the body. My husband has started to help with the cooking. I do occasionaly have a small amount of soy in the form of miso soup or the beans they give you at the sushi restaurant, but that is very far and few inbetween.

My husband avoids soy like the plague. It is a filler in so many of the foods we eat now. The soy they use in our foods as filler is a very bad form of soy. There is a lot of good research going on now. Limit your intake of this junk soy - only eat the forms that have been fermented as the toxic elements are not found in the fermented items and your body can process them the way it is supposed to. Stop eatting processed foods.

I know I sound like a broken record - or even an over zealous loon - but I don't wish for 1 second that anyone else should have to go through what I have been through. The depression alone that is associated with the problems I have had!

I imagine that over processing anything can make it bad. I think people assume soy to be good and ignore or are not aware of the processing that goes into some soy products.

Lanel: Extra estrogen in the body is not only caused by increased soy consumption. It's also caused by excess body fat. Estrogen is a sterol-based hormone and it is very fat soluble. Therefore, typically the more fat you have the more estrogen your system has in it. That's why birth control pills are less effective on overweight women. Soy can increase estrogen as well, so it's possible that your issues were exacerbated by all the weird processed soy stuff you were eating on Atkins, but it also could have come up on its own from regaining the weight back. I had some weird issues with my cycle and all when I lost weight because I released a lot of estrogen back into my system by losing the fat it was stored in. I had strange things happen with my hair and I didn't menstruate regularly for a while. Once it leveled off though, things got back on track.

Thanks for your post Spectra. At the time I had my soy issues I didn't have much extra fat as I worked out regularly. I was 5'5", 135lbs, but it was the most I had ever weighed so I thought I was "fat". My normal weight before that was about 123lbs. I was only able to lose a few pounds before everything went haywire.

I do contribute the continued health issues to the fat I put on with the thyroid suppression.

This is also why I have to finish getting my weight back to what it should be - not what is considered acceptable. When you hit perimenopause - your hormones get all crazy and extra estrogen can be natural part of that - too much for me is a really bad thing.

Yeah, my mother had a hysterectomy when she was 29 after the birth of my brother and they had to remove an ovary. Now that she is perimenopausal, her natural estrogen levels are lower than most womens' because of the missing ovary. She is quite overweight as well, but she has been consuming extra soy because the phytoestrogens seem to help alleviate her hot flashes and other symptoms. I don't think she took in tons of soy, but enough to make a difference. I guess a lot of it is your individual hormone levels and needs.

what the F**k?
"Are you vegetarian because you want fake meat or are you a vegetarian because you want vegetables"
No. Actually I'm a vegetarian because I don't want to eat a creature that was previously thinking, moving and feeling before it was slaughtered for our own selfish palets, thank you very much.
Isn't eating everything bad for you? everyone has a problem with something. It says soya is supposed to cause "thyroid suppression" which makes you overweight but i've never seen a fat vegan. Eat what you want people.

Lenny, I have seen plenty of fat vegans and vegetarians... unrelated. So no, it is not meat that makes you fat, it is junk. I have a friend who is vegan and mostly lives on potato chips and raisinettes and you guessed it, she is fat.

100 % sure about soy
I have many testimonials coz I'm into the health organic food catering service...
just use your common sense...
how it can be good for us....
just do this simple experiment...
take a bunch of soy beans and a black beans...
boild the separate...
eat soy bean first...
no surprice the day after
go the the bathroom in the morning at it will came out intact....meaning...wasn't digest....
do the same with the black bean...or any one...it melts in your mouth! u know already it will be easy to digest , opposite from soy bean..
one more thing...
this time boil the soy bean together with the black bean...guess what happen...both of them this time will be easy to digest,....
if I came out with this simple experiment?...believe me...there is a buch of liers out there just trying to make profit...

sorry I mean both of them wont be easy to digest!!!
My mistake...yes soy is bad in many ways!!!!

I mean both of the will be hard to digest!!!

In my thirties I was heavy into soy milk and fake meats. I used them to replace real foods like red meat and dairy. I was rewarded with weight gain, worsening PMS, endometriosis, an ovarian cyst and uterine fibroid. Now that I have virtually eliminated these "foods," I no longer have any of these problems.

There is simply no need to use any ultra-processed food today, soy or diary. Fermented products have proven health benefits, as do some high fat diary products - it depends on what your lifestyle demands as fuel, When I turned vegan 16 years ago it was really difficult to access a range of quality, organic home grown produce - now, although it can be expensive, its relatively accessible. What you eat contributes to who and what you are so its worth the effort. So no more margerine for you guys - soy or not soy, please!!! Just stick some great butter or extra virgin olive oil on your toast instead, its yummy either way.
Peace.

Chicharronita, How long did you eat the fake meat and soy milk before your body went crazy with the female problems. I'm in the same boat as you once were. After doing some research I realized it is the SOY! I have an ovarian cyst. I have been soy free for about a week now.

I think it would be beeter not to soy. It is required that we should eat various foods inorder to have the right amount of vitamins and minerals, but just eating soy would not be enough. I'm not saying that soy beans aren't healthy but just them would not be enought

"Pacific also offers okara, (bean solids removed from soy milk) to local farmers, who use it to feed their cattle, thus further closing the loop." from their web site....

Is there a risk of the estrogen in okara affecting the meat or milk from the cows?

The key is to eat well-cooked (boiled at least 2 hours) in small quantities (100 grams/dry weight/day) SOY.