posted December 10, 2004 08:13 PM         

One of the reasons I still include some dairy is that I eliminated soy from my diet. It's a thyroid suppressor, and not nearly the health food it's been touted to be. Quite the opposite, really. If I find the time I'll try to dig up some old strings about the hazards of soy.

posted December 11, 2004 12:53 AM         

I tried to be vegan in the extreme sense for a while, but I became very unhappy and depressed, one must take these things slowly, so I do what comes naturally.

------------------
*Formally known as NeoStar
========================

O space and time! now I see it is true, what I guess'd at,
What I guess'd when I loaf'd on the grass,
What I guess'd while I lay alone in my bed,
And again as I walk'd the beach under the paling stars of the morning.*

posted December 11, 2004 06:55 AM         

quote:

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It's a thyroid suppressor, and not nearly the health food it's been touted to be. Quite the opposite, really.

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posted December 12, 2004 03:11 AM         

I read Star Signs in January 1992 and went vegetarian the minute I finished the last page. I was 16 when I read it. I didn't do it the healthy way- I went vegetarian all at once after being a heavy meat eater and was ill for a few weeks till I adjusted my diet properly. After 5 years of being a vegetarian, I let go of all other animal products and went vegan. However, I was a *junk food* vegan- I didn't eat well, I didn't actally eat many vegetables and I was too dependent on soy products and it really messed up my health and I gained a lot of weight. After several years of being a vegan, I went raw vegan. I stopped cooking my food. I only eat raw vegies fruits seeds and nuts. I'm basically a fruitarian except that I still include green veggies (lettuce, kale, cabbage, beets, carrots, etc). Many things we consider vegetables are actually fruits like avocado, tomato, etc, even though when someone says "fruit" most people automatically think of sweet or tropical fruits. I've been raw for a year and a half now, lost 100 pounds and feel incredible. I don't know if I'll ever be a straight fruitarian but I'm pretty close. I'm not rushing the process anymore, so I know I'll get there eventually, when the time is right.

I've done a few long term fruit juice fasts and soon I'll be able to return to my once-a-week water fast. If you'd like to try a water fast but are unsure how you'd handle it (energy-wise), try this:

Skip dinner, having lunch as your last meat of the day. Assume lunch is done by 1pm. The next day skip breakfast and don't eat again until 1pm (or whenever you finished your lunch the day before). You've had 24 hours of just water and most of that you slept through :-) Don't try it for the first time on a busy day!

I'm 29 now and haven't had meat in 13 years, I haven't had dairy in 7. I've never "slipped" or gone back once I've decided to make a step. Just the power of conviction. What did Linda say? First there is a KNOWing? ;-) I knew what I was doing was right for me. I know it's not right for everyone and I've never preached the path I follow.

I just wanted to share my story here because Linda Goodman was directly responsible for this change in my life and I'm happy to share any advice I can give from my past mistakes and triumphs.

Love & Light,

Beth

posted December 12, 2004 12:47 PM         

That's a good story. Falling prey to the "junk food" vegetarian trap is all too common. Whenever someone tells me they have tried the vegetarian way and it made them sick, this was the reason. Too many of us substitute junk food for meat instead of filling up on veggies and fruit and whole grains. And then they wonder why this "vegetarianism" stuff didn't work for them.

Spreading the word about soy is so important. Thank trill

posted December 12, 2004 06:06 PM         

I'm a vegetarian and I'm on my way to becoming a vegan.. I gave up meat, fish, eggs, milk, yogurt all pretty easily as I've never been very attached to them, but I'm struggling with ice cream!!!! I know there is soy ice cream out there, but it doesn't taste at all the same Its funny, the one thing I'm having trouble with has the least nutrition, most people can't give up their protein...not me I'm such a sweets person, it's my weakness in life. Could be worse right? I'm still battling this addiction, but I try to steer clear of the frozen foods aisle at the grocery store and away from ice cream shops...it's helping but I don't know if I can be strong at the next B-day party I go to or even the next time my boyfriend has it at his house. Help! LOL I'll keep being strong and maybe if I don't have it for long enough, I forget how much I like it..yea thats it.

