Health
Habits
Food
Weight 
Better Than Butternut: Roasted Delicata Squash Recipe
10 Simple Ways To Eat Less Without Noticing
Juicing: Stupid and Pretentious or Nourishing and Enlightening?
10 Tasty Carbs That Won’t Make You Fat
How To Start Working Out When You Don’t Like To Exercise
Focus More on Your Brain and Less on Your Diet if You’re Serious About Losing Weight
Home Court Habits: The Secret to Effortless Weight Control
10 Reasons You Aren’t Losing Weight When You Think You’re Doing Everything Right
How To Burn More Calories Without Breaking A Sweat
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Foodists
Soy: Good or Evil? – Episode 10 – Summer Tomato Live
Last week we talked about the pros and cons of eating soy including it’s role in breast cancer and it’s affect on the, errr, manly arts.
As always, show notes are below.
July 19, 2011 | Tonight on Summer Tomato Live we’re discussing soy. Some say it prevents cancer, others think it promotes it, and some claim it’s evil for causing man boobs. We’ll get to the bottom of these issues and more today during the show.
Join us at 6:00pm PST to learn about how soy affects your health and what to do about it.
To watch live and join the discussion click the red “Join event” button, login with Twitter or your Vokle account, and enter the password when prompted.
I encourage you to call in with video questions, particularly if your question is nuanced and may involve a back and forth discussion. Please use headphones to call in however, or the feedback from the show is unbearable.
See you soon!
Show notes:
Relevant links:
Probiotics and Fermented Foods – Episode 6
Seaweed, salt and iodine – Office Hours (it’s in there I swear)
Healthy Vegetarian and Vegan Diets
Soy sauce
Someone asked during the show how this advice applies to soy sauce. Turns out there are 2 different methods of brewing soy sauce. The traditional way is fermented and has the same attributes as fermented soy products mentioned in the episode. The other method creates the sauces by hydrolyzing soy, which creates a number of unwanted byproducts including MSG and potentially some carcinogenic chemicals. The Wikipedia article on soy sauce is very informative.
Breast cancer
Meta-analysis of soy intake and breast cancer risk
Epidemiology of soy exposures and breast cancer risk
Prostate cancer
Soy consumption and prostate cancer risk in men: a revisit of a meta-analysis
What about demasculizing men?
One of the biggest fears men have about eating soy is the possibility of phytoestrogens demasculizing men, creating sexual dysfunction, infertility and the dreaded man boobs.
Indeed, there have been several studies in rodents suggesting that soy can interfere with reproductive pathways and fertility. However, human and monkey studies show that most men have no need to fear soy.
Hypogonadism and erectile dysfunction associated with soy product consumption
Osteoporosis
Heart disease
Notably, this was not convincing enough for the American Heart Association
A Statement for Healthcare Professionals From the Nutrition Committee of the AHA
Thyroid issues
If you have moderate hypothyroid issues, it may be prudent to restrict your soy intake to low levels.
Impact of flavonoids on thyroid function
Memory/cognitive effects of soy
High Tofu Intake Is Associated with Worse Memory in Elderly Indonesian Men and Women
Once again, I’d like to congratulate you on your interesting and fair presentation on an issue, in this case soy. Too much info about soy has an ideological component, whether that soy is the perfect protein (hello, vegans) or that soy is from the devil (if you hadn’t mentioned the Weston Price group, I wouldn’t have gone there…but really, their disdain for soy [and vegetarians] is a bit over the top). I used to eat a lot of highly processed, probably GMO soy (former vegetarian for ethical reasons who substituted the typical American diet for the typical American diet without meat), but as I’ve become more health aware, I’ve cut out as much processed crap as possible, which has doubtless slashed my soy consumption. I still like organic tempeh and miso, so I’m glad to know you agree that moderate portions are probably OK and possibly beneficial. Once again, it seems to boil down to: eat whole foods in moderation.
Just wanted to say THANK YOU! I had so many concerns about soy (it being a staple in my diet for basically my whole life) and you answered all my questions about it and more.
I was curious about the Silk soymilk. You mentioned in the episode you use to drink it but have stopped because of the soybeans being from China. I was looking at my carton of Silk and noticed the “non-GMO” label that says, “made in USA from non-gmo north american soybreans.” On the back it has more information that says, “we only use natural soybeans, grown without genetic engineering right here in North America. And, because we care about the planet’s health as much as we care about yours, we partner with Conservation International to ensure our soybeans are grown responsibly.” It has a plant code on the package you can enter online to see where the soybeans originated. When I traced mine they were from Shelby County, OH. So my question is – has this all changed (for the better) since you stopped drinking Silk or is this still somehow BS?
It’s entirely possible they changed, they certainly got a lot of bad press when they switched to Chinese beans. They aren’t allowed to lie on their packaging about things like that, so hopefully it’s ok. I stopped paying attention to them when I gave up soy milk but another thing I remember is that they used to be 100% organic, but when they changed owners they split the brand into an organic version and a non-organic one. I’d be careful to be sure I’m getting the former.
Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately, the closest organic version is about 1.5 hours away from me. I like it for the lactose-free component as I am lactose intolerant and seem to handle it better than other lactose free milks I have tried. Are there any other lactose free brands you would recommend?
I like almond milk best these days. Don’t have a brand I’m particularly attached to…
Summer,
Thank you for the very interesting video on Soy. Really helped me answer a lot of questions and concerns I’ve been having.
……..random question: I “liked” your Facebook page but it doesn’t show up in my Feed. I’m still a bit slow when it comes to Facebook. Is there a way to fix this?
Thanks! and your Summer squash noodles recipe is delicious!
Hi Erik,
My name is Darya, not Summer. I have 2 Facebook pages, one personal fan page and one page for Summer Tomato. Every post doesn’t show up in your feed due to the Facebook algorithm. They weight it based on what you’ve viewed and liked in the past, so if you click on a few of my posts they may start showing up more regularly.
🙂
dp