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What is the Deal With Soy?

It's time for you to review the evidence yourselves before your Healthy Body shows the adverse reactions to you personally.

 Why soy is NOT a good option

Many who take part in Healthy Living in the health industry, or enjoy Healthy Living a healthy lifestyle, while on their journey through the lands of “performance and health” foods find they end up succumbing to fatigue, weight gain, a bit of roundness or extra around the middle they cant’t seem to finally rid themselves of, and cravings for sweets!

Most of these folks rely heavily on the consumption of soy and soy based products. Many rightfully avoid cow milk because of the truth they’ve come to learn about the dairy industry or have a diary intolerance or allergy and use soy as a viable substitute. Those who wish not to eat factory farmed animals, or who choose to adopt a vegan lifestyle, also base their diets largely on soy or whey with soy isolates as their chief source of protein. 

The caveat that those who benefit financially from the sale of soy products avoided disclosing to you is that the only ones who benefit from soy, while it continues to harm others, is the soy salesmen themselves. 

It’s time for you to review the evidence yourselves before your Healthy Body shows the adverse reactions to you personally. 

The sheer volume of scientific data and empirical evidence on the dangers of soy is enough to fill a good amount of encyclopedias, however, just like the sugar industry has been going along for more than 10 decades doing, the soy industry is using all of it’s marketing powers to get you to believe there’s just no harm in it. Or, I shudder to say it, that it’s actually GOOD for you!

If you are genuinely interested in this subject, I encourage you to explore the resources at the end of this article. For now we’ll cover several common beliefs and their actual truths about soy. 

Belief: Soy is a food for humans. 

Truth: Soy tries to protect itself from consumption!

To best understand, we’ll need to explore soy from a view point of biological history here. 

The desire to live is as inherent in plants as it is in us. It has been scientifically proven that plants actually produce many chemical agents as protective mechanisms for survival. An excellent example is how some plants actually produce caffeine because it is a short-term memory disruptor, thus trying to ensure that any animal consuming the plant will be rendered unable to locate the plant again! 

While there is a large variety of defensive chemicals designed for just such a purpose in plants, over a very long period of evolution, human and animal systems alike have learned how to metabolize, or, effectively neutralize these chemicals in plant foods that their bodies find suitable. This is dictated by environmental exposure, which specific chemicals and plants our systems have figured out how to process for our own survival needs.

The human genome is very slow in it’s adaptation to new chemicals, proteins, or toxins, as demonstrated in research on celiac disease (please see my article on Gluten for more information in my previous blog)

In a paper titled “Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword. A Gentleman named Dr. Cordain comprehensively demonstrates how Near East countries, only 10,000 years ago, were the very first to farm grains. This quite interestingly correlates to the people of the Near East showing incidence of celiac disease to be absolute lowest. 

The agricultural revolution taking hold only 3000 BC in the North West indicates the highest amount of autoimmune diseases (such as celiac disease) in relation to grain exposure. The direct marker antigen of celiac disease (HLA-B8 antigen) is prevalent in 31% of North Western peoples, as opposed to only 7% of Near Easterners, which dictates that the biological adaptation to grains is a progressive process that is more evolved in Near Easterners as opposed to North Westerners based on the evolutionary time passed. 

As mentioned above, one of the most common reasons that people consume soy is due to milk intolerance and allergy. It must be noted here that just as our systems are going through the evolutionary process of adapting to metabolize and digest grains, so too cows have the only systems originally designed with the ability to process cows milk and metabolize it’s proteins. In fact, if we look at the majority of native civilizations (with few exceptions such as the African tribe Massai), once a child finished breast feeding from it’s mother, milk was no longer consumed. 

This clearly states that we would not be able to adapt to soy very quickly at all, especially with it being composed of complex proteins foreign to the human system. 

Belief: Soy has been used for many thousands of years

Truth: The first human consumption of soy was no earlier than 1134 BC, which is just over 3,000 years and every indication states that our systems simply can not adapt to a foreign protein that quickly. 

It is absolutely incorrect that Chinese and Japanese societies have been consuming soy  for extended periods of time as a staple in their diets. It was only in the late Dynasty of Chou (between 1134-246 BC) that soy was first used as a food. It was after the Chinese had learned the fermentation process of soy beans to create Tempeh, Natto and Tamari. Based on this time frame, humans ingesting soy as a food is far more recent than the North West and their grain consumption. This is very significant in A) The length of time it takes our system to adapt itself to a new food where genetic history is unremarkable and B) It is a fact that soy contains gluten and when eaten in the form of Tofu, contains enough of the gluten protein fraction to trigger an immune response in our bodies. 

The founder of Bio Health Diagnostics Medical Laboratory (Dr. Bill Timmins), practitioner s and physicians working with the C.H.E.K. Institute, and many others using laboratory testing methods in clinical practice have found a very consistent pattern of soy sensitivity in those that have grain (gluten) sensitivity. 

