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Soy unhealthy for you?

Ximot said:
I am not sure about soy. I drink soy milk regularly and tofu twice a week. I hardly eat meat at all and the protein has to come from somewhere...
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There are a LOT of places to get your protein without consuming animal products or large amounts of soy. I am vegan and I have one glass of soymilk daily and no soy foods otherwise, and still manage to take in a great deal off protein. Nuts/seeds/legumes for the win.

Also, great post R.ticle.
 
Cheers lollerskater. I may have some allergy to soy - I know that my body doesn't like gluten, though it took a lab test and quitting all rye/wheat/spelt/gluten containing anything to prove it. I did read of one vegan who was into body building that was downing a lot of soy isolate protein powder and got nasty stomach troubles and an allergy in the process.

I think that soy could be like gluten - not everyone may be allergic to it in the conventional sense of the word, but may still have a hard time breaking it down and react in subtler, more long term ways.

I love nuts and seeds, but I have to watch which ones. No peanuts for me, unfortunately, tasty and inexpensive as they are, but peanut butter has made me throw up before.

Beans, good, too!
 
i will say this about soy: once when i was having female trouble - my period was lasting way too long like 2 weeks - i drank a glass of soy milk and all of a sudden my period just stopped. i think there may be something to it acting like hormones in the body; which is why they put soy in pills that women in menapause take.

and i agee about the fermented soy - it is definitely easier for me to digest.

now i just stick to regular milk or rice milk.
 
R.ticle One said:
Sorry if this was mentioned in the thread - but I think one thing to remember is that soy is (to the best of my knowledge) more easily digested and safe or safer, when it has been fermented - Miso, Natto, Tempeh, etc. - I don't know if whole cultures built themselves on large quantities of unfermented soy such as Tofu.
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Do not remember where I read this, but IIRC, the reason young soy is used for edamame is that it is more easily digested than mature soy used in some products.
 
Judging by the responses in this thread, I'm probably going to be ripped apart for asking this, but whats the big deal with GMOs? The whole reason they were created was to make food healthier, to pack more nutrition into it and make it more resistent to bugs and diseases while using less pesticides, that all sounds good to me.
 
From http://www.psrast.org/subeqau.htm

The pesticide 'Roundup' works by inhibiting an enzyme that is necessary for the plant to synthesise certain aromatic amino acids, killing the plant. The targeted enzyme is called 5-enolpyruvyl shikimate-3-phosphate synthetase, or EPSPS. The genetic modification in Roundup Ready soybeans involves incorporating a bacterial version of this enzyme, (from Agrobacterium species, strain CP4) into the soybean plant, giving the soybean protection from Roundup. In this way, the soybeans and any weeds can be sprayed with Roundup, killing the weeds and leaving the soybeans.

Because of the way that this gene was incorporated into soybeans, several other genes are also present. They are: the cauliflower mosaic virus 35S promoter, the EPSPS chloroplast transit protein (CTP) sequence from petunias and the 3' untranslated region of the nopaline synthetase gene (NOS3'). The ANZFA document completely omits discussion of the first and last of these genes and their proteins. For the petunia CTP, the applicant document states: '...it is generally accepted that the chloroplast transit peptides are rapidly degraded after cleavage in vivo by cellular proteases.' That is, results from other general experiments are relied-upon and no evidence is provided that they have measured this to be the case in Roundup Ready soybeans.
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It is completely unknown what specific effects the expression of these genes has on the plant or animals that consume the beans from the plant. They've done some tests looking for the Agrobacterium enzyme EPSPS in chicken eggs from chickens fed Roundup Ready soybeans, etc. but I think it's the potential for unintended additional changes to the organism that are worrying.

Mad cow disease and celiac disease are both examples of the pathological consequences of ingestion of unsafe proteins.

The other problem with Roundup Ready genes is that they're designed to protect crops against Roundup. This is all well and good for farmers who willingly use Monsanto products. If they end up becoming incorporated into non-GMO soybeans worldwide through lateral gene transfer, this change provides no benefit whatsoever to anyone while exposing everyone to risk.
 
