Is Soy Healthy?

Ugh.  This makes me so sad.  My 6 yo has allergies to all nuts – so to make it easier on me, I started making pb&j with soynut butter for both of my boys.  I’m so upset at myself – for what I’ve been feeding the boys for all these years.  I’ll be switching my non-allergic son back to a nut butter, and giving my 6 yo turkey and cheese – which he actually likes better!

I can attest to the insidious nature of soy and it’s everywhere.  While nursing I needed to go on a milk protein free and soy free diet.  It certainly jump started us into a better eating pattern.  Since I was doing it for our child I think it was easier as I wasn’t tempted to cheat knowing the significant consequences my child would experience.  Either way now I just assume that all food not prepared by me has soy in it!

I’d live to see some references in the blog. Love your work!

All of the hotlinks above link to references Thanks for reading

I think that, like most things, it’s the excess that is harmful. Soy isn’t as bad as you make it sound, as long as it’s only consumed in moderation–just like red wine, chocolate, meat, and butter.

I’m curious about that, too. I had always heard that processed soy, like soy milk and those fake foods, are the problematic ones but that edamame and miso are good.

I have a question about other foods which are supposedly phytoestrinergic and are usually considered OK, like flax and chia seeds.  Are they really OK?

I was eating a lot of flaxmeal and had heavy bleeding for 8 weeks in a row.  In desparation I turned to the internet and found that flax is sometimes associated with bleeding.  When I stopped eating flax, the bleeding stopped.  Now I’m eating it in much smaller quantities a few times a week, and no bleeding, but I’m wondering if it is really safe or not?

Your article is great!  Soy is so scary and as a vegetarian, it’s really the primary substitution for nearly everything.  I developed negative reactions to it, relating to hormones.  It’s just bad stuff.  Keep up the good writing!

What about sunbutter as an alternative?  I’ve never had it, so I don’t know if it’s good – but it might be worth a try.

We tried that a while ago, Melissa…  We think he had an allergic reaction to it, so we just stayed away from it.  They cannot test for sunflower seed allergies, so we can’t know for sure – I may try again just to see if he still has the same reaction as he did 3 years ago…  Thanks for the suggestion!  I had forgotten about it…  It’s pretty good, but the soynut butter actually takes the most like peanut butter.  
Truthfully it’s more about me being lazy and wanting the convenience of pb&j for my kids’ lunch.  ;)

I have chronic hypothyroidism and for the longest time I had trouble getting my thyroid medication regulated.  My doctor didn’t understand why the medicine wasn’t helping.  Then we found out the culprit.  I was drinking soy milk regularly. The soy prevented my thyroid from absorbing any of the thyroid medication!  Soy is soooooo horrible for the thyroid and definitely slows down your metabolism.  I hate that many weightloss shake mixes contain soy or soy protein, like Herbalife.  It defeats the purpose of loosing weight.  Shakeology doesn’t have any soy, so I stick with that.

It’s terrible that the “soy is healthy” trend was just lead by soy advertisements to make the moolah.

One thing I am wondering about – if it has so much phytoestrogens then couldn’t women eat a ton of soy to rid themselves of menopause symptoms? Not saying that the other possible health problems (cancer for example) wouldn’t outweigh the want to rid the menopause but would that be possible?

There isn’t anything in beans and legumes that isn’t found in meat, vegetables, fruits and other foods, so there certainly isn’t a need for them. Have you removed any other foods from your daughter’s diet? In my past experience, eczema is almost always related to a grain, dairy, or occasionally nightshade or egg allergy. Taking gelatin (available in my “store” tab will also help the skin healing.

I really love this post – I have read it numerous times and suggested it to many friends.  Thanks for making this a resource. 

I have been trying to avoid soy for several years now. I have severe hypothyroidism that is not yet under control. It’s a battle, what with soy flour in breads and cereals, and everything else that has some form of soy in it. Not only do I avoid it for my thyroid problem, when I eat soy products I get painful gas pains that at times have doubled me over with the pain. I wish it weren’t so complicated to eat these days. Right now I’m doing low carb so it’s not as bad, but when I wasn’t it was hard to even eat out. I had to look up ingredients in different restaurants menus to figure out things I could eat.

I have been soy free for 8+ years, it gives me horrible migraines.  My son has autism and he is soy free because of headaches and other bad side effects.  I am disgusted corporations shove it in anything and everything they can! I wouldn’t take 4 birth control pills in a day, this would be the equivalent of a baby eating 4 birth control pills- sick! Check out the movie Food, Inc., it had good info about soy that you could see first hand.

First, it is important to note that there is a big difference between eating whole, fermented soy and eating processed and refined soy products, which have no health benefits. Just because a food causes nutritional improvement, does not mean that this food is necessarily good for a person. Most people will see some improvement from eating only whole grains over processed grains. This doesn’t mean that whole grains are good, rather just that they are slightly better than what the person was eating before. Most people do not tolerate soy well, and especially for men, it can be very problematic.

We used to be on soy, started drinking the milk then went on to things like soy burgers so on & etc… fast forward to 3years later & my entire family minus one can’t stay healthy & my son isn’t growing. It was the soy. After seeing a nutritionist we went COMPLETELY soy free for over a year to detox: it had poisoned our systems. We had all kinds of health issues that went away within that year. & if you hadn’t guessed the reason the one kid was healthy was bc she hated all soy products we ate. I am so pleased to read this article & that is getting the Real Soy Story out.

Traditionally prepared foods like soy sauce, when fermented, have much less of the harmful properties and are ok in moderation, but all soy products do have a relatively high level of estrogen-like compounds.

