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Tag: Soy - Organic Lifestyle Magazine Tag: Soy - Organic Lifestyle Magazine

Impossible Burger Made With GMOs and Glyphosate

The world is finally realizing the dangers of glyphosate in our food system. Costco is planning to ban glyphosate from their stores, and Bayer is facing a plethora of lawsuits for the cancer-causing herbicide.

The world is also beginning to understand the problems with our food system and we’re starting to seriously look for alternatives to factory farmed meat.

We love the idea of meat-alternatives in an effort to adopt a more ecologically friendly and human approach to feeding the population. We have to find alternatives to factory farming. And the meat-alternative that’s all the rage today is the Impossible Burger. Burger King is rolling out the Impossible Whopper nationwide this year. White Castle, Hard Rock Cafe, Red Robin, Cheesecake Factory, and hundreds of other restaurants already have the Impossible Burger on their menu.

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

Unfortunately, the Impossible burger is not a healthy or environmentally conscious alternative to beef. Mom’s Across America reports that the Health Research Institute Laboratories found levels of glyphosate in the Impossible burger to be alarmingly high.

The total result (glyphosate and its break down AMPA) was 11.3 ppb. Moms Across America also tested the Beyond Meat Burger and the results were 1 ppb. These are levels eleven times higher than levels within the Beyond Meat Burger.

We are shocked to find that the Impossible Burger can have up to 11X higher levels of glyphosate residues than the Beyond Meat Burger according to these samples tested. This new product is being marketed as a solution for “healthy” eating, when in fact 11 ppb of glyphosate herbicide consumption can be highly dangerous. Only 0.1 ppb of glyphosate has been shown to alter the gene function of over 4000 genes in the livers, kidneys and cause severe organ damage in rats.**** I am gravely concerned that consumers are being misled to believe the Impossible Burger is healthy.”

Zen Honeycutt, Executive Director of Moms Across America

Related: How to Avoid GMOs – And Everything Else You Should Know About Genetic Engineering

Soy and wheat crops that are often heavily sprayed with glyphosate. The CEO of Impossible Foods recently announced that the soy patties will be made using GMO soy. Previously the Impossible Burger was being made with a textured wheat protein, but in order to meet demand, they switched to a non-GM soy protein concentrate, and are now switching to genetically engineered soy. The CEO & Founder of Impossible Foods, Pat Brown, said that GM soy is “the safest and most environmentally responsible option that would allow us to scale our production and meet demand.”

One the switch is made to GM soy the glyphosate levels in the Impossible Burger are likely to rise. Genetically-modified soy is a “Roundup Ready” product.

Common Drea,s broke down the CEOs clams in an excellent article titled, 6 Reasons Impossible Burger’s CEO Is Wrong About GMO Soy.




Stop Eating Like That and Start Eating Like This – Your Guide to Homeostasis Through Diet

I have worked with many doctors, health coaches, nutrition consultants, and other various health professionals who are baffled with a client’s inability, or their own inability to get over certain health issues. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the problem is sugar. We eat so much sugar! But it’s not just sugar. If you’re struggling with your health, and you feel like you’ve learned so much about health but still are unable to reach homeostasis, take a look at these common mistakes people make with their diet.

Contents

Juice

The sugar within a whole apple will not feed pathogenic gut flora or spike most people’s blood sugar when eaten as an apple. Apple juice, on the other hand, is a refined sugar. Juicing removes fruit sugar from its natural state, which is inside the fruit, surrounded and bound with fiber. If the juice gets hot enough the enzymes are getting destroyed too.

Must Read: How To Heal Your Gut

How to Juice For Health

Use a slow juicer to preserve enzymes and other delicate nutrients. Drink immediately; don’t store it. Use vegetables and herbs. This will not be that refreshing burst of sweetness fruit juicers are accustomed to.  Spinach, lettuces and other lighter leafy greens make for a pretty easy transition. Kale, cabbage, and collards can be difficult to work with (or drink) depending on the juicer and their palate. Try adding them in slowly. Personally, I cannot make collard work to save my life, but I’ve grown accustomed to kale and spinach.

Related: How to Optimize Curcumin Absorption – With Golden Milk Tea Recipe

Cayenne, turmeric, garlic, ginger, and cinnamon are a healthy juicer’s best friend. The herbal antimicrobial properties and some other factors help balance out the effects of the sugars from juicing.

