Soy is not the ultimate super health food- we've been duped

Something you should know if you are a big soy eater... I used to be until I suspected it was causing my skin to break out and did some digging... I then did a research project on it for my "environment and health issues" course in university, and was shocked at what I found. It seems we have been deceived into thinking soy is the ultimate health food, billions of dollars have been spent to trick us into eating poison. We must look beyond advertising and industry sponsored science to find the truth. It's important to know the source of your information!

Look into it for yourself! This information is not sponsored by the soy industry!

http://www.mothering.com/articles/growing_chi ld/food/soy_sto ry.html

http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/index.html

wow :/

its better then eating meat though....in my opinion.

better than free range organic meat? ethically? what's your argument? If you are on this site to try and lose weight, than you might want to consider that soy can mess up your thyroid and slow down your metabolism.

im a vegetarian, so its not really about losing weight. but i thought soy was really good for you. eek.

anything in excess is going to be harmful to some extent.  I think we can include some soy products in a healthy diet without suffering. 

The two sources you site do seem to be independent, but I'd want to research them to be sure they aren't sponsored by crackpots.  Not that I believe anything from the soy, or any other, industry that is our to make money.

I agree that anything in excess can be harmful but there is not much nutritional value to soy, 60% of processed foods contain some form of soy, so eating it even in moderation is becoming very difficult. Most soy is also genetically modified.. we have no idea what effects this could have. There is no benefit of soy that outweighs the risks!

The soy industry has spent billions to make us believe that soy is a health food, and downplay its dangers. The FDA is powerless against these large corporations. The first time they tried to get soy protein passed by the FDA it was to be used in cardboard for food packaging, the FDA denied it because of concern that the carcinogens in the soy protein could leech into the foods the packaging contained... and now we are eating the soy protein itself!

It's amazing how deffensive people are about soy... the amazing health food... Those advertising dollars were very very effective.

Like I said before on other topics, nutritional paranoia is very hip these days. I don't trust articles (especially on the net) that contain for example - "scientists say....", or "research has shown that...", etc - what research exactly? Who conducted it? What prompted it? Which methods were used to research the samples, where were the samples taken from, how many measurements were made, what are the exact results (numbers, concentrations, whatever), and so on and so forth.

I don't eat a lot of soy, I'm the chicken and seafood kind of person but I hardly think that mothering.com is a reliable source of info.....

I won't be giving up my hot tofu soup anytime soon. While I am naturally distrustful about large corporations and advertising, and I have heard some of the health concerns about soy, I still agree with Clairelaine - anything in excess is harmful and moderate amounts of soy are fine. Soy is a good source of protein, and I happen to enjoy it. Also, I checked out the westonaprice.org site and I think they are pretty extreme. I have trouble with a site that discourages vaccinations or medicine of any kind.

As for the article from Mothering.com, I urge you to read the comments from the medical community that follow the article. Many people disagree with the lack of peer review on this article and the various unsupported studies she uses in the article. This is what I would professionally call yellow journalism, mainly because the writer intends (and not subtly, in the least) to make the reader feel fear towards a certain subject, not true and abject writing that allows you to make your own judgements.

In fact, because you posted it Reneerenee17, you are now responsible for possibly misleading and scaring people. If you are araid of soy, talk to a medical professional about it. Don't republish propaganda.

I have yet to read the second article.

I completely agree with rsauvageot on the second article. By the way, here's a clip from westonaprice.org article on the truth about vegetarians:

"Bill and Tanya sat before me in my office in a somber mood: they had just lost their first baby in the second month of pregnancy. Tanya was particularly upset. "Why did this happen to me? Why did I miscarry my baby?" The young couple had come to see me mostly because of Tanya's recurrent respiratory infections, but also wanted some advice as to how they could avoid the heartache of another failed pregnancy.

Upon questioning Tanya about her diet, I quickly saw the cause of her infections, as well as her miscarriage: she had virtually no fat in her diet and was also mostly a vegetarian. Because of the plentiful media rhetoric about the supposed dangers of animal product consumption, as opposed to the alleged health benefits of the vegetarian lifestyle, Tanya had deliberately removed such things as cream, butter, meats and fish from her diet. Although she liked liver, she avoided it due to worries over "toxins."

