Alive Foods

The Shadow of Soy or
How I stopped loving and learned to worry about the bean

by Sean McNary Carson

Extracted from Food For Thought by Phillip Day

The excellent recipe companion to

Health Wars and Cancer: Why We're Still Dying to Know the Truth

You've joined an army of thousands committed to being all you can be.
You rise at dawn to pound the pavement, or climb the Stairmaster to
heavenly
buttocks while listening to Deepak Chopra on your Walkman. Or, maybe you
contort yourself into yoga asanas in rooms hotter than a Korean chutney.
You drink only purified water as you toss a handful of the latest
longevity pills into your mouth. You're hungry, hungry for health, and
no doubt about it,
you're no stranger to soy.

Faster than you can say "isoflavone," the humble soybean has insinuated
itself into a dominant position in the standard diet. And that shouldn't
be a
surprise. Cheap, versatile, and karma-free, soy in the 1990's went from
obscurity as vegan-and-hippie staple to Time magazine. With mad cows
lurking
between whole wheat buns, and a growing distrust of
conventionally-produced dairy products, soy seemed like the ideal
choice, the perfect protein.

But like all seemingly perfect things, a shadow lurked. By the final
years of the last decade, a number of soy researchers began to cry foul.
Soy Good? Soy
Bad?

As the soy industry lobbied the Food and Drug Administration for a
cardiovascular health claim for soy protein, two senior FDA scientists,
Daniel Sheehan
and Daniel Doerge - both specialists in estrogen research - wrote a
letter vigorously opposing such a claim. In fact, they suggested a
warning might be
more appropriate. Their concern? Two isoflavones found in soy, genistein
and daidzen, the same two promoted by the industry for everything from
menopause relief to cancer protection, were said to "demonstrate
toxicity in estrogen sensitive tissues and in the thyroid." Moreover,
"adverse
effects in humans occur in several tissues and, apparently, by several
distinct mechanisms." Sheehan also quoted a landmark study (Cassidy, et
al.
1994), showing that as little as 45 mg of isoflavones could alter the
length of a pre-menopausal woman's menstrual cycle. The scientists were
particularly
concerned about the effects of these two plant estrogens on foetuses and
young infants, because "development is recognised as the most sensitive
life
stage for estrogen toxicity."

It wasn't the first time scientists found problems with soy, but coupled
with a Hawaiian study by Dr. Lon White on men, the controversy ended up
on
national television. While industry scientists criticized both the White
study and the two FDA researchers (who are now disallowed from
commenting
publicly on the issue), other researchers weighed in on the anti-soy
side. The tofu'd fight had begun.

WHAT ABOUT ASIA?

One of the favourite mantras of soy advocates is that the ubiquitous
bean has been used "safely by Asians for thousands of years." With many
soy
"experts" (often with ties to the soy industry) recommending more than
250 grams of soy foods - and in some cases, more than 100 mg of
isoflavones each day - it's easy to get the impression that soy plays a
major role in the Asian diet. If you saw it on TV or read it in a
magazine, it must be
true, right? Well, not exactly.

Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation
(www.westonaprice.org) and author of Nourishing Traditions, responds
that the soy industry
and media have spun a self-serving version of the traditional use of soy
in Asia. "The tradition with soy is that it was fermented for a long
time, from
six months to three years and then eaten as a condiment, not as a
replacement for animal foods," she says.

Fallon states that the so-called Asian diet - far from centring around
soy - is based on meat. Approximately 65% of Japanese calorie intake
comes from
fish in Japan, while in China the same percentage comes from pork.
"They're not using a lot of soy in Asia - an average of 2 teaspoons a
day in China
and up to a quarter cup in some parts of Japan, but not a huge amount."

Contrast that with modern America, home of "if a little is good for you,
more must be better." Walk into any grocery store, especially the
health-oriented variety, and you'll find the ever-present bean. My
recent, limited survey of Marin, California food stores found soy in
dozens and dozens of
items: granola, vegetarian chilli, a vast sundry of imitation animal
foods, pasta, most protein powders and "power" bars, and even something
called
"nature's burger," which, given the kind of elaborate (and often toxic)
processing that goes into making soy isolate and TVP, would make Mother
Nature
wince. There's even a bread - directly marketed to women - containing
more than 80 mg of soy isoflavones per serving, which is more than the
daily dose
in purified isoflavone supplements. All of this, in addition to the
traditional soy fare of tempeh, tofu, miso, and soy sauce. It's no
wonder that Californians
are edamame dreaming.