Related: The Best Juicer

Wheat

The food pyramid is not our friend. Meat and grain industries have influenced dietary regulations for decades. How a food pyramid is done right depends on whether one is vegan, a raw foodist, or an omnivore, but the commonality is raw vegetables as the base for a balanced diet.

Related: How to Optimize Curcumin Absorption – With Golden Milk Tea Recipe

Grain has been consumed for thousands of years, but modern wheat is making people sick. There are a few likely reasons for this, including genetic engineering through hybridization (not to be confused with GMOs), glyphosates, unnatural harvesting practices, and the way we handle the modern processing that make the food products. Many who cannot consume wheat are able to eat spelt, Kamut, Einkorn, and some other ancient grains that contain gluten, but anyone with severe gluten issues would be wise to stay away from all wheat and gluten until the gut is balanced and healed.

A proper food pyramid would have raw herbs and vegetables as the most important items, with cooked vegetables and herbs being shown as the second most beneficial, with fruit following close behind. Meat and grains are not necessarily bad for you, but they don’t do nearly as much to heal the body (unless you’re severely deficient in nutrition). Cooked vegetables, meats, and grains have many benefits and can help sustain and build our body, but raw fresh produce and herbs produce the best ecosystem in our gut which equates to a healthy body.

Gluten-Free Grains and Grain Substitutions

  • Amaranth is an ancient grain that is very easy to absorb and assimilate and is rich in protein, as well as calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium. It’s also the only grain that has been documented to contain vitamin C.
  • Buckwheat is technically not a grain; this fruit seed is related to rhubarb and sorrel. It’s a good source of antioxidants, fiber, manganese, magnesium, and tryptophan.
  • Corn can be problematic for those dealing with inflammation, but it’s a much better choice than wheat for anyone who’s not feeling their best. Corn is a good source of vitamins B1, B5 (pantothenic acid), and C; folate; and phosphorus.
  • Millet, “with its many nutrients, has been shown to support the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and respiratory systems. It has the potential to protect against diabetes and cancer.” – Click to read more about millet here
  • Montina is flour milled from Indian ricegrass (which is not to traditional rice). It’s rich in protein, carbohydrates, and fiber and is typically used as an additive to primary gluten-free flours.
  • Quinoa is an ancient grain that’s very popular right now. It’s often is used in place of traditional starches, such as pasta, rice, couscous, and cereals. Quinoa is rich in amino acids, manganese, magnesium, iron, copper, and phosphorous.
  • Rice. But not white rice. Brown rice contains the bran and germ portion of the kernel and is higher in fiber and other nutrients. Rice is rich in B vitamins, calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium, and zinc. Rice flour is commonly used for baking with gluten-free products.
  • Sorghum is an ancient millet like cereal grain that’s used in baking.
  • Teff is an ancient grain that is similar in size to poppy seeds. Teff has a nutty, molasses like flavor is somewhat mucilaginous. It’s can be eaten uncooked, as a cooked grain, or ground and added as part of the flour used in recipes. Teff is rich contains all eight indispensable amino acids, and it’s chock-full of thiamin and contains significant amounts of the minerals phosphorus, magnesium, aluminum, iron, copper, zinc, boron, and barium.
  • Wild rice is an aquatic cereal grain that grows wild in isolated lakes and riverbeds in the cold regions of North America. It contains protein, phosphorous, potassium, and magnesium and the B vitamins thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, and folic acid.

And of course, there are also beans and lentils for gluten free meals. Did I miss any? Comment!

Should I Be Soaking My Grains?

Phytic acid is an enzyme inhibitor of concern for many. Studies on phytic acid reveal that the phytic acid in whole grain can block calcium, zinc, magnesium, iron and copper absorption. It doesn’t happen with everyone; some seem immune to these adverse consequences because of a favorable ecosystem of gut flora. In addition, when animal fats that provide vitamins A and D accompany whole grains the effects of phytic acid are lessened.

Despite its potential drawbacks, phytic acid is similar in some ways to a vitamin, and metabolites of phytic acid may have secondary messenger roles in cells.” – All About Phytates Phytic Acid

For those with healthy gut flora, it’s probably not necessary to soak grains before cooking. For anyone suffering health issues, soaking grains and grain flours in an acid medium at very warm temperatures reduces or even eliminates phytic acid. I don’t generally soak grains or grain like products. I also tend to eat grains with raw herbs and vegetables, and I eat more vegetables in a day than I do grains. If you consume lots of grains you may do better with soaking them first.

