When I began researching soy for my newsletter, I had no idea that the amount of information available would be so tremendous or so frightening. Today’s article is from my newsletter article, The Truth About Soy, Part I. 

I used soy products extensively for several years, incorporating soy milk, tofu, and texturized soy protein into many meals. I learned to like soymilk in my tea and cereal. I used soy protein in chili and tofu in desserts. About three years ago, however, I started seriously questioning soy, in light of the increasing number of articles I began running across on its dangers. I eliminated soy from my kitchen over two years ago. I now wonder what took me so long.

My sole excuse is that I can only read so much health related material, and much of my research time is devoted to helping clients with specific health issues. Few of them appeared to involve soy.

I never recommended soy to my clients, and often urged them to curtail their consumption based on my gut feelings that soy might be less than wonderful for  many people. One thing that bothered me was the sheer amount of soy in our food products. Soybean oil, flour, textured protein, and beans are in thousands of everyday products. (Just ask someone who must avoid soy due to allergies how difficult it is to shop.)

The Orientals originally responsible for our love affair with soy never consumed it like we do now. In fact, they did not begin using it as a food for thousands of years, though it was an important soil fertilizer. It wasn’t until they learned to ferment it properly, in foods like tempeh, miso, soy sauce, and natto, that they felt it was nontoxic and edible. These are the only forms I still eat, by the way. (I will indulge in a bit of tofu once or twice a year.) More recently I have been most concerned over the genetically modified soy that has invaded our food (See my September 2008 newsletter).

Now I know for sure that soy is far from the healthy food product commonly portrayed and promoted. In fact, soy has probably been a significant negative factor in many of our health problems!

The number of scientific studies is huge. Prominent researchers, scientists, and physicians have been renouncing the flood of soy into our foods and bodies for years. Yet, they are rarely heard. Why not!?

I hate to sound like a conspiracy theorist again, but money talks, manipulates study results (or controls what results the public sees), and silences dissenters in a variety of ways.

Soybeans are easy to grow and economical to harvest. Demand for soy grows by leaps and bounds each year. Over 72 million acres of the US is covered in soybean crops. Many other countries are catching up quickly. Much of this goes into feed for chickens, salmon, and other food animals. The rest is used in oil, foods, flavorings, emulsifiers, and soy based foods.

Soybean producers must pay a small yearly assessment, which totals around $80 million, to the United Soybean Board to help "strengthen the position of soybeans in the marketplace and maintain and expand domestic and foreign markets for uses for soybeans and soybean products". State soy-bean councils contribute another $2-3 million per year for research, and companies like Archer Daniels Midland contribute mind-boggling amounts. Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soy beans are a gold mine for them and a health nightmare for us.

Soy is successfully marketed as a cheap protein filler, an eco friendly meat substitute, and a miracle health food, which will keep us young and disease free.

Don’t believe it! Here are some of the issues strongly linked to soy use: unexplained weight gain, fatigue, arthritis, kidney stones, thyroid cancer, digestive system cancer, premature dementia, Alzheimer’s, thyroid dysfunction, asthma, immune system dysfunction, IBS, early puberty and reproductive organ problems & diseases. The impact on the unborn and infants is even scarier.

Part II is about the effect of soy on the thyroid gland, Part III discusses the impact on infants and children, and Part IV tells you about the impact on adults. You can read them all by going to my website Newsletter link, and looking up each part in the index.

Please consider reading or researching more before you reach for soy the next time you shop.

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