Also whats going on with this soy warning, it's all we have left for protein!! It cant be dangerous!! And I'm noticing my hair thinning because I haven't much soy lately (combined with stress) so say it isn't so! Does anyone know more about the unhealthy effects of soy? I'm going to start doing some research I let you know what I find..

Lots of Love,

posted December 12, 2004 06:29 PM         

BACON!!!!!!!!

posted December 12, 2004 08:59 PM         

You can read more about soy in a wonderful book, Politically Incorrect Nutrition.

LeoSweetHeart, my local health food store carries some delicious vegan products that contain no soy, or at least very little (in the form of soy lecithin). Some of the most delicious cookies I've ever had have been vegan; I'll have to look up the brands for you. Also, Rice Dreams makes a non-ice cream bar sans soy that is very yummy.

Watch out. Products that merely list 'vegetable oil' are probably made of soybean oil.

And like the earlier discussion in this thread, a vegan eating program does not necessarily equal a healthy eating program. Frito's corn chips are vegan, with no soy, but a steady diet of them with no veggies...not sure that would be healthy.

posted December 12, 2004 09:01 PM         

quote:

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Scientists who have studied the use of soy protein in animal feeds over the years have discovered a number of components in soy that cause poor growth, digestive distress, and other health problems.24-27 To list just a few of these: Protease inhibitors interfere with protein digestion and have caused malnutrition, poor growth, digestive distress, and pancreatitis.28 Phytates block mineral absorption, causing zinc, iron, and calcium deficiencies.29-34 Lectins and saponins have caused leaky gut and other gastrointestinal and immune problems.35-36 Oxalates-surprisingly high in soy-may cause problems for people prone to kidney stones and women suffering from vulvodynia, a painful condition marked by burning, stinging, and itching of the external genitalia.37, 38 Finally, oligosaccharides give soy its notorious reputation as a gas producer. Although these are present in all beans, soy is such a powerful "musical fruit" that the soy industry has identified "the flatulence factor" as a major obstacle that must be overcome for soy to achieve full consumer acceptance.39, 40
Apologists for soy dismiss such claims, saying that food processing and home cooking remove most of these antinutrients. In fact, modern processing removes most of them, but not all. The levels of heat and pressure needed to remove all protease inhibitors, for example, severely damage soy protein and make it harder to digest. The trick is to eliminate the most antinutrients while doing the least damage to the soy protein. Success varies widely from batch to batch.41-44

For years, the soy industry tried to improve the quality of animal feeds by finding better ways to get rid of these undesirable antinutrients. Having failed, they routinely supplement animal feeds heavily with vitamins, minerals, and methionine, a sulfur-containing amino acid that is low in soy. Even so, makers of animal chows are still limited in the amount of soy they can add without causing growth and fertility problems. Food processors making soy-protein products for people may or may not add these supplements. Generally, calcium and vitamin D are added to soy milk so it can compete with dairy products.

Today, the soy industry has switched tactics-from trying to remove unwanted antinutrients to trying to convince people that they are actually a good thing. Protease inhibitors, saponins, and lectins are being touted as curers of cancer or lowerers of cholesterol, while phytates are being recommended for their ability to remove toxic minerals such as cadmium and excess iron from the body.45-51 Although some of these uses look promising, it is important to note that researchers are not achieving these successes using regular soy foods. Most take carefully extracted components and administer them in carefully measured and monitored pharmaceutical doses. News headlines to the contrary, there is no reason to think that just eating a lot of soy foods will do the trick.

