Soy - To Eat or Not To Eat

Soy - To eat or not to eat, that is the question.

You read an article or hear on the news that soy is good for you. So, you vow to put soy in your diet daily. Look at all the health benefits, right? It prevents osteoporosis, fights cancer, keeps the heart healthy. Heck, it even helps with blood pressure and menopause. Why not eat it?

Well, there have been studies out there warning women that it can cause breast cancer. What information is correct?

Here's the low down on soy. 

It depends on the soy that you're eating, whether it's good for you or not. When fermented soy is eaten, it is said to have more benefits. A list of these fermented soy products are: natto, miso, tempeh, soy sauces and fermented tofu and soymilk.

Nonfermented soy products include fresh green soybeans, whole dry soybeans, nuts, sprouts, flour, soymilk and tofu. These are the ones that are a no-no.

You want to watch nonfermented soymilk. Always go with the organic variety.  In nonfermented soymilk, the soybeans are washed in alkaline or a petroleum-based solvent. Next, they're bleached, deodorized and filled with additives. Then, after the beans are heat-blasted and pulverized into flakes, they're mixed with water. I'm not 100% sure this process is correct, as it was a blog, but it doesn't sound good.

Why is fermented soy so good for us?

Fermented soy is better because during the fermentation process, inhibitors called trypsin, located on the soybean's coating that hinders the nutrition absorption in our bodies, are removed.

In a Japanese study, they found that the daily intake of soy products such as miso and natto (created by cleaving the beta-glycosyl bond of genistin, a chemopreventative agent) for Japanese was between 1.5-4.1 mg/person and 6.3-8.3 mg/person. These levels are quite a bit higher than Western Europeans or Americans, and note that the rate of mortality for these two groups for prostate, breast and colon cancer are higher than Japanese.

I don't know what to believe. I can't tell you what to do. But every research is pointing to fermented soy, and the benefits far outweigh nonfermented soy at this point. I'll keep researching.

Sources:

You Think Soymilk is Healthy? retrieved on October 8, 2008 from http://hiddensoy.com/WP/?p=10   

mercola.com, Soy Bad, Soy Good: The Pluses of Fermented Soy, retrieved October 8, 2008 from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/08/04/fermented-soy.aspx

Jiva, More About Fermented Soy, retrieved October 8, 2008 from http://www.jivasoyhealth.com/page/1235539