I do soak legumes and I typically soak most nuts and seeds. I sprout them if I can.

Nuts

Nuts and seeds have enzyme inhibitors, including but not limited to just phytic acid. That’s why they last so long. Nuts and seeds will not break down into their simplest forms during digestion when their enzyme inhibitors are present.

Our pancreas produces our enzymes. Enzymes cause chemical reactions in the body. Enzymes break things down. Enzymes break down food, clots in the blood, they remove waste, break down fibrin, break down proteins and other food components to allow assimilation of nutrients, destroy foreign proteins, destroy viruses, and they are necessary for all bodily functions. Without enzymes we’re dead. Not having enough enzymes will equate to a stroke, heart attack, or some other catastrophic failure very soon.

Our pancreas only produces a finite amount or enzymes. Enzyme inhibitors are hard on the pancreas. Our modern diets are as a whole are very unfriendly to our pancreas. Chemicals that don’t breakdown, food that can’t be properly, fully digested for any reason, and to a lesser but still significant extent, any food that is void of enzymes put a burden on the pancreas. Think of the pancreas as the clock that our life is counting down from. If everything else is as healthy as it can be, the pancreas will still, eventually, stop producing enzymes no matter what else we do. We know that the quality of food can impact our DNA degradation, and enzymes are the other big piece of the longevity puzzle.

Related: Enzyme Supplementation For Disease

The more enzymes we get from our food, the longer our body will be able to produce our own enzymes, the longer we live.

Heat destroys enzymes. Pasteurized nuts are unlikely to sprout. The few that do still have some enzymes, but most do not.

Nuts, seeds, and legumes have natural enzyme inhibitors. Some are worse for us to consume than others, but all enzyme inhibitors inhibit certain enzymes from working. This is great for nuts and seeds so that they can be stored for years without breaking down, but these enzyme inhibitors disrupt our body’s functions.

How To Do Seeds Right

Pumpkin seeds, almonds, hazelnuts, hemp seeds, pecans, walnuts and a few of other nuts and seeds are chock full of enzymes while in their raw, natural forms. Provided they are raw, chewing them well enough can mix the enzymes with the inhibitors, effectively canceling each other out, but soaking and sprouting these nuts and seeds will remove the inhibitors, turning the nuts into enzyme rich, life-giving superfoods. Other nuts, and many legumes, really should be soaked and sprouted due to the nature of their enzyme inhibitors. There’s no need to sprout flax or chia seeds.

Enzyme supplements can also help to properly digest nuts and seeds, and eating them with raw vegetables can provide extra enzymes for digestion too.

Cooking can destroy many enzyme inhibitors but does not destroy all of them. Ideally, cooked nuts and seeds should be sprouted first.

Related: Homemade, Vegan Nut Milk Recipes and More

Soaking and Sprouting Nuts and Seeds

I use warm filtered water and a pinch of sea salt. The warm water will neutralize many of the enzyme inhibitors, but not all of them. I dump the water half way into it, refill, and then dump and rinse well before use. The salt also helps to activate some of the enzymes that deactivate the enzyme inhibitors.

I soak for 12-24 hours, depending on the nut or seed.

What You Need

  • 2-3 cups of raw, organic nuts or seeds (I don’t mix them, one kind per container)
  • 3-4 cups of warm water (cover nuts +15% for expansion)
  • 1 tablespoon of salt

Instructions

  1. Place the warm water in a medium bowl or jar that accommodates 2 liters or more
  2. Add salt
  3. Add the nuts or seeds
  4. Leave uncovered overnight.
  5. If you’re not sprouting, it’s time to dehydrate them. If I’m sprouting, at this point I soak them for one more round, another 8 hours or so, and then I lay them out on a towel and leave them overnight, damp. Wait until you see sprouting, and then you dehydrate the nuts or seeds.

Here is an article that goes into more depth on how to sprout using a mason jar.

There are preferred individual soaking times, but I just tend to go by size. Bigger nuts get a little more water time.

Sprouting goes a step further reducing the levels of enzyme inhibitors and unlocking other nutritional benefits, even more. But not all seeds sprout. Pine nuts, macadamias, pecans, and walnuts will not sprout, at least in my experience. Don’t even bother with soaking flax or sesame seeds. I like to sprout pumpkin, sunflower, almonds, broccoli, alfalfa, and clover. I can’t get brazil nuts to sprout, but I always treat them as if I could. Judging by the chia pet, it would seem you could soak and sprout chia seeds.