Soy Allergens
Soy is one of the top eight allergens that cause immediate hypersensitivity reactions such as coughing, sneezing, runny nose, hives, diarrhea, difficulty swallowing, and anaphylactic shock. Delayed allergic responses are even more common and occur anywhere from several hours to several days after the food is eaten. These have been linked to sleep disturbances, bedwetting, sinus and ear infections, crankiness, joint paint, chronic fatigue, gastrointestinal woes, and other mysterious symptoms.52, 53

Soy allergies are on the rise for three reasons: the growing use of soy infant formula (now 20 to 25 percent of the formula market), the increase in soy-containing foods in grocery stores, the possibility of the greater allergenicity of genetically modified soybeans.54 Although severe reactions to soy are rare compared to reactions to peanuts, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish, soy has been underestimated as a cause of food anaphylaxis. Recently, after a young girl in Sweden suffered an asthma attack and died after eating a hamburger that contained only 2.2 percent soy protein, Swedish researchers looked into a possible soybean connection. They concluded that the soy-in-the-hamburger case was not a fluke, and that minute amounts of soy "hidden" in regular food had caused four of the total of five deaths caused by allergic reactions in Sweden between 1993 and 1996. Of the children who suffered fatal attacks, all had been able to eat soy without any adverse reactions right up until the dinner that caused their deaths.55 According to the Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, children at highest risk are those who suffer from peanut allergies and asthma; parents of such children should make every effort to eliminate all soy from their children's diets.56

Soy and the Thyroid: A Pain in the Neck
More than 70 years of human, animal, and laboratory studies show that soybeans put the thyroid at risk. The chief culprits are the plant hormones in soy known as phytoestrogens or isoflavones.57-59 The United Kingdom's Committee on Toxicology has identified several populations at special risk: infants on soy formula, vegans who use soy as their principal meat and dairy replacements, and men and women who self-medicate with soy foods and/or isoflavone supplements in an attempt to prevent or reverse menopausal symptoms, cancer, or heart disease.60

Infants with congenital hypothyroidism need 18 to 25 percent higher doses of thyroxine drug than usual if they are bottle-fed with soy formula.61 Likewise, adults who boost their thyroid with drugs such as Synthroid while also eating thyroid-inhibiting foods such as soy put extreme stress on their thyroids. Toxicologist Michael Fitzpatrick, PhD, points out that this is the way that researchers induce thyroid cancers in laboratory animals.62

Soy and Reproduction: Breeding Discontent
Scientists have known since the mid-1940s that phytoestrogens can impair fertility. Fertility problems in cows, sheep, rabbits, cheetahs, guinea pigs, birds, and mice have all been reported.63, 64 Although scientists discovered only recently that soy lowers testosterone levels,65 tofu has traditionally been used in Buddhist monasteries to decrease the libido, and by Japanese women to punish straying husbands. Humans and animals appear to be the most vulnerable to the effects of soy estrogens prenatally, during infancy and puberty, during pregnancy and lactation, and during the hormonal shifts of menopause. Of all these groups, infants on soy formula are at the highest risk because of their small size and developmental phase, and because formula is their main source of nutrient.66, 67

A crucial time for the programming of the human reproduction system is right after birth-the very time when bottles of soy formula are given to many non-breastfed babies. Normally during this period, the body surges with natural estrogens, testosterones, and other hormones that are meant to program the baby's reproductive development from infancy through puberty and into adulthood. For infants on soy formula, this programming may be interrupted.68-70

Male infants experience a testosterone surge during the first few months of life and produce androgens in amounts equal to those of adult men. So much testosterone at such a tender age is needed to program the body for puberty, the time when a male's sex organs should develop and he should begin to express male characteristics such as facial and pubic hair and a deep voice. If receptor sites intended for the hormone testosterone are occupied by soy estrogens, however, appropriate development may never take place.71-74 To date, most of the evidence damning soy formula can be found only in animal studies, because investigations in which humans' sex hormone levels are lowered experimentally cannot ethically be done. However, in the years since soy formula has been in the marketplace, parents and pediatricians have reported growing numbers of boys whose physical maturation is either delayed or does not occur at all. Breasts, underdeveloped gonads, undescended testicles (cryptorchidism), and steroid insufficiencies are increasingly common. Sperm counts are also falling.75-79