So, while Asians were using limited to moderate amounts of painstakingly
prepared soy foods - the alleged benefits of which are still
controversial -
Americans, especially vegetarians, are consuming more soy products and
isoflavones than any culture in human history, and as one researcher put
it,
"entering a great unknown."

Oddly, nowhere in industry promotion does anyone differentiate between
traditional, painstakingly prepared "Asian" soy foods and the modern,
processed
items that Fallon calls "imitation food." And therein lies the rub.
Modern soy protein foods in no way resemble the traditional Asian soy
foods, and may
contain carcinogens like nitrates, lysinoalanine, as well as a number of
anti-nutrients which are only significantly degraded by fermentation or
other
traditional processing.

"People need to realise that when they're eating these soy foods - and
I'm not talking about miso or tofu - but soy "burgers," soy "cheese,"
soy
"ice cream," and all of this stuff, that they are not the real thing.
They may look like the real thing and they may taste like the real
thing, but
they do not have the life-supporting qualities of real foods," Fallon
says.

THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SOY BUSINESS

"The reason there's so much soy in America is because they started to
plant soy to extract the oil from it and soy oil became a very large
industry," says lipid specialist and nutritionist Mary Enig, PhD. "Once
they had as much oil as they did in the food supply they had a lot of
soy
protein residue left over, and since they can't feed it to animals,
except in small amounts, they had to find another market."

According to Enig, female pigs can only ingest it in amounts
approximating 1% during their gestational phase and a few percent
greater during their lactation
diet, or else face reproduction damage and developmental problems in the
piglets. "It can be used for chickens, but it really has limitations.
So, if you
can't feed it to animals, than you find gullible human beings, and you
develop a health claim, and you feed it to them."

In a co-written article, Enig and Fallon state that soybean producers
pay a mandatory assessment of ½ to 1 percent of the net market price of
soybeans to
help fund programs to "strengthen the position of soybeans in the
marketplace and maintain and expand foreign markets for uses for
soybeans
and soy products."

They also cite advertising figures - multi-million dollar figures - that
soy-oriented companies like Archer Daniels Midland or ADM spend for
spots on
national television. Money is also used to fund PR campaigns, favourable
articles, and lobbying interests. A relaxation of USDA rules has lead to
an
increase in soy use in school lunches. Far from being the "humble" or
"simple" soybean, soy is now big business - very big business. This is
not your
father's soybean.

There's been such a rush to market isoflavones that the before-mentioned
multinational corporation, ADM, in 1998, petitioned the FDA for GRAS
(generally recognized as safe) status for soy isoflavones. For those who
don't know GRAS, the designation is used for foods, and in some cases,
food
additives, that have been used safely for many years by humans. For
those who didn't know - like a number of protesting scientists - that
soy
isoflavones had been widely used by generations of Americans before the
late 1950's, it was a revelation indeed. Ahem.

Dr. Sheehan, in his 1998 letter to the FDA referenced earlier, states
"that soy protein foods are GRAS is in conflict with the recent return
by CFSAN
to Archer Daniels Midland of a petition for GRAS status for soy protein
because of deficiencies in reporting the adverse effects in the
petition.
Thus GRAS status has not been granted." And what about those safety
issues?

REQUIEM FOR A THYROID

One of the biggest concerns about high intake of soy isoflavones is
their clearly defined toxic effect on the thyroid gland. You don't have
to work too hard
to convince Dr. Larrian Gillespie of that. Dr. Gillespie, author of The
Menopause Diet, in the name of scientific empiricism, decided to run her
own soy
experiment - on herself. She notes that she fits the demographic soy
isoflavones are most marketed to: borderline hypothyroid, menopausal
females.

"I did it in two different ways. I tried the (isoflavone) supplements
(at 40mg), where I went into flagrant hypothryoidism within 72 hours,
and I
did the 'eat lots of tofu category,' and it did the same thing, but it
took me five days with that. I knew what I was doing but it still took
me
another 7-10 days to come out of it."

