Soy: is it bad for you?

Half the time, when I talk with people about eating a plant-based diet, I hear that I should avoid soy. It seems that most of the people around me worry that soy is full of estrogen. Ironically, most of these people regularly consume dairy products. When pressed on the subject, my friends usually think it would be ideal to avoid both. A week later, they are still only avoiding soy. Why? Is soy really bad for you or is this more propaganda against giving up meat?

Many people switch from meat to tofu and quickly benefit from reduced saturated fat and cholesterol. Sure, you can still get these benefits from a plant-based diet without consuming soy.

Most people, who accept the logic of a plant-based diet, would agree that tofu is safer to eat than steak. Those same people would also agree that tofu or edamame is better for you than a tofu dog or other processed soy products because many of the nutrients in soy, like fiber, are filtered out in the process of making the tofu dog or tofu-based cream "cheese."

People worry about consuming the estrogen in soy because for years we were told that estrogen caused breast cancer. Many blogs still support this idea. Is it true? Does soy even contain estrogen?

When I started writing this post, I knew that soy contained isoflavones and phytoestrogens. I've been reading up on what that means:

Isoflavones are polyphenolic compounds that possess both estrogen-agonist and estrogen-antagonist properties. For this reason, they are classified as phytoestrogens — plant-derived compounds with estrogenic activity. Isoflavones are the major flavonoids found in legumes, particularly soybeans.

We know that during the early stages of breast cancer estrogen encourages cancer cells to grow and spread. This makes many doctors worry that soy could make things worse for women with breast cancer. A 2014 American study looked like it may support this idea, but the study lost funding and couldn't go on long enough for conclusive results. During this study, 70 women at the early stages of breast cancer consumed four cups of soy milk a day, while 70 others consumed a placebo. I don't know anyone who consumes that much soy per day. They found that several genes that encourage cancer growth were active in women in the soy group. They didn't find out if this actually caused cancer to grow.

They also didn't find out anything about the effect of soy on people who don't have cancer. Many studies suggest that consuming soy prevents cancer, including prostate cancer in men.

In fact, soy has been found to have so many health benefits that it is available as a supplement. People take soy supplements to treat high blood pressure, heart diseases, type 2 diabetes, asthma, lung cancer, endometrial cancer, prostate cancer, thyroid cancer, osteoporosis, and kidney disease. It's used to regulate bowel movements, improve memory, to relieve muscle and breast pain, for menopause, and premenstrual syndrome. People also take it to prevent breast cancer. Though, we all know how I feel about supplements.

A study of the quality of commercially available soy supplements suggests that less than 25% of products contain within 90% of labeled isoflavone content. Paying more for a product doesn’t necessarily guarantee that the content shown on the label is accurate. 

But wait a minute... can soy prevent cancer?

When we want to know more about the benefits of plant-based diets, we keep looking to China because the Chinese have been eating plant-based diets for centuries. Researchers studied more than 73,000 Chinese women and found that those who ate at least one or two servings of soy per day were 11% less likely to develop breast cancer than those who did not.

Of course, there are problems with that study too, at least when we apply it to the lives of women who ate McDonald's and Dairy Queen as kids, rather than tofu and miso. We don't know how soy benefited those women in China. Did it start to work when they were children? Is starting a soy diet at 40 too late?

I don't know. None of the research available is persuasive enough for this skeptical woman. I would likely be more concerned about soy if I had breast cancer. If I had breast cancer, I wouldn't take advice from my blog, but would listen to the professionals helping me get rid of the cancer.

If you don't have cancer, these studies are only telling you to eat soy in moderation, by which they mean one or two servings per day. That doesn't sound very moderate to me, but I'm less concerned about soy now than I was when I started researching it.

Thanks for reading. Please share any more information about the benefits and dangers of soy in the comments.

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Changes I experienced switching to plant-based whole foods

I've been eating a plant-based whole food diet for one month and I've noticed some changes.

I've only really slipped up three times, two of them involving my husband. One day, he ordered my favourite sweet & sour chicken from our favourite Chinese food place, and I ate some. I was less than a week in at that time. The next week, he made beer-battered fish & chips. On the weekend, I had a cold brew frappe at a street festival, which had milk in it.

The most notable change that I've noticed is how much I paid for that frappe by running to the bathroom for the next 36 hours. It turns out that most adults are lactose intolerant, we simply don't notice it because we are so used to consuming dairy (source), which brings me to the next change I noticed...

I feel more energetic. I haven't felt this energetic since I was in my 20s. I've started doing pushups every day.