Tanya and Bill left with a bottle of vitamin A, other supplements and a dietary prescription that included plentiful amounts of animal fats and meat. Just before leaving my office, Tanya looked at me and said ruefully: "I just don't know what to believe sometimes. Everywhere I look there is all this low-fat, vegetarian stuff recommended. I followed it, and look what happened." I assured her that if she and her husband changed their diets and allowed sufficient time for her weakened uterus to heal, they would be happy parents in due time. In November 2000, Bill and Tanya happily gave birth to their first child, a girl."

Yep, pretty much the biggest crap I've ever read. I've never met anyone who lost a baby due to vegetarianism. Ever seen photos of India? Yeah, everybody is vegetarian there. More crappy propaganda.

I eat soy constantly. CONSTANTLY. I love it and I've never had any averse affects from it. I have some friends who don't eat it because they don't digest it well (similar to some people with dairy etc.) but most who do say that  it has helped clear up their skin, not the opposite.

I refuse to believe that cramming the dead corpse of a cow or chicken down my gullet is going to help my health at all. 

Okay, yes, me again. I know! ; ) Renee, I've been reading through your other posts and it seems like mercola.com is another big one. As much as I'd love to trust anyone who uses Mariel Hemonway as a spokesmodel, to me he's just another fake-tanned osteopath touting a $24.99 "cure-all" book. I'm sure his plan is working for you, nonethless. I'd like to hear more about it.
I think health is about what works for you: soy not so good for you, great for me. I wanted it put this in there because reading back, I looked like I was attacking you, but I'm not: I get fiesty about medical-sounding articles that seem to have incongruencies in their fact-checking.

Unfortunately, these days it is also difficult to trust the medical community... Medical doctors have very limited education on nutrition... conventional nutritionists are educated with industry sponsored textbooks and science has been degraded to a tool used by industry to promote products, there is a ton of industry sponsored hype about soy overcrowding any dissenting voice on the topic. I have seen at least a handful of scientific studies which found negative effects from soy, but these are lost in a haystack of biased industry sponsored studies.

I find it quite scary how adamantly soy consumers defend soy!

I don't regret one bit informing people of a possible health risk. Better safe than sorry. For all we know you could be part of that deceptive industry.  What did you say your profession was?

ok I get a little feisty as well when it comes to this stuff. I know if you eat a ton of soy, you don't want to hear that you may possibly be harming yourself....

Former journalist, designer and color theorist now.

Well, deceptive as in Halliburton? Blackwater? ConAgra is scary, and they need to be watched, but I think that there are much scarier entities, food-wise, than say, Denver Tofu and Tofutti.

This is a huge debate in the vegetarian section as well - there are great links to both sides.

I am a designer as well... critical bunch we are.

I think it is important to ask questions! We can't just believe all of the advertising!

I don't think that anyone on this thread is adamantly defending soy, just casting a little doubt on the idea that soy is seriously dangerous for you. I also don't think it's fair to say that the majority of scientific studies are biased. By and large, peer reviewed scientific publications are something that I put quite a bit of faith in, although I acknowledge that nothing is perfect or above suspicion. Anytime someone is caught falsifying data (it does happen) we see a pretty huge outcry in the scientific community.

have you heard of Monsanto? They produce gm roundup ready soy... they are a huge proponent of the soy industry. If you don't know monsanto look into them and I think you will add them to your list.

I am just casting some doubt that soy is good for you. I agree there are still some good scientific studies out there, I don't mean to be so negative, I found some less obviously biased studies on soy which found negative effects... some found positive effects but considered only isolated compound in the food. I'm just saying that we need to be aware that not all studies are trustworthy, and there is a large volume of studies generated by industry.

I trust Harvard for my nutrition info. Here's what they say about soy:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/p rotein.html

Health claims are probably overblown... soy is fine in moderation, which is defined as 2-4 servings per week.

Note that's per WEEK not DAY! I do agree that it's probably overkill to have soy milk for breakfast, tofu for lunch, and a soy burger for dinner. Bear in mind that soy is probably one of the first processed foods ever... and maybe we should treat it as such.

I do love tofu and I drink soy milk on my cereal. I will eat soy burgers on occasion. I probably work out to the 2-4 servings per week.