If you give a squirrel a raw nut, it will always bury it. The squirrel will only dig it up when the nut has sprouted. They have found sensors in squirrels’ noses that can identify a sprouted nut. Raw, unsprouted nuts have digestive enzyme inhibitors that prevent animals from digesting it easily. Only when it sprouts are these inhibitors deactivated. Smart squirrels!” – Diana Herrington

Beans, Legumes

Apparently, our ancestors understood this very well, because grains, beans, nuts, and seeds in their natural form were never consumed without being soaked or fermented first. It was a time-honored tradition of food preparation that kept agrarian cultures thriving. It wasn’t until food mechanization took the reigns and the processing of food became an industry, that soaking and fermenting became a dying tradition.” – Kim, Yogitrition

Do not buy canned beans. Do not trust companies to cook your legumes. Legumes can have intolerable quantities of enzyme inhibitors and dangerous types of lectins that need to be resolved with soaking (and cooking). Check out All About Lectins for more on lectins. Always soak your beans, legumes, and lentils before consuming.

Soak lentils and peas for about 5 hours, and I soak other legumes overnight.

Soy

Soy contains a few enzyme inhibitors including a trypsin inhibitor, that won’t allow nutrients to be properly digested. More than 90% of our soybean crop is genetically engineered. The GMO variety contains 27% more trypsin inhibitor. Soy should be consumed in a fermented form such as miso, tempeh, natto, and tamari sauce. Fermentation reduces soybean’s enzyme inhibitors. Sprouted soy and edamame (green soybeans) are easier to digest.

Asian women have very low rates of menopausal complaints, heart disease, breast cancer and osteoporosis. The soy industry, with sketchy evidence to support their claims, attributes this to soy being a regular part of the Asian diet. These claims, which have become widely accepted due to massive media campaigns, disregard extensive research that shows otherwise. They also disregard other dietary and lifestyle factors at play in Asian cultures. For example, there are many Asian populations that don’t eat soy as a regular part of their diet, yet still enjoy low rates of the chronic diseases mentioned. Among those who do eat soy regularly, fermented soy products are what is consumed the most. Asians aren’t downing quarts of overly-sweetened, highly-processed soy milk or popping supplements containing concentrated soy isoflavones, which has become popular in the U.S. Soy. In addition, the traditional Asian diet consists of primarily whole, fresh, natural foods including sea vegetables, which are packed with vital nutrients and one of the richest sources of absorbable calcium. They also eat a lot of fish, small amounts of meat, and little to no dairy products or processed foods—in stark contrast to the Standard American Diet, which consists of mostly processed foods high in sugar, fat, sodium, and excessive amounts of meat and zero sea vegetables.” – Family Wellness First: Nutrition

Related: Sprouting to Remove Enzyme Inhibitors

Agave Nectar

The Glycemic Index measures how quickly sugar from food enters the bloodstream. Fructose does not raise blood sugar or insulin levels in the short-term. This is why high fructose sweeteners are often labeled as “healthy.” Agave nectar’s low GI is because the sugar in it is fructose. The harmful effects of agave have little to do with the glycemic index. Glucose is an incredibly important molecule, found in many healthy foods and our bodies produce it. We need it. Every living cell does. The liver metabolizes fructose. When the liver cannot process all of the fructose it turns the fructose into fat, which gets shipped out of the liver as VLDL particles, fatty triglycerides, which raise our triglyceride levels.  Eventually, much of the fat lodges inside the liver, which can cause fatty liver disease.

Related: How To Reverse Fatty Liver Disease (Diet Plan Included)

The sugar in agave also feeds pathogens. It doesn’t take much agave to overwhelm the liver. Agave is probably no healthier than white table sugar and could be worse.

Honey

A little bit of raw honey is good for you. While there’s no scientific determination as to how much is too much, I reckon a tablespoon a day is just the right amount for those who are healthy, and far too much for those without a healthy gut.

Related: Candida, Gut Flora, Allergies, and Disease

The biggest two problems with consuming honey are:

  • It’s not always real honey, and it’s almost always pasteurized
  • People tend to cook it even when they buy raw (like when you put it in that coffee or tea)

Cooked honey loses too many of its beneficial properties to still be healthy. Honey should only be consumed raw with the natural enzymes intact.

Other Sugars

Coconut sugar, evaporated cane juice, apple juice, and brown rice syrup are all refined and processed foods. The sugar in fruit juice will have different results than the sugar in whole fruit. You can’t sweeten foods by adding sugar without the consequences of added sugar.