Thizzle: GMOs are in no way healthier. Just the opposite in fact.

The main reasons for GMOs are two fold. One is to make the plant resistant to the herbicide Roundup. It is easier to spray a whole crop with this weed killer when it doesn't kill the plants under cultivation.

The other main reason is to engineer a toxic bacteria into the plant that kills insects when they eat the plant.

Basically, most GMO food has poison engineered into it. In addition, it has more poison used on it. All the while, organic foods are higher in nutrients and phyto-chemicals (these are good, you can wiki). Anything you have seen about GMOs being healthier is most likely big business propaganda.
 
Thanks for clearing that up.

It was just out of curiosty. I prefer locally grown, organic foods anyway, supporting local farmers and all that jazz.

Farmers market ftw.
 
GMOs are in no way healthier. Just the opposite in fact.

The main reasons for GMOs are two fold. One is to make the plant resistant to the herbicide Roundup. It is easier to spray a whole crop with this weed killer when it doesn't kill the plants under cultivation.

The other main reason is to engineer a toxic bacteria into the plant that kills insects when they eat the plant.

Basically, most GMO food has poison engineered into it. In addition, it has more poison used on it. All the while, organic foods are higher in nutrients and phyto-chemicals (these are good, you can wiki). Anything you have seen about GMOs being healthier is most likely big business propaganda.
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Now, in principle, foodstuff could be genetically modified to be healthier, but this simply isn't that profitable, and thus occurs only quite rarely. :)

I am more concerned with the political issues surrounding GMO crops (eg, engineering proprietary seeds that ensure that the resulting plants will not successfully propagate a second generation, using lawyers and copyright law where genetic engineering isn't powerful enough to subjugate agriculture to wide-scale, corporate controlled interests, etc.).
 
ebola? said:
Now, in principle, foodstuff could be genetically modified to be healthier, but this simply isn't that profitable, and thus occurs only quite rarely. :)..
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It certainly does happen though. I remember recently reading about some Aussie research into GMO bananas to add nutrients into them to be grown in an African country where banana was a dietary staple and the population suffered from some nutrient deficiancies. From what I recall it was governemnt-funded, not corporate, too. That kind of altruistic research makes me smile =D

Edit: As for soy; I have mixed feelings. I'm vegetarian and my ex was lactose intolerant so we only had soy milk for a few years. I've grown to like it and eat tofu 3 or 4 times a week. I do recall reading about fermented soy being healthier at some stage but I'm not a huge fan of tempah or nato (eeww snot consistancy!) so tend to stick to tofu. I love miso and edimame though!!!
 
MynameisnotDeja said:
I don't think it's a very good thing to eat but I still do eat tofu and edamame(sp?). There is no way in hell I'd ever eat those horrid fake meat products. Ugh. Bad bad bad!

And wheat is bad too. So very.
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I've also heard that soy and wheat are bad for you. Maybe not bad for everyone but for a lot of people who might be sensitive to it. I'll look for links and add them. From what I've read, wheat is supposed to be much worse than soy thou.

I found an article that stated soy might prevent prostate cancer.

"Recent evidence indicates that soy isoflavones play a beneficial role in obesity, cancer, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease." from article named Soy isoflavones and immunity

Looks like pubmed articles state that soy is good for you.

Since u mentioned wheat I'll add something from my experience.
I have a gluten (gluten is in wheat, barley and rye) intolerance that started when I was an infant and I bought a book called "Gluten free for dummies". The lady that wrote it seemed pretty knowledgeable and wrote that a lot of people have gluten intolerance and sensitivity and don't know about it suffer cuz of it. There is a list of symptoms that if anyone has they should consider taking gluten out of their diet, including depression. She basically said that almost anyone will benefit by removing gluten outta their diet.
 
