Anti-nutrient, check… Genetically modified, check… questionable marketing, CHECK!
For years Soy has been hailed as a healthy food that everyone simply must add into their diet; but has it lived up to its expectations? Soy proponents offer a list of health benefits including (and not limited to), protection against breast, colon & prostate cancer, as well as osteoporosis & asthma, just to name a few. I’m sure you’ve even heard that a little soy milk might even be good for premenstrual cramps. The industry has boomed in the past 10 or so years and marketing continues to promote the product as a healthy food when in fact they are missing out on a very important element…. it’s the fermented soy that has the health benefits… and not all soy is fermented! Soy milk, yogurt, ice-cream, cheese… yep, you guessed it, non-fermented soy. Have we been mildly deceived this whole time? I guess one could argue they (the soy marketing guru’s) have been telling the truth this whole time, just not the whole truth… and after all, we never asked.
“The vast majority of soy at your local market is not a health food. The exception is fermented soy, which I’ll explain more about later and even worse GMO soy that is contaminated with large pesticide residues as the reason it is GMO is so they can spray the potent toxic herbicide Roundup on them to improve crop production by killing the weeds.
Unlike the Asian culture, where people eat small amounts of whole non-GMO soybean products, western food processors separate the soybean into two golden commodities—protein and oil. And there is nothing natural or safe about these products” (Mercola, 2010).
In addition to this; non-fermented soy has been linked to a laundry list of health disorders such as breast cancer, kidney stones, infant abnormalities and brain damage. Not to mention it is notoriously genetically modified as well as an anti-nutrient (meaning it interferes with the bodies normal ability to absorb other nutrients and can disrupt digestion as well as your vitamin/mineral/amino acid absorption).
If you are drinking & eating soy products because you are dairy free (lactose intolerant), nowadays there are many other options out there.. For example rice, nut and coconut alternatives are generally easy to find at your local grocer and if not, there is always the option to ask for it. For more information about soy and your health, please refer to the article cited below, it goes into much more detail on what types of soy products are healthy (fermented), why it’s good for you and more specifics on why unfermented soy is so unhealthy. In addition, he (Dr. Mercola) shares a long list of other links for more information on such topics as, soy and kidney health, soy and cancer or soy and childhood development.
Until next time…
~be well~
Erin
Sources:
The truth about soy: what the latest research says. (2010, September). Dr. Mercola Newsletter. Retrieved from http://www.mercola.com/article/soy/index.htm