There are also sugar alcohols like maltitol, sorbitol, erythritol, and the most well known, xylitol. Manufacturers of xylitol market the sweetener as derived from xylan, which is found in the fibers of many plants including berries, oats, beets, sugar cane and birch. Sugar alcohols are naturally occurring substances but manufactured xylitol is another matter entirely. Xylitol can be derived from the xylan of birch trees, but xylan is also found in corn. Thanks to our tax dollar subsidies, corn is cheap. Xylitol typically comes from GMO corn to make matters worse.

Sugar alcohols do not break down like food does through digestion. The fermentation of undigested xylitol in the gut disrupts our flora. Studies have shown health issues with mice.

It appears that xylitola may be ok as a sweetener in small amounts, especially for those addicted to sugar. But it’s not healthy. It’s not at all beneficial to our bodies. And in large amounts, sugar alcohols are clearly toxic. For those sweet-tooth’ed ones looking to replace their sugar, there is not substitute without consequences. Sugar, in nature, is hard to come by. We just weren’t meant to eat foods that are so sweet.

But there is one. The holy grail for health nuts: Stevia. But even this sweetener is not without its problems. True health does not come with a sweet tooth.

Dried Fruit

Speaking of sugar, dried cranberries almost always have plenty of it. Lots of dried fruit has this problem. Why do dried bananas need sugar? Double check those ingredients. Ideally, there should only be one. We suggest making your own.

Yogurt

First of all, the whole probiotic craze negates the fact that our stomach acid is designed to kill bacteria. Most yogurt is made with weak bacteria that would be killed within the stomach before reaching the gut. “Would be…” Most conventional yogurt does not have enough of this beneficial bacteria and what little bit it did have was killed off in the processing.

Food Bars

Sugar, cooked, processed, soy and other sticky ingredients make bars a no-no for anyone trying to heal. I’ve found a few bars that I like, but they aren’t healthy. They are a treat. A much better choice than conventional food, but when you’re not well, you shouldn’t trust a company to make your food. Another common problem with healthy food bars, besides soy and sugar, is they tend to add healthy fats that are highly susceptible to degradation, like chia and flax seeds.

Smoothies

Smoothies are typically too sweet, thanks to fruit juice and lots of fruit. But smoothies can be done right if they are made at home. Check out How to Make the Healthiest Smoothies.

Packaged Health Food

The health food section of any grocery store is where the fresh produce is. That conventional, pesticide laden, perfect looking, 4 month-old apples is going to do most people a lot more good than a box of organic, all natural, free range, grass-fed, non-GMO, small farm, locally grown box of cereal. Healthy people eat lots of fresh, raw produce, and cook food from scratch. Pretenders buy their junk food in the organic section. It’s better than the conventional aisles, but it’s not healthy. Get to know your farmer’s markets and the farmers there. Grow your own. Take things one step at a time. And listen to your body. Forget the health food section, and stick to the produce and bulk sections.

Conclusion

When I do eat foods that aren’t the healthiest choices, I take Abzorb with it. It’s an enzyme and a probiotic. It works well. I use it to help digest the food and keep the gut eco system in check. It’s also useful for beans that maybe didn’t soak long enough. Also, it’s very important to get a wide variety of foods. Try a new food every day. Check out my salad recipe here. I’ll bet you’ll find a few new ones in there. Those salads are better than any supplement on the market. Good, large, diverse salads are the foundation of a healthy and powerful immune system.

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Is Soy Good For You?

Do you eat soy? Drink it? Supplement with it? Does the debate going on about the pros and cons of this now common legume concern you?

In the West, soy is no longer just for vegetarians or the health conscious. Meat eaters are also getting a dose, albeit second hand, as in fact some 98% of soy protein meal is used as feed for livestock. The animals eaten are likely to have been subsisting on soy themselves! Soy has made its way into popularised gluten-free products, and various health claims as to its prostate protecting, cardioprotective, and hormone balancing see it an ever-increasing commodity in the shopping basket.