Soy formula is bad news for girls as well. Natural estrogen levels approximately double during the first month of life, then decline and remain at low levels until puberty. With increased estrogens in the environment in the diet, an alarming number of girls are entering puberty much earlier than normal.80-82 One percent of girls now show signs of puberty, such as breast development or pubic hair, before the age of three. By the age of eight, 14.7 percent of Caucasian girls and 48.3 percent of African American girls had one or both of these characteristics.83 The fact that blacks experience earlier puberties than whites is not a racial difference but a recent phenomenon.84, 85

Most experts blame this epidemic of "precocious puberty" on environmental estrogens from plastics, pesticides, commercial meats, etc., but some pediatric endocrinologists believe that soy is a contributor.86 Of all the estrogens found in the environment, soy is the likeliest explanation of why African American girls reach puberty so quickly. Since its establishment in 1974, the federal government's Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program has provided free infant formula to teenage and other low-income mothers while failing to encourage breastfeeding. Because of perceived or real lactose intolerance, black babies are much more likely to receive soy formula than Caucasian babies.

Early maturation in girls heralds reproductive problems later in life, including amenorrhea (failure to menstruate), anovulatory cycles (cycles in which no egg is released), impaired follicular development (follicles failing to mature and develop into healthy eggs), erratic hormonal surges, and other problems associated with infertility. Because the mammary glands depend on estrogen for their development and functioning, the presence of soy estrogens at a susceptible time might predispose girls to breast cancer, another condition that is on the rise and definitively linked to early puberty.87

Recently, a team of researchers headed by Brian L. Strom, MD, studied the use of soy formula and its long-term impact on reproductive health. They announced only one adverse finding: longer, more painful menstrual periods among women who'd been fed soy formula in infancy.88 Dr. Strom's conclusion that the results were "reassuring" made newspaper headlines all over the world, though the data in the body of the report were anything but. Indeed, data left out of the headlines and buried in the report revealed higher incidences of allergies and asthma, and higher rates of cervical cancer, polycystic ovarian syndrome, blocked fallopian tubes, and pelvic inflammatory disease.89 Although thyroid damage from soy formula has been the principal concern of critics for decades, the researchers excluded thyroid function as a subject for study. Not surprisingly, this study was funded in part by the infant-formula industry.

Most of the fears concerning soy formula have focused on estrogens. There are other problems as well, notably much higher levels of aluminum, fluoride, and manganese than are found in either breastmilk or dairy formulas.90-96 All three metals have the potential to adversely affect brain development. Although trace amounts of manganese are vital to the development of the brain, toxic levels accrued from ingestion of soy formula during infancy have been found in children suffering from attention-deficit disorders, dyslexia, and other learning problems.97, 98

Soy apologists sometimes argue that the plant hormones in soy formula could not possibly be harmful because Japanese women eat a lot of soy products and so must have high levels of phytoestrogens in their breastmilk. Researchers, however, have measured the soy isoflavones in breastmilk and found them low even in vegetarian women who consume copious quantities of tofu, soy milk, soy protein shakes, and other soy foods.99-101

Limited evidence, however, suggests that vegetarian women who eat a lot of soy foods during pregnancy may put their infants at risk in terms of their future reproductive health, fertility, and possibly increased risk of breast cancer. All of the problems that have befallen infants on soy formula, as well as estrogen-related birth defects, have occurred (in animal studies, at least) to the offspring of mothers who were given high doses of soy during pregnancy.102 One of these birth defects that has been linked to vegetarian diets in humans is hypospadias, a developmental disorder in which the opening of the penis is located on the underside of the shaft.103

Until soy estrogens are definitely linked to reproductive-tract abnormalities, infertility, and other health problems in humans, most health authorities recommend that we "wait and see." This could be a terrible mistake.

