Soy -- Healthy Or Hazardous To Your Health

According to producers of this miracle product soy is profoundly beneficial to human health

, is affordable, tastes good, has a diverse range of uses, is easy to prepare and has no saturated fat. There are those of us amidst the masses that tend to always to have a certain level of skepticism when something that is inexpensive to produce and yields large profits gets pitched as a being a miracle product. That is how soy has been pitched. It has been marketed as being a rich source of calcium, iron, zinc, fiber and omega 3 fatty acids. It has also been said to promote healthy hearts and bones as well as prevent cancer and relieve menopausal symptoms. It's said to be good for weight reduction, management of hypertension, diabetes, as well as breast, prostate and colon cancers. It's even been marketed toward expectant mothers to reduce daughters risk of breast cancer. This miracle food has become a staple ingredient in over 40,000 food products. It's in everything from breakfast cereals and margarine to baked goods, snack foods, livestock feed, baby formulas and vegetarian meat and milk substitutes. Wow this product has it all! Or does it?

Well, that is the multi-billion dollar question. Let's go beyond the surface and examine this product a little more closely. The soybean industry is a multi-billion dollar-a-year business. The soybean was originally used in Asia for crop rotation. Then once fermentation techniques were developed it was used to produce soy sauce, miso, tempeh then eventually tofu, also known as bean curd. Essentially, it was the fermentation technique that gave the soy bean life and gave birth to its image as the perfect food product that it has today. However, behind this image of flawlessness lie several hidden truths. The soy bean has a high phytate content. Phytate is an acid which inhibits the absorption of important nutrients such as zinc, iron, calcium and magnesium. So though soy may be a rich source of several minerals the other half of the story is that the high phytate content results in mineral blocking effects. As for relieving menopausal symptoms, the isoflavones in soy act as a hormone in the body which disrupts the body's hormonal balance and results in worsened thyroid problems.

In addition to the effects of soy on health, it also has an associated socioeconomic and environmental impact. In 2000 to 2005 soybean farming was responsible for the loss of 50,000 square miles of Brazilian rainforest. Soybean farming is also responsible for wildlife habitat destruction, a significant increase in greenhouse gases, as well as disruption of indigenous tribal life by way of forest and water contamination. This all begs the question... is it worth our health, the environment, and the welfare of indigenous populations to continue to ignore and support the interests of corporations, biased scientists and various organizations who are motivated by profits to mis-feed us information about this product and on a need-to-know basis?

by: Amirah Bellamy

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