In the current issue of the Whole Earth Review, herbalist Susan Weed
tells the story of Michael Moore - no, not that Michael Moore, but the
founder of
the Southwest School of Herbal Medicine. In an e-mail to Weed, Moore
declares that "soy did me in." Weed describes how Moore, in his own
experiment, ate a large amount of manufactured soy products - protein
powders, "power" bars, and soy drinks, over a period of three weeks.
Weed
writes that Moore ended up in a cardiac care unit because the action on
his thyroid had been so pronounced.

Harvard-trained medical doctor Richard Shames, MD, a thyroid specialist
who has had a long time practice in Marin, says that "genistein is the
most
difficult for the metabolic processes of people with low thyroid, so
when you have that present in high enough concentrations, the result is
an
antagonism to the function of thyroid hormone."

Far from being an isolated problem, Shames says that recent data tags
twenty million Americans being treated for thyroid problems, another
thirteen million
who ought to be treated if they would get a TSH (thyroid stimulating
hormone) test, and another thirteen million who would show up normal on
a TSH test
but would test positive on another, more specific test. All in all,
Shames believes that low thyroid conditions - many due to exposure to
oestrogen-mimicking chemicals like PCBs and DDT in environment - are the
mother of most modern health epidemics.

That's a lot of thyroid problems. Some estimate the number to be as high
as one in ten. Shames says that 8 of 10 thyroid sufferers are women -
often older
women - like Dr. Gillespie. The same demographic the soy industry has
set its targets on.

"If you're a normal person, and one in ten are not normal, the effect
[of 50 mg of soy isoflavones] may be fairly insignificant, but even a
normal
person can have problems at levels greater than that," says Shames.

Dr. Gillespie says the daily amount to cause thyroid problems may be as
low as 30 mg, or less than a serving of soymilk.

A number of soy proponents say the thyroid concerns are exaggerated and
that if dietary iodine is sufficient, problems won't likely happen. Not
so, says
Shames: "Iodine is a double-edged sword for people with thyroid
problems, and for those people, more is going to increase their chance
for an
autoimmune reaction... throwing iodine at it is not going to be the
protective solution." Shames recommends limiting soy foods to a few
times a
week, preferably fermented or well cooked.

BIRTH CONTROL PILLS FOR BABIES?

Environmental toxicologist Mike Fitzpatrick, PhD says he doesn't have it
out for soy. His original concern was for babies: "They were getting
more soy
isoflavones, at least on a bodyweight basis, than anybody else," he
notes. "It wasn't so much that I knew what that would do, but that I
didn't
know what that would do." Fitzpatrick, who is also webmaster of ... Soy
Online Services (www.soyonline-service.co.nz), a website devoted to
informing
people about the potential problems with soy, stresses the potential
dangers for the developing human body: "Any person with any kind of
understanding of environmental endocrine disruptors, compounds [like
isoflavones] that are not in the body normally and can modify hormones
and the way they work in the body, any expert will say that infants need
to avoid these things like the plague."

Fitzpatrick was quoted - and misquoted - worldwide a few years ago when
he suggested that the isoflavones in soy formula were the equivalent of
birth
control pills: "When I first did my review, I did compare the estrogenic
equivalents of the contraceptive pill with how much soy infants and
adults
would be consuming," he says. "It's at least the equivalent of one or
two estrogen pills a day, on an estrogenic basis. I've been criticised
that it's
not the same form of estrogen, but in terms of estrogenicity, it's a
crude but valid and alarming statistic."

The typical response by industry experts has been to downplay the
uniqueness of soy isoflavones, stating - accurately - that isoflavones
of various kinds are
prevalent in most fruits, vegetables, and legumes.

IS IT TIME TO TOSS OUT THE APPLE SAUCE?

"No, you're not going to do that because you get exposure from all kinds
of things, but the exposure you get from soy is way, way higher,"
Fitzpatrick says. "Soy formula is going to give babies a real whack, far
in excess of what you might find in apples. Soy is a very rich source of
isoflavones - that's how the industry markets its product. You don't see
an apple extract to help women deal with menopause."

