TO Soy or NOT to Soy...

Everything that I have ever heard people talk about is how great soy is and how if you want to be a vegetarian (like I am) then soy pretty much becomes a staple food for a lot of people. After all, it is marketed as a great source of protein, and, true to that calling, as a result every soy chip, crisp, etc. always includes the amount of protein it contains, per serving, on the front of the package. Even my doctor told me that I should include soy products in my diet because it is very important to have a source of protein in the diet.

The thing that none of these people (either other vegetarians, health care professionals, etc) tell you is the harm that can come from consuming soy. They do not tell you that a chemical solvent called hexane is used in soy processing (primarily to extract the oils from the soy bean) and is left over as residue in various commercially sold products such as tofu.

If that is not bad enough, people never talk about how unfermented soy does more harm than good. Soy is marketed as a great product, a very healthy, nutritious product. However, the phytic acid in unfermented soy causes the body to not be able to absorb the various minerals in soy. It makes it hard for the body to process and use minerals such as iron and calcium, and iodine. This causes a lot of thyroid issues, as this gland needs iodine to work properly. Other issues that unfermented soy can cause is a weakened immune system. Also, phytoestrogens in unfermented soy mimics the body's naturally produced estrogen. An article on naturalnews.com states that "drinking only two glasses of soy milk daily for one month has enough [phytoestrogens] to alter a woman's menstrual cycle." This, at least in my mind, poses the question: would drinking soy milk be just as affective as the pill? Birth control pills consist largely of estrogen, and that added amount of estrogen causes the body to think that a woman is pregnant, therefore preventing her from becoming pregnant in the first place. If there is enough phytoestrogen in soy milk to change a woman's cycle, then could this not be an alternative to the pill? Would it be more or less affective? And, most importantly, what does this mean for women who are taking birth control pills and who regularly consume soy milk? I am sure that there are many women out there who do consume both products. Does this mean that they are getting far in excess of the amount of estrogen that their bodies can handle? And if so, what happens to them? I have read articles that mention unfermented soy and the increased risk of breast cancer. Does that mean that if a woman consumes both the pill and soy milk on a daily basis that her risk of breast- or other-cancer would increase substantially more?

The same article describes how "it has been estimated that infants who are exclusively fed soy formula receive the equivalent of five birth control pills worth of oestrogen every day." While naturalnews.com does not compare soy milk with soy formula in terms of the amount of estrogen that would be consumed, I think this estimation asks the question: how many birth control pills worth of estrogen is a woman who drinks two glasses of soy milk every day receiving? What about the people who drink more than two glasses of soy milk a day? What about the people who drink soy milk every day, but also consume a regular amount of tofu, soy yogurts, and other items with soy lecithin, hydrolysed soy protein, texturized soy protein, or other various soy products that are unfermented? What about the vegetarians or vegans out there whose staple food is soy?

I think that even more disturbing than the information in this article, which is repeated in various other articles across the internet, is the fact that none of them really go into detail about how a person would be able to tell what products contain fermented soy. I am aching for the answer to this question, more so than any of the aforementioned questions in this blog. How do I know if the soy I am consuming has been fermented, or not? The Cornucopia Institute issued a report about hexane in soy, and issued a scorecard of which companies absolutely use hexane-free soy; however, even this report does not really indicate which companies ferment the soy that they use in their various products. Should I deduce that those companies who do not use hexane in their soy production would also not use unfermented soy? I think it is very dangerous to just assume one thing from the other, especially since they are two entirely different things.

The real question is, what is the appropriate course of action? Just last night I emailed various companies who sell soy products that I enjoy, or would like to try in the future, and asked them if they use fermented soy. None of them has replied, yet. I am hoping that they do; however, what if they do not ferment the soy that they use? Am I supposed to be deprived of that valuable source of protein, or else risk cancer from hexane, or the issues related to unfermented soy consumption? Or should I take an even more extreme route and grow my own soy plant and ferment the soy beans myself?

For further reading on this subject:
The Truth about Unfermented Soy and Its Harmful Effects
Phytoestrogens and Breast Cancer
Soy Protein Used in "Natural" Foods Bathed in Toxic Solvent Hexane
Hexane
Boycott Non-Organic, GMO, Hexane-Processed Soy
Behind the Bean