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Originally Posted by ebola? View Post
Now, in principle, foodstuff could be genetically modified to be healthier, but this simply isn't that profitable, and thus occurs only quite rarely. ..
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It certainly does happen though. I remember recently reading about some Aussie research into GMO bananas to add nutrients into them to be grown in an African country where banana was a dietary staple and the population suffered from some nutrient deficiancies.
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Why not grow something that does contain the nutrient? If it is a mineral, the problem has to do with the fields and land use. Minerals such as calcium, zinc, and potassium can only be derived from the soil. Plants can't synthesize them. On the other hand, vitamins (B, C, D etc.) are synthesized from elements in the air (CO2, nitrogen and oxygen mostly). So if there is a mineral deficiency, the problem is most likely soil depletion.

Soil depletion is caused by exporting nutrients off of the land and not replacing them. This is the case in many third world countries that grow out of season produce for the first world.

I'm not arguing against the exploration of GMOs. But looking at the horrible damage they've wrecked so far, I think it wise we look to nature as she already provides everything we need.
 
I disagree. I use gluten as a protein source on occasion (in fact I had a tasty stir fry today with gluten as the protein), and feel absolutely no different than if I were to use any other veg protein. For that matter it tends to give me a bit less gas than beans/soyfoods.

Many people have an undiagnosed sensitivity to gluten, but it really has become the fashion in health food circles to demonize it. I feel fine when I eat it, and I've seen no studies indicating that it might cause any issues in someone without a gluten sensitivity or celiac disease.

edit- responding to InTherapy

Mehm-- Every bit of produce that we eat has been genetically modified. Wheat bears no resemblance to its wild ancestor. Ditto pretty well any other cultivated fruit, veg or meat you can name. While I have an issue with splicing fish genes with tomatoes (something which is already in common practise), I don't think that GM foods are as horrible as people say. It seems more like a knee-jerk conservative reaction really. Selective breeding is genetic engineering, just on a longer timescale.

Although, I agree fully with the 'go with nature' statement. It's just that there is virtually nothing in a supermarket that can be found wild. And besides, there are far too many mouths to feed with foraging. Which is, I think, the actual root problem. Too many people means too much pressure to exhaust soils which lead to artificial fertilization, GM foods and so on.
 
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There is a big difference between breading and actual manipulation of the genome.
 
Eating or not eating gluten in one meal probably won't cause much difference, will not have an effect on how u feel .It's eating it everyday for a long time is when u'll see a difference in your health. If u feel great and have been eating gluten your entire life, keep on eating it, it seems to be good for you. But if u feel bad, even a little bit, whatever the problem, consider taking gluten outta your diet for a few months and see how u feel. If u feel ill overall, like have IBS or depression, and have a meal w/ gluten in it, and afterward say..oh I feel the same I guess gluten has no effect on me. It's long term consumption that makes a difference, not one meal. A lot of people have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity and don't know it.

I got this info from a book "Gluten Free for Dummies".
 
Gluten actually destroys your intestines if you are intolerant.
 
Dave said:
Other than the timescale, how exactly?
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One involves exchanging genes vertically between members of the same species. The other one involves injecting genes from one species into another, without any idea of the consequences to the changes in lifetime expression of other genes in the genome.
 
It's kind of a tangential point, but the "fish/tomato" thing is an urban legend. This was something that was actually attempted, to produce frost-resistant crops, but it's been largely unsuccessful and isn't something that's done commercially:

http://www.geo-pie.cornell.edu/media/fishberries.html

I'm with Dave, though. I don't see how selective breeding is fundamentally different than other methods of genetically modifying foods. In one case, a desired change is made to the genome directly. In the other case, we wait around for nature to produce the desired change through mutation, then select for it. It's not enough to say that we must avoid all genetically modified foods simply because prion diseases exist. Is there a reason to think any of the proteins in question have prion-like or other harmful effects?

Earlier in the thread, someone inserted the list of genes inserted into Roundup-ready crops. If there's reason to be concerned, it would be due to one of those gene products (or a truncation of something that's supposed to be there). We're still left with a finite list of genes/proteins to be concerned about, which to my (limited) knowledge aren't apparently harmful.

I think sustainability concerns about industrial agriculture are serious enough that we don't need to promote vague fears about "Frankenfoods."
 
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