In the 1940s and 1950s, another estrogen, diethylstilbestrol (DES), was widely given to Western women early in their pregnancies in a misguided attempt to prevent miscarriage. That fact is relevant not only because DES bears a striking structural similarity to some plant estrogens-including soy isoflavones-but because it took more than 20 years before the full spectrum of harmful effects was observed.104, 105

DES is 100,000 times more potent than soy phytoestrogens. However, the large quantities of phytoestrogens in soy products are more than enough to counteract their lower potency. When the effects of isoflavones in fetal and neonatal animals have been studied, they have paralleled those observed in human infants exposed to DES.106, 107 Recent studies indicate that the soy isoflavone known as genistein may be even more carcinogenic than DES.108

Yet the belief persists that soy hormones are "safe" because they are "weak" and "natural." Although the soy industry has claimed that soy estrogens are anywhere from 10,000 to 1,000,000 times weaker than the human estrogen estradiol, the correct figure is only 1,200 times as weak.109 Though this still sounds quite weak, it is not-because of the quantity of these estrogens ingested by infants on soy formula, and by children and adults who eat soy every day. These individuals consume far more soy estrogens than were ever part of a traditional diet in Asia. The average isoflavones intake in China is 3 milligrams, or 0.05 mg per kilogram of body weight. In Japan, the figures range from 10 to 28 mg, or 0.17 to 0.47 isoflavones per kg of body weight. In contrast, infants receiving soy formula average 38 mg of isoflavones, which comes to a shocking 6.25 mg/kg of body weight. Compare that dose to the 0.47 mg/kg per day fed to healthy Japanese adult men and women who experienced thyroid suppression after just three months-or to the 0.75 mg/kg of isoflavones fed to American women who experienced hormonal changes sufficient to skew their menstrual cycles after just one month.110 Although children and teenagers are less vulnerable than infants, their young bodies are still developing, and highly vulnerable to endocrine-system disruption by soy. And soy has been shown to pass through the placentas of pregnant women to their unborn babies.

Meanwhile, the jury is still out on whether soy might help alleviate menopausal symptoms or prevent osteoporosis and breast cancer. The soy industry's top scientists, convened at the Fifth International Symposium on the Role of Soy in the Preventing and Reversing Chronic Disease (held in Orlando, Florida, September 21-24, 2003), conceded that the data are confusing and contradictory, with some studies suggesting that soy might be helpful, and others showing that soy contributes to osteoporosis and promotes breast cancer.

What's certain is that the levels of soy estrogens that might possibly have a beneficial effect on hormonally related diseases have been proven to jeopardize the health of the thyroid. Likewise, the 25 grams of soy protein per day touted by the FDA to lower cholesterol (see sidebar, "Boon to the Industry: The FDA's Soy Protein Health Claim") is very likely to harm the thyroid, and thus increase one of the risk factors for heart disease.

The bottom line is that the safety of soy foods has yet to be proven, and that human beings have become guinea pigs in what Daniel M. Sheehan, formerly senior toxicologist with the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research, has called a "large, uncontrolled and basically unmonitored human experiment.

We now have a soy explosion in this country and also in western Europe. I am veggie and do not eat meat. I am concerned about the amount of soy products in veggie food. Please guys beware as it's way too much. It's too much for the body to cope with at any one time. Think twice before you overdo the triple soy latte.

Gia

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posted December 14, 2004 09:45 AM         

However...

quote:

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I'm believer of being master over my own body. I wear it, it doesn't wear me.

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While there may be some truth to that, I have never known or known of anyone who is a complete Master over His/Her own body, at least not in this time/space/plane. We have not mastered willing ourselves to have blue skin, or willing ourselves to have curly hair.

Personally, I notice a big difference in how my body works, and how I feel, depending on what sort of fuel I give it. Much of the processed food I find in grocery stores can barely even be called food, it is so lacking in nutrients and so laden with hydrogenated oils.

Are there those who can eat crap and still be well? Perhaps. But most of the time, I prefer a high grade fuel.

posted December 14, 2004 01:29 PM         

There are those who have allegedly trained or mastered their bodies to live with little or no food. This has supposedly been done for spiritual reasons.

But if mastery over the body is purely mind over matter, then the fuel becomes irrelevant. These same men and women could, by that equation, be as 'enlightened' by eating tacos and cheeseburgers as fruit and water.

This may be truth. I do not posess such knowing.

posted December 14, 2004 05:17 PM         

The thought of milk makes me queasy....cow fluid. Cow's milk is for baby cows. Plain and simple.

The odd thing though......I'm a sucker for cheese. It's my weakness.