As stated in my article on Gluten (in my previous Blog) anytime a person’s system presents itself with an intolerance or allergy to any particular foodstuff, such as gluten grains or foods containing soy, there is an immune mediated inflammatory response which damages the tiny hair like projections lining our small intestines, called microvilli, which are responsible for the absorption of the nutrients in our foods. The microvilli house the enzymes that are able to digest milk proteins. Once these enzymes are stripped from them, via increased intestinal permeability (see aforementioned article on gluten) these then undigested milk particles find their way to the liver, then general circulation in the blood, thus producing immune sensitization (exposure to allergen that results in the development of hypersensitivity). 

This is where it is absolutely imperative to understand that switching to soy products here, as it also contains immune stimulating, foreign proteins, in turn makes the over all issue WORSE! One of the most common benefits people get when removing soy from their diets is a decrease in fatigue. 

Belief: Soy helps fight cancer

Truth: There is NO evidence that supports any such cancer industry claims

The conclusion that there is very little evidence to suggest that soy protects against breast cancer made by the British Government Report also concluded that these products may actually increase cancer rates! The soy industry has been unable to remove any harmful protein fractions from their products without damaging what’s left of it. This caused them to then attempt promoting these, what are called “anti-nutrients” as preventative to cancer. Their proof to this day remains unseen. More people have been known to die of anaphylactic shock!

Belief: Soy is nutritious

Truth: Soy commonly causes digestive troubles and actually has the absolute highest levels of mineral binding, enzyme blocking phytates of ANY legume. 

Phytic acid or inositol hexaphosphate (IP6) otherwise known as “Phytates” are natural compounds usually found in grains, beans and various seeds that prevent premature germination and are the store house for the phosphorous that a plant needs to continue growing after the seed has begun sprouting. They support by being absolutely sure that the given environment has the right temperature and hydration to properly support life before the nut, seed or grain germinates. The enzyme is actually the “life activity” of the given nut, grain or seed. So the phytates essentially block the enzyme until the atmosphere it’s in is congruent to optimal survival, then they break down, allowing the enzymatic processes to continue. Not only to phytates have the ability to block enzymes, they are also known mineral blockers too! This means that they render a human consumer unable to absorb zinc, selenium, calcium, iron, etc. Even the most minor iron deficiency in a human has been sown to cause people to feel lethargic, experience fatigue, hamper their athletic performance, weaken their immune system and even dim inis a person’s abilities to learn! There has been a direct correlation between the amount of drugs such as Ritalin being prescribed and diagnosis’s’ of ADD and ADHD with the consumption of soy (and gluten, please again see my aforementioned article on the damaging affects of gluten in my previous blog.

It is incredibly difficult to neutralize Phytates to the degree that they don’t have a negative affect on a human’s digestive enzymes, in particular soybeans, as they actually contain triple the amount of phytates as mung beans and quadruple the amount in chickpeas! They are also tolerable to sever field conditions, poor storage atmospheres and hard transportation. 

The ONLY way to convert soybeans into a nonirritating substance is by simple soaking and a fermentation process that engages the phytase enzyme to imitate the process they take when planted in warm, moist soil. 

One of the most shocking points to bring up here is that the soy industry actually IS able to disarm phytates via technology, however due to the expense, they routinely allow the phytates to remain in soy products, but add in synthetic, low quality calcium, zinc and iron. Some even (as seen in MANY other food industries) often claim that you are getting MORE here because of the so called “added nutrition”, which, as described above, is entirely backwards.

Belief: Soy assists with weight loss

Truth: Soy products contain goitrogens which are known to actually block the synthesis of thyroid hormones! Making this completely incorrect! 

Many people I have seen and known of often show hypothyroid symptomology (disorders of thyroid function). Along with this, there is also a direct correlation between the consumption of soy, including but not limited to: 

  1. soy milk
  2. soy meat substitutes
  3. food bars and shakes that contain soy
  4. other processed soy foods 

And increasing cases of: 

  1. restlessness
  2. anxiety
  3. irritability
  4. panic disorders
  5. ADD & ADHD
  6. Very notable fluctuations in energy
  7. heart palpitations
  8. tremors
  9. low Healthy Body temperature
  10. sweating
  11. accumulation of fat around the middle of the Healthy Body as well as the area of the triceps
  12. lowered interest in sex
  13. bumps on the back of the arms 
  14. Problems handling blood sugar 

Although these are all text book symptoms of hypo-thyroid issues, because of the truth that soy products are also high glycemic food items, blood sugar handling issues are often directly related to the consumption of these soy products. 

Yes, many argue that soy contains protein, and it DOES, however, although any given food substance contains protein, does not (in soy’s case especially) depict the food to be bio-available to our systems, and also does not mean that our systems will have the ability to recognize such food sources by our gut receptors and immune system, or MOST IMPORTANTLY that our bodies have the ability to convert said substance into human being tissues! 

This shows a trained practitioner that although someone (usually vegans or vegetarians) is getting the correct ratio of protein when seen on paper, their systems very clearly show that they’re actually NOT getting enough protein that they need for their bodies to properly create new hormones and cells.

Inc conclusion, soy is never a good option for a food source, especially that of a meal replacement! Soy should be avoided for optimal health, and when eating for optimal health, is not even necessary to consume. 

Resource & References:

Optimal Health and Fitness Through Practical Nutrition and Holistic Lifestyle Coaching Program Level 2. 

Blissful Being Blog Post – The Truth Behind Gluten