My acne is gone. I used to get pimples between my eyebrows and on my chin. Those pimples are GONE!

If the clear skin isn't good enough, my food is cheaper! A portobello mushroom cap is cheaper than a steak... go figure! I haven't found a vegan cheese I like, so I don't eat as much of it. Almond milk is a dollar cheaper per litre than the organic grass-fed cow's milk that I was drinking before. Usually, making things from scratch costs less than buying them pre-made and full of preservatives.

On the downside, I got bloated for a while and have been gassier than I was before.

I'm also always hungry, but don't feel bad about snacking. My meals have fewer calories in them and so do my snacks, so I feel like I can eat as much as I want without worrying. I don't weigh myself often, so I don't know if my weight has changed. However, my pants don't feel as tight anymore!

I used (Gavin Murphy) the Healthy Irishman's recipe
for eggplant marinara and ate it all before we could
snap a photo.

There are many meals that I've wanted to blog about, like eggplant marinara and the vegan Buddha bowl, but I ate them before I could take a picture... I was so hungry!

Ending on a low note: I've been moody. Most of the time, I feel happier and healthier than I have in a long time, but, when I'm tired and hungry and have to deal with some-jerk-in-the-world, I get really upset. I've even had a panic attack. Panic and anxiety attacks are not new to me, but it has been over a year (maybe more) since I had a panic attack.

My moodiness isn't enough to be concerned about yet. Maybe I was even too tolerant of those jerks before. However, some evidence shows that not eating meat could have a dangerous effect on women's mental health. To date, the evidence isn't all that persuasive. Anecdotally, I know quite a few level headed vegan and vegetarian women. The vegans on the message boards even say that moodiness is part of "detoxing" from a diet centred around animal slavery. These vegans assure me my moodiness will pass.

If I put my moodiness on one side and all the pain I was in from my arthritis and various other ailments that eating a plant-based whole food diet have relieved me from on the other, I'm still going for the plants.

That being said, I will keep you posted. Thanks for reading! Here is a far more detailed blog post on what to expect, if you go plant-based (or even vegan).

Greetings from a sick skeptical place...

Thank you for joining me in the first post of this blog. My name is Tine Hreno and I already blog about the research for my novel. When I decided to try the anti-inflammatory diet, blogging about it seemed like the obvious next step.

I’m basically a young old lady; my memory doesn’t work well and I have terrible arthritis. Also, I’m stuck in my ways, but I’m tired of getting sick so easily.

My memory problems were brought on by chronic silent migraines. According to WebMD: 

Silent migraines are a medical oddity. How can you have a migraine "headache" without headache pain? 

These so-called migraines have lessened with the use of anti-inflammatory medication.

Upon hearing the good news, my friend exclaimed: “It’s amazing how many problems can be caused by inflammation!” Which is interesting because, as already mentioned, I’ve got lots of problems!

Did you know that inflammation is the common link between such debilitating conditions as Alzheimers, heart disease, cancer, and arthritis?

Did you know inflammation is thought to be the culprit behind the visible signs of aging?

Inflammation is a wellness buzz-word these days, and for good reason. If you reduce inflammation in your body, you'll not only look and feel younger, but you'll significantly lower your risk for chronic disease! Source.

The very notion of a “wellness buzz-word” irks me. When everyone started going gluten-free, I headed straight to Chinatown, got some gluten in a can, and started eating it.

When I started taking anti-inflammatory medicine to reduce the symptoms of silent migraines, I started to feel better. This sense of relief was mixed with amazement at how terrible I was feeling before. My body has grown used to living with a certain amount of pain.

Inspired by my story, another friend suggested I try out an anti-inflammatory diet to see how that changes things. The anti-inflammatory food pyramid lists red wine, so it can’t be that bad… Can it?

I like food and drink. I tested out a few anti-inflammatory foods and am willing to give it a try. If some foods can make you sick, it’s not too much of a stretch to think that others might cure you. However, part of me is still very reluctant and skeptical. I would like this to change my life, but the whole concept of food as medicine makes me think of the backward-gazing anti-vaxxers, who are making us sick in the first place.

In addition to giving the anti-inflammatory diet a serious test drive, I intend to use this blog to investigate claims made about the ability of foods to cure disease (eyes free samples of fish oil suspiciously). I expect to uncover a bunch of hoaxes, while learning some interesting things and getting a little healthier. As a young old lady, I’m definitely going to have some fun along the way!

Thank you for joining me!