Data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (2003) indicates that in most European and North American countries soy protein consumption is under 1 gram (g) per day; however, particular subgroups (vegans, vegetarians, and infants on soy-based formula for example) have higher rates of consumption. Many Asian countries consume much more soy protein per capita; most notably the Japanese at 8.7 g; Koreans, 6.2–9.6 g; and Indonesians, 7.4 g. The notably reduced rates of reproductive cancers and osteoporosis in these countries were originally hailed as evidence that soy properties (in particular the hormone-mimicking isoflavones in soy) are health promoting, anti-cancer agents. The increased incidence of other diseases such as cancers of the stomach, oesophagus, and thyroid disease seem to be forgotten in this dialogue. The high salt content of many of the traditional Asian soy foods may be in part to blame for these increased cancer risks. There is much more to the soy story than just the marketing hype.

Traditional Asian diets include soy in whole food preparations such as edamame (whole soybeans), miso, tofu, tempeh, nato, and soy flour. Many of the traditional soy products are fermented – a process that can reduce and eliminate some of the undesirable qualities from soy including endocrine disrupters, enzyme inhibitors and other antinutrients like phytic acid (a potent mineral absorption blocker) and enzymes that lead to trypsin inhibition (trypsin is an important digestive secretion).

In Europe and America, there is an ever-increasing trend towards using soy as animal feed, as a replacement for other foodstuffs, and as a “bonus” health ingredient added to products such as bread. In the West, soy is generally consumed  in a highly processed form: soy protein isolate (SPI).

SPI is a highly processed product and is the key ingredient in most soy foods that are designed for their palatability in the Western diet. SPI is used to imitate meat and dairy products. Textured vegetable protein (TVP) is found in the vegetarian option or low-cholesterol products (sausages/burgers etc.) and sold on its own is also made from SPI. SPI is in soy baby formulas. The isolate is also utilised for various protein fortified foods, for supplements, and for protein and meal replacement shakes.

As SPI is not fermented, a number of other processing steps must be taken to remove unwanted properties. The process is highly chemical, leaching aluminium into the product from processing vats, denaturing proteins in the  heat treatment, and  introducing the development of further unwanted chemicals such as the carcinogen lysinoalanine (in alkaline processing).

Since the 1970s, soy lecithin has been widely used in food manufacturing as an emulsifier and sold in health food shops as a food supplement. The recent call for fewer trans fatty acids has resulted in a reduction in the use of partially hydrogenated soybean oil; however, soy protein ingredients play functional roles in baked goods, processed meats, and other products. Soy ingredients are also used to add nutrition to processed foods. If you are eating something packaged right now, take a look at the label!

On top of the concern that soy may not be entitled to its proclaimed status as a health food, the more sinister side to soy is the relationship between soy and disease. Soy is considered a goitrogen and is thus linked to reduced thyroid function. Suspected health threats from soy intake range from the mild – hypothyroid patients may need to increase their thyroxine medication, to the extreme – soy causes thyroid disease, various cancers, and serious hormonal issues in both male and female consumers.

Edamame FieldIn the USA and other major production countries, the vast majority of soy is genetically modified (GMO). In the EU, GMO products are required to be labelled as such (this is not a requirement in the US), but there is increasing concern about GMO contamination of non-GMO crops and the insidious infiltration of GMO (and other hazards) into the globalised food manufacture chain.  We are ever more likely to be eating foodstuff such as soy in a way nature never intended. The safety of GMO produce is a long way from being confirmed. many scientists agreeing that is a dangerous gamble with unpredictable health consequences.

So should we be eating soy?  A recent (2015) research project from the University of Illinois looks to have provided a key to unlocking the conflicting evidence. Researchers studying genes, soy, and breast cancer found that the compounds in minimally processed soy flour stimulate genes that suppress cancer, whilst highly processed soy isoflavones stimulate oncogenes that promote tumor growth. Genistein, the controversial dominant isoflavone in soy, was equally present in both diets used in the animal experiment. The purified isoflavones also negatively affected immune function, whereas soy flour had a positive impact on immunity. This finding supports the hypothesis that it is the synergistic action of properties in whole soy that confer health benefits, whereas highly processed isoflavones have the potential to produce the opposite effect.

The message at this stage is what we will always fall back to: eat as close to nature as possible. GMO foods have no place at our table. Highly processed anything is unlikely to be health promoting. If you couldn’t make it in your own kitchen, you probably shouldn’t be eating it! Moderate servings of traditionally prepared foods, provided you have good thyroid health and are not allergic (soy is a major allergen), may confer health benefits, but SPI is to be avoided.

Author

Gemma Hurditch is a Naturopath and a Bachelor of Health Science in Complementary Medicine.  She lectures at CNM (College of Naturopathic Medicine) in the UK.

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