The Soy Story

Soy is not a health food. In fact, nearly all soy products are highly detrimental to our bodies. Soy beans are a fairly recent addition to the human diet. They began to be cultivated roughly 3,000 years ago in China, at first being utilized as a crop fertilizer. It took the Chinese an additional 1,000 years before they were able to domesticate this bean into a viable food source. By nature, the soy bean is a very inaccessible source of nutrition. True, it is high in protein and calcium, but these nutrients, along with all of the other minerals and co-factors, are bound up in the bean by an anti-nutrient called phytic acid. All legumes and grains contain this substance, though soy beans top the charts. Phytic acid inhibits the absorption of minerals including calcium, iron, zinc, and magnesium. For those relying on soy as a staple food in their diet, this phytic acid can restrict these important minerals and cause big time deficiencies.

There are indeed ways to greatly reduce phytic acid levels in soy beans and other legumes through various processes including soaking, sprouting, cooking, or in soy’s case, FERMENTING. By fermenting soy products, phytates are greatly reduced and the minerals and amino acids become bio-available, meaning we can actually absorb and utilize the nutrients. This is traditionally how soy foods were consumed in China. Soy does much more harm than good to your body when consumed in its unfermented state. Products such as soy milk, tofu, soy protein isolates, soy burgers, edamame, and every other soy product that has not undergone fermentation should be avoided. It is simply not designed for human consumption.

And what are some common fermented soy foods you ask? Well, there’s tempeh, which is a fermented soybean cake, much like tofu. Soy sauce and miso are also fermented soy products, often used in Japanese cuisine. As you can see, there really aren’t many popular fermented soy products sold here in North America, compared to the seemingly endless amount of unfermented soy foods. It is also important to note that of these soy ferments, none could really be classified as a “staple” food substance. This is where we Westerners have really messed up. Traditionally, soy was consumed as a CONDIMENT, not a staple. Today, it is not the least bit uncommon to find people who base the majority of their diets around soy products. A glass of soy milk in the morning, soy burger or tofu at lunch, and soy ice cream for dessert! A true recipe for disaster if you ask me. This type of diet is completely unnatural and has never been practiced anywhere else in the world throughout history.

It is common practice amongst the vegetarian community to rely heavily on soy products as a “meat replacement”, and their primary source of protein. Unfortunately, this logic has serious flaws. Again, when soy is not fermented, its nutrients become “locked up”, including much of the amino acids, aka protein. The protein is denatured as the soybeans undergo extensive processing. In other words, much of the protein becomes useless through the high-temperature processing and oxidation that all soy products undergo. As well, soybeans contain enzyme inhibitors that are resistant to processing techniques. These inhibitors do exactly what their name entails: they inhibit the enzymes in soy from functioning, one of those functions being to digest protein. There are far better vegetarian protein sources available these days, including hemp seeds, kefir, and spirulina.

As is quite evident, there are more than enough problems associated with unfermented soy consumption. But the list goes on! And these next points apply to not only unfermented soy products, but their fermented counterparts as well. Over 90% of soy sold today has been genetically modified. There is still much to learn regarding the effects of GMO foods on our health, though much of what has been discovered so far is nothing but bad news. Soybeans are now genetically modified to withstand massive levels of potent herbicides, which naturally, would kill the soy plant. In turn, we consume this chemical-laden soy whenever we purchase non-organic, GMO soy products.

My last point, but definitely not least, is the effect soy has on hormonal balance. All soy foods contain phytoestrogens which are basically plant compounds that mimic the female estrogen hormone. The levels of phytoestrogens found in soy are amongst the highest of all foods. When we ingest foods containing these compounds, we are essentially receiving a massive dose of estrogen. Whether male or female, our bodies are not designed to function properly on excessive estrogen. This is clearly evident by the list of problems it creates within our bodies, whether you’re a man or woman. For men, increased estrogen is very feminizing and has a highly detrimental effect upon our reproductive systems, including enlargement of the prostate gland, decreased sperm count, and significant testicle cell death. For women, excessive soy products have been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer. I will elaborate upon this topic of food-based hormones in a future post.

With its great abundance of negative attributes, I am hard-pressed to consider soy as a health-promoting food. Steer clear of unfermented soy products as much as possible. Soy is a condiment, not a staple.