Possible problems with too much soy article
Posted by Anonymous on Jul 21, 2007 · Member since Dec 1969 · 11789 posts
Just thought I'd see what you guys think. Some interesting points made. I love how some people are making it out to not EVER eat soy, though. I got more of "moderation, no GMO's, and cut out the by-products stuff" from it. ???
http://www.utne.com/issues/2007_142/features/12607-1.html
I've never worried about it since I don't eat soy all that much. But I do think too much of any one food could be harmful.
You're right, FF, moderation is always the key. "Enough is as good as a feast," as they say. Or used to.
yay for tempeh and miso!!!
What I gleened is that she really was going overboard and eating highly processed and questionable sources of soy. Hydrolyzed soy protein? Soy protein isolate? These things can't really be considered whole food, but are processed. I'd take soybeans over tofu, tofu over soymilk and isolates not at all.
To my way of thinking, K.I.S.S. is always the best policy (Keep It Simple, Silly!). I have VWAV and have yet to use it. I use Louise Hagler's books daily. Reason being? VWAV is spiced up, zipped up, mixed up and while I am sure that these things are wonderful, they are not simple. Hagler's book will use whole fresh or dried fruits, sticks to okara, tempeh, tofu, soymilk and plain beans. They are not highly flavored or overly sauced and she is careful with amounts of fat and salt. They tend to be closer to straight up whole foods. We tend to forget that simple can be elegant, and incredibly satisfying, but it needs to be remembered.
Eating anything that has "soy" on the label is a treacherous business, one without a great deal of thought behind it either. Soy does not contain estrogen, estrogen is animal, not vegetable. They confuse phytoestrogen with human hormones. Soy is not the only food to contain them, either. I find this argument about soy and estrogen absolutely insanely ill-informed and the very depths of stupidity. Estrogen is animal. You eat animals, you acquire their estrogen and the estrogen in the animals people eat is so similar to that of humans, it is used to replace human estrogen when the ovaries have to be removed!!!! So estrogen in tofu? Please don't make me laugh at your ignorance.
Miso and tempeh are great! There's something to be said for naturally fermented foods where good digestive enzymes develop and also break down some of the nasties.
I always get a slightly weird feeling from soy milk and unprocessed soy, so I usually avoid it and go with rice or almond milk instead, when I feel like milky stuff (which isn't often). I was actually raised on soy milk as a baby since I was very lactose intolerant then (much more than now). Maybe I developed a sensitivity to it from that?
The stuff about phytoestrogens, though, is mostly mythological, according to an endocrinologist I've seen. (And I've been curious about it because of other things and how I was raised on soy.) The effects, if any, are so so mild that they're undetectable in any reasonable amounts. That part is mostly playing off men's gender fears to discourage vegetarian diets.
But dragonfly, estrogen in pills taken by humans does come from soy (and mexican yams). The only other kind take by humans comes from horse urine (and is really terrible). I posted on this somewhere else. BUT, to make high-grade estrogen from soy requires lots of processing, and is completely unlike anything you'd eat... it has to be concentrated and go through several chemical changes before it's used that way. Incidentally, exogenous testosterone and all steroid derivatives of that, are ALSO made from soy. It really has nothing to do with the phytoestrogens there.
Moderation's really important.
I'd certainly love to have a source for your information that estrogen pills come from soy. From what I can find, this is just not so, not for Rx drugs, it is not. They are chelated estrogens, estrified estrogens, conjugated estrogens, and all are animal and/or synthetic.
You may be thinking of Estrovan and several others on the market which are not prescription. Those definitely come from soy and herbal sources, but they are not estrogen of types the body makes naturally.
Specifically, soy has selective phytoestrogen-type compounds. Some of them appear to fit into some of the links of human hormonal chains, but like the proteins found in plant foods, they are not considered a "complete." Meaning, your body can use the components it finds, but will have to have other sources for the other portions of the chain. The same thing is true of protein molecules. This is why beans and grains go together, because one of each, you have all the different amino acids to create "complete" proteins.
I don't know that I am explaining this very well. I am under the weather, in a "mood" and it is over 100 degrees right now!!!! Call me Fried Dragonfly
I guess I'll see if I can find a source. It's very common knowledge though. I've been taking 17 beta esradiol for a while, and it's derived from soy and yams. I'm sorry if it bothers you, but it's true. They aren't derived directly from the phytoestrogens in soy, as far as I know, but they are derived from soy. In other words, you won't get ANY dose of those hormones by eating soy products. They put the soy through all sorts of processing and chemical reactions to make estrogen.
Here I found some sources:
http://members.tripod.com/p3_acres/id49.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioidentical_hormone_replacement_therapy
(yes I know that one doesn't cite sources... I take micronized estradiol)
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/Premarin
http://www.rxstat.net/hormone_quick_reference_guide.html
http://infopool.webverve.com/health/bioidentical-hormones%3B-an-alternative-to-premarin.htm
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1999/699_meno.html
(scroll down to "Other plant-derived..." paragraph, and the one above it)
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/425119
Those came from a quick Google search. I'm sure you could find more. Since I take estrogen daily for more than a couple years, I made a point of knowing where it comes from.
And actually, from what I've heard, the idea of "complete proteins" is a myth that should have gone away a long long time ago.
Not that beans and grains aren't good together! :) :D
i think the real key behind information like this is all the by products and side products that make their ay into our food
perservatives, emulsifiers, ect
we take these basic foods that are good for you process the hell out of them and then try to find ways to use every bit of whatever is left
the more i read the ingriedients in food the more I am convinced all the extra chemicals and such are terrible for us to consume
I like the foods where there's no ingredients. Like, this is broccoli and the ingredients are... broccoli! These are onions and the ingredients are onions. :D Seriously I cook almost all for myself and most of the time never eat anything with more than one ingredient.