Do you know what phytic acid is? You may not have heard of this, but if you had, you wouldn’t view soy as being beneficial for your diet in the same light. This is because soy contains high levels of this acid, which our normal Western methods of cooking do not neutralize. This kind of acid is known to be bad for children and prohibits magnesium, copper, zinc, iron and calcium in our bodies. We know that vitamin D and vitamin B12 are very important for our body, but soy actually increases our need for them. Much publicity has been given to Monosodium Glutamate, or MSG, which we know to be toxic and this can be formed during the processing of soy foods. Would you believe that there are high levels of aluminum inside as well and you can just imagine what that does to our nervous system!

Phyto estrogens, common in soy, are a disaster waiting to happen when absorbed into the human body. Estrogen is linked with breast cancer, infertility and endometriosis, and this leads to the question of whether soy milk estrogen will cause problems as well. Soy is also known to be goitrogenic, which essentially means that it will suppress your thyroid regulating ability, which can lead to fatigue, stress and weight gain. Soy will also affect your ability to digest protein, as it is rife with trypsin inhibitors. Furthermore, damage to your pancreas could result and you could expect episodes of diarrhea and stomach cramps!

Soy must be fermented in order for us to consume it with any degree of safety. We learned about soy from the Asians, initially, but we should note that they only include relatively small amounts within their diets. If we really study them, we can see that they only use fermented soy and never consider the unfermented variety; this is only used as a condiment, sparingly. Generations of Chinese and Japanese have developed healthy eating habits to ensure that their foods are always high in minerals and nutrients, which tend to counter balance the effects that fermented soy might impart on the thyroid and other organs.

Whenever a soybean is turned into oil, isolated soy protein is formed. It is then included in popular food products such as burgers, milkshakes, ice cream and milk substitutes. Sometimes they are touted as healthier alternatives, for example in the case of a burger, because you avoid all that “red meat” and fats. In order for us to accept these soy products and crave the taste, they must be loaded with MSG, flavorings and other additives, so that they are palatable to us.

Tofu is often linked to soy products, but we should steer away from this as well, as it is merely a contrived product that originated within Asian markets, due to their need for widespread availability of cheap foods, as their population exploded.

Many dangers have been linked to soy, including infertility, allergies, weight gain, depression, alcoholism and development problems in children, yet our food education system largely overlooks these. We need to be sure that the real story is told. Let us really understand why the Asian people only use soy in very sparing quantities and disband the myth once and for all that this is a healthy option for us.