Soy Good or Bad

We've heard a lot about soy being a super food because in cultures where it is a staple in the diet, there is less disease and better health. We tend to go overboard when we hear something like this. When you look at soy more closely, it is good, but in it's natural form that it is most beneficial.

Be wary of processed foods that contain soy. Many of the beneficial properties of soy are lossed in the processing of the food. Soy in it's best form is in things like miso, tempeh, tofu, and soybeans.

Soy - Not A Great Choice For Men

While soy does lots of good things for women, it can do just the opposite for men. The phyto-estrogens in soy can actually lower testosterone in men, causing their breasts to grow and their libido to drop.

Remember also that men do not require as much fat as women to be healthy. Men should be cautious with soy products.

Good Breakfast Protein

Here's something different for breakfast to get your protein source in if you tired of eggs or don't like them. Try scrambling some tofu. Add some chopped vegetables, turmeric and other seasonings to give the dish some color and flavor.

If you're on the go and don't have time to stir up some tofu, mix some fruit with soy milk for a drink on the run. This will also give you a source of protein.

Soy - the Cons

The biggest con to soy is the it can interfere with the thyroid gland. This is especially true in people who are iodine deficient. The gland is not able to function in it's normal way and this gets worse when soy is added into the body.

While iodine deficiency is a rarity in the USA today, what is not is the incidence of thyroid disease. Soy can actually reduce the absorption of thyroid medications that many people are taking. So the best advice for soy specifically is not to eat or drink a soy product within 1-2 hours of taking your thyroid medication.

The likelihood that you will get too much isoflavones is not an issue unless you are taking supplements in addition to eating soy foods. If you are eating soy in your diet, decease the amount of isoflavones in the supplements that you take.

Soy

You may not have grown up eating soy, but there are lots of products in the stores these days made from soy. And as usual there is controversy over whether soy is good or bad. So today I will go over some of the positive things about soy and tomorrow I will hit some of the bad things about soy.

Probably the best thing about soy is that it is an excellent low fat protein source. But this is just one of it's features. Soy also contains minerals like iron, zinc and calcium. The true health benefit of soy is in the isoflavons it contains. Isoflavons are similar in chemical structure to our own estrogen.

Isoflavons help women combat the symptoms of memopause, as well as improve bone health, decrease heart disease risk, reduce cancer risk, and protect against prostate problems.

Sources of Vitamin E

Vitamin E is found in varying amounts in multiple foods. Some of these foods are soy beans, nuts, seeds, egg yolk, avocado, green leafy vegetables, vegetable oils, and whole grains. Wheat germ is one of the foods that has the highest amount of Vitamin E.

The most active form of Vitamin E is in the foods mentioned above. The synthetic or Vitamin E supplements is less potent than what we get in our food. So eating the right foods will help you get this all important vitamin.

Tomorrow I will get into more of the details about what Vitamin E does.

Soy Beans and Phytic Acid

You may be asking what is phytic acid and why should I even be concerned about it. Phytic acid is present in the hulls and bran of all seeds and beans. Phytic acid is also referred to as phytates. Phytates block the body's ability to absorb esstentials minerals like zinc, calcium, magnesium and iron. Unfortunately, soy contains the highest amounts of phytates and are pretty resistant to the ways that we have to remove phystates such as long slow cooking.

What does decrease the phytates is a long fermentation process. This is what occurs in the production of miso and tempeh. If you have eaten in a Japanese restaurant you may be familiar with miso soup. Miso is a paste made from fermented soy beans. Koji which is a yeast mold is added to soy beans and other ingredients which then are allowed to ferment.

Tempeh is made by cooking soy beans and dehulling them. The beans them have a culturing agent like rhizopus oligosporus added and they are left to ferment. This agent is a fungus which helps to break down some of the less desirable components in soy beans.

Soy Continued

Soy is sometimes called a "super food" because cultures with high soy content in their diets tend to be healthier. Reviewing the literature on this, there is little effect on bone health, cancer, and kidney disease. While cultures that have high intake of soy based foods have less reproductive cancers, they have much higher incidents of thyroid and digestive cancers.

The Swiss did a study on 1992 which estimated that 100 grams of soy is equivalent to the estrogenic equivalent of the birth control pill. So while this may protect the reproductive track, it may increase cancer formation in the thyroid and digestive tract. Another thought here, if you have an infant who is allergic to milk and you put them on soy based formula what is the estrogenic effect on them?? I don't know, but I would certainly want to look at alternatives.

Soy - Good or Bad

Many of us have heard about how good soy is for us, but is it really? There is a lot of controversy over how healthy soy really is for us. Yes, it does contain essential amino acids in it's raw form, which by the way, we cannot eat and digest. For us to eat it, soy must be processed. That in and of itself should raise some red flags. While there is still a good amount of amino acid present in the processed soy, there are other things present as well that may not be as good for us. More on this tomorrow.

Another thing to consider when thinking about soy is that the beans have been genetically altered and some sources suggest that you cannot even trace back to the wild growing soy bean. That always gives me a bit of concern that we are ingesting something that has been genetically programed, usually to increase the yield and not necessarily the quality of the bean.

More tomorrow.

Lupus and Soy

In extensive studies actually looking at some of the components of alfalfa, there is a chemical found in alfalfa that is also found in soy beans. So soy products can exacerabate Lupus symptoms. Here is where reading labels can be vital to helping the person with lupus avoid symptoms.

I really didn't talk about what Lupus was yesterday. Lupus is often labeled as a collagen disease. The underlying factor is that it is also an autoimmune disease in which the immune system begins to attack one's own body tissues.

The disease tends to have dire consequences when the heart and/or kidneys come under attack.