You've got to wonder how the industry can market soy isoflavones as a
form of estrogen replacement therapy for menopausal women (and a host of
other
health claims) and still claim that soy formula is safe for infants. And
while the mechanism for biological activity is clearly defined, the
industry keeps
repeating the same tune: "no credible evidence exists."

But credible for whom? Says Fitzpatrick: "We're not talking about little
studies here but long-term effects on infants and adults, and that's
what
concerns me. It's very trite. They (the industry) give half-baked
answers. What you really need is long-term studies." Likewise, "no
credible
evidence" is not good enough for Dr. Naomi Baumslag, professor of
paediatrics at Georgetown University Medical School. She joined a host
of others in
criticising a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical
Association (JAMA), purported to be the definitive study on soy formula
safety.

"It was not an acceptable epidemiological study - you can take it to any
decent epidemiologist and hear what they think about it, and they use it
to say that soy is safe," says Baumslag. "It's totally unsubstantiated."

MANGANESE MADNESS

Besides the dangers of prematurity and other reproductive problems posed
by isoflavones, Baumslag mentions the high levels of the mineral
manganese
(no, not magnesium) often found in soy formula. The problem of manganese
is so serious that even one soy manufacturer put warning labels on its
soymilk.
The company's president, in a press release, states that "there is
mounting evidence of a correlation between manganese in soy milk
(including
soy-based infant formula) and neurotoxicity in small infants." With
manganese toxicity known for producing behavioural disorders, the press
release
even goes further stating, "If research continues, showing that the
current epidemic levels of ADHD in children, as well as impulsivity and
violence
among adolescents, are connected with the increase in soy-based infant
formula use, our industry could suffer a serious setback by not dealing
with the issue upfront."

With all the potential problems with soy formula, Baumslag notes that
formula is also missing key immunological factors only found in mother's
milk, the
lack of which could give a child a life sentence of chronic health
problems. She links soy-pushing to corporate profits and the PR
campaigns that they fund.

"There's been so much PR in regards to soy formula and I think you also
have to ask yourself why it's so much cheaper for them to make, which
means there's more profit. How come only 1% in the UK are on formula,
where it's closer to 30% in the United States? I don't know why it's so
important for them to push soy, they should push breast-feeding."
Perhaps it's because breast milk for babies isn't as lucrative as
milking the soybean
for profits.

CAVEAT EMPTOR

As a former vegan - and big soy-eater - I'm disturbed by the vast array
of modern, processed soy products that have come on the market in the
last few
years, without any recognition of potential pitfalls. Safe bet: If it
hasn't been eaten safely for thousands of years, you probably shouldn't
put it at the centre
of your diet. We've been sold a bill of goods that says "soy is good for
you", but it doesn't tell you what kind of soy or how much, or even
definitively if
soy really is what makes Asians so supposedly healthy.

It's well known that the Japanese also eat a very large amount of omega
3 fatty acids from fish each day - substances which have been clearly
shown to
have anti-cancer and anti-heart disease effects. So, is it the soy or is
it the fish? As the industry spends millions and millions of dollars to
find something that
isoflavones are good for - some health claim to justify their
unprecedented presence in the American diet - I have to ask: why are
they trying so hard? Why
is there such a push to push soy?

Soy isoflavones are clearly biologically active - they affect change in
your body. It's no longer acceptable for the industry to see no bad,
hear no bad, and
speak no bad. Legitimate concerns need to be studied - and not studies
funded by the industry, conducted by soy scientists.

In the meantime, I've located a wonderful, old miso company on the north
coast. They age their miso for three years in wood barrels and sell it
in glass
jars. It's rich, earthy, and real. I enjoy a teaspoon in a glass of hot
water a few times a week after dinner. It tastes lively and feels good.
I no longer get the
"urge" to eat soy "dogs" or soy "burgers," though I now suspect that
urge didn't come from my own instinct, but from the lofty dictates of
the soy
experts.

But why wait years, while ignorant armies clash over this and that
isoflavone and studies that say one thing or another? Perhaps the safest
way to use soy, if
you choose to use soy, is the way it's been used by Asians for thousands
of years: fermented, in moderation, as a condiment. In short, colour me
cautious.