I’d be cautious about using business success as a measure of the quality of a product. Coca Cola and McDonalds typically do great, business-wise each year, but make nutritionally awful products. There are also companies like SlimFast which help people lose weight, but aren’t healthy.

I would be an occassional consumer of soy–usually inthe form of a few black soy beans in chili or tofu.
Funny…I haven’t had tofu in a really long time. I’m pressing some
right now and plan on having fried tofu with hot thai chili sauce for
lunch. The last time I ate tofu was probably 6 months ago.

Just don’t drink milk or eat cheese… or use coconut milk.

My sister-in-law got PCOS after drinking soy milk, because she couldn’t have lactose. It’s definitely not good.

I prefer coconut milk, hemp milk and homemade rice milk.

Interesting! I had heard a nutritionist once say that soy should only be eaten w/seaweed, as in seaweed soup and tofu. I had never heard anyone else say that and was wondering if there was any truth to that. I guess we should stick to that!! I love miso!
I recently cut out the rice milk because of the arsenic concern, I guess soy milk might not be the best alternative! Too bad my kids don’t like almond and coconut milk, they might have to get use to it!

I guess I’m lucky that I have fast acting negative results when I consume anything soy (except lecithin)… I discovered my soy intolerance many years ago when it’s popularity was just starting to peak – just around the time I discovered I’m lactose intolerant – back then, I was disappointed that I couldn’t “enjoy the benefits of soy” with everyone else… Since then, I’ve seen a lot of research pop up on Medline & Pubmed about the many ‘downsides’ of consuming soy… My body knows better than my brain did!!! These days I generally avoid it like the plague!

REFERENCING:
To those of you who want references – don’t be lazy & go look it up! On GOOGLE SCHOLAR, not just regular google or you’ll get more unreferenced journalism instead of science-based information. Searches like “soy AND goitrogen” “soy AND thyroid” Etc will yield plenty of results, then go back to biology 101 and study up on the many things the thyroid does in the body… Then you’ll understand how far reaching the effects of soy on the body can actually be!

So what is your take on this Whey muscle craze?

Really? “eyeroll”

Amen, wellnessmama!

Lots of grassed meat and dairy/butter (if you tolerate it), fermented cod liver oil, maca herb etc are much better for hormones than soy, and a few eggs added in should keep you full a lot longer…

In my experience, a zinc deficiency &/or gut dysbiosis is most commonly found in eczema sufferers. Yes, food intolerances accompany this too but where the gut mucosa is healthy, fewer and fewer food intolerances occur. Interestingly, a search in Pubmed for zinc deficiency will find you a few cases which describe the mineral deficiency in many Arab countries which consume plenty of legumes… Yes, published in medical journals too! I thought this was really intriguing!

That shake also contains approx. 35grams of SUGAR! It contains more sugar than protein… This means you will lose muscle mass too – meaning your metabolism/energy burning ability will slow down, so when you stop using the shake, it’s easier to rebound-weight-gain… No thanks, I’ll pass on that one too

I have developed estrogen dominance and a massive fibroid in my uterus. Believe it is soy. I stopped using it only one month ago.

Please do correct me if I’m wrong but… Don’t Herbalife shakes contain over 30% sugar? Are you familiar with the work of endocrinologist Professor Robert Lustig and the discoveries regarding the effects of sugar on leptin/grehlin and insulin production? I tried to post a link to an article here but it doesn’t appear to have posted, so you may need to google “the real reason you eat too much” – it explains it all very clearly

Spoiler alert: sugar actually increases our appetite…

I would just like to note that much of the research on soy and soy products is realtively new and controversial. There are many, many, many studies proving the exact opposite of this. In fact, the harmful effects of phytoestrogens in males and females is largely speculation and many studies saying they are harmful use uncharisticaly large amount over a short period of time. We do the same thing in most drug tests which is why 95% later fail in long term human trials. I have been consuming soy both as edamame and tofu for over 7 years ( I do not comsume process foods). My husband has been comsuming it in large amounts for the past 3. Both of us have seen a significant increase in energy, skin brightening, sex drive, and over all health. In fact, my once infertile husband is now fertile. Unlike others, we are not intollerant to soy and have benefitted from it without it being fermented. But as with anything, you need to eat according to your body. I am vegan because animal products make me sick. In fact, while consuming meat and dairy, I was sick all the time, felt lethargic, had severe ache, awful mood swings and PMS, and a host of other ailments. Most people say, “Well you weren’t eating enough fruits and vegetables.” Wrong. Prior to becoming vegan, fruits and vegetables were my main source of calories. I consumed meat and dairy as a side. Becoming vegan was the best thing I could ever do myself and eating soy has drastically improved my health. We need to focus on ourselves as individuals when looking at nutrition. What may be unhealthy for some isn’t for others. We can’t all be put into the same mold and that is the biggest problem with nutrition. It breaks everything down in to black and white and assumes we are all the same. You cannot do that.

I’ve been practically raised-up on soy so i can say that what you affirm is far from the truth. My parents totally replaced meat with soy in my diet as a child. There is a secret into turning off all those harmful hormones and stuff that you mentioned. One must keep soy in water for 24 hours before boiling it for AT LEAST three to three-and-a-half hours (adding water from time to time) before eating it. That’s what they said about potatoes, when they found them and people died from eating their upper ground fruits: that they are poisonous for humans and animals and that all cultures should be burned. That was only lack of information. There are also entire communities living on soy so, just because you don’t know how to use it, don’t call it harmful.