Phytoestrogens according to PTI

Atlas Soyled August 6, 2011

Atlas Shrugged: Part I opened last week in the movie theaters, leading me to reread Ayn Rand's epic novel and to think about all that's being done to our food supply "for our own good. Indeed we are already seeing disastrous effects on personal and planetary health from Big Brother's wasteful and corrupt subsidies of corn, soy, wheat and Big Pfood; from the increasing control over independent farmers through orders, directives, restrictions and police actions; and, ever growing restrictions on what families can choose to eat and feed their children.

Ayn Rand's 1,168 page novel, first published in 1957, rarely mentions food directly. Indeed we might think her protagonist Dagny Taggart lives on coffee and cigarettes, except for a single incident in Part II when she eats the best "hamburger sandwich she ever tasted at a little diner located on the summit of a long, hard climb out of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

That hamburger, of course, was not just a burger, but a product of simple ingredients and of an unusual skill. It had been prepared with integrity, by a philosopher genius, no less, and was authentic and real with nothing ersatz, tricky or pretentious about it. In short, an überburger that represented Ayn Rand's and Dagny Taggart's highest values.

The food Rand chose to represent the lowest values was soy. In Part III the author introduces the flabby mystic Emma "Ma Chambers, whose "progressive dietary views led to the waste of millions of tax dollars on "Project Soybean. Ma had been appointed the nation's food czar out of pity, not intelligence or ability. With no objective evidence whatsoever, Ma felt soybeans would make "an excellent substitute for bread, meat, cereals and coffee and that Americans not only needed to eat more like Asians but should be forced to do so for their own good. Ma's feeling that soybeans were of a higher "moral value than wheat, led to government orders to pull trains out of the midwest, loss of the nation's wheat crop, economic collapse and widespread starvation. As for the soybean crop, it too was lost thanks to the rotters' incompetence,

Given Hollywood's current worship of veganism, I rather doubt "Project Soybean will enliven Atlas Shrugged Part II or III, should those sequels ever be made. As for vegetarianism, it was a symbol of silliness, failure and poverty back in Rand's day. To say that someone was a "vegetable meant they were inactive and indeed nearly comatose. Those Rand admired not only had "meaty ideas but the motive power to act decisively, effectively, appropriately and imaginatively on them.

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©copyright 2011 Kaayla T. Daniel

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is The Naughty Nutritionist„¢ because of her ability to outrageously and humorously debunk nutritional myths. A popular guest on radio and television, she has appeared on The Dr Oz Show, ABC's View from the Bay, NPR's People's Pharmacy and numerous other shows. Her own radio show, "Naughty Nutrition with Dr. Kaayla Daniel debuted this spring on World of Women (WOW) Radio. Dr Daniel is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food, a popular speaker at Wise Traditions and other conferences, a Board Member of the Weston A. Price Foundation and recipient of its 2005 Integrity in Science Award. Her website is www.naughtynutritionist.com and she can be reached at Kaayla@DrKaaylaDaniel.com.

Not Taking the EWG Pledge! 

The Environmental Working Group has asked Americans to go meatless once per week and "Take the pledge to eat less and greener meat! Chef Mario Batali and other celebrities have gone on board to help EWG enlist 100,000 people who will sign the pledge, commit to eating a more "veg centric diet, and "build awareness of how much our food choices impact the planet.

I personally am not about to take that pledge though EWG's slogan "Reduce your impact, improve your health sounds like a "win/win. EWG tells us, for example, that Americans who skip meat and cheese just one day a week "” such as with a "Meatless Monday "— can cut carbon emissions equal to taking 7.6 million cars off the road. And it promises that reducing meat consumption will lower our risk of obesity, heart disease, stroke and cancer.

Sadly, EWG's proposal will do very little for the environment. Worse, it will encourage people to feel "feel good about their growing green consciousness while distracting them from exploring and adopting genuine, sustainable solutions. While it is certainly good that EWG recommends "greener meat and not just "less meat or even "no meat, the catchy "Meatless Monday slogan perpetuates the myth that meat is evil and that plant-based diets are the key to personal and planetary health.

Here's why I'm not taking the EWG pledge:

• The true threat to our environment is not animals "” which have been covering the earth with manure and emissions for tens of thousands of years "” but the globalization and industrialization of agriculture with its unconscionable, factory-farming practices, toxic use of pesticides, herbicides and commercial fertilizers, plundering of natural resources, draining of the water table, and bankrupting of small farmers and cottage industries. EWG's nod to "greener meat suggests they actually understand this, but the overriding message is to stop eating meat of any type. As for all that climate-warming gas, animals emit far less when they eat natural, grass-based diets and not unnatural, hard-to-digest feeds manufactured from soybeans, corn and other grains.

• Plowing pastures and rangeland in order to plant crops is not sustainable and won't do much to feed the hungry or save the environment. Only about eleven percent of the land on planet earth can be farmed, a percentage that cannot be increased without deforestation, irrigation, chemical fertilizers, and other destructive ecological practices. Old-fashioned organic mixed-use farms are the answer. And animals are essential, not optional, for healthy farms.

• America's top soil has been devastated by mono cropping, lawns and other unsustainable practices. While mixing, rotating and composting plants is a start, land cannot be restored without the help of animals. They are needed not only for their rich manure but for rotational grazing. Animal waste is truly a horrific problem with factory farming but is valuable and collectible on small, mixed-use farms. Overgrazing has certainly damaged much of America's land, but the solution is sustainable grazing practices. And that solution, properly handled, serves the land far better than leaving it alone for "conservation. As Joel Salatin has described so well in The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer, Everything I Want to Do is Illegal and other books, diversity, interdependence and layering are the keys to honoring and restoring our land. Salatin also argues cogently for putting our trust in local farmers and not in the official certification programs EWG recommends. How many more exposes of pseudo organic does the Cornucopia Institute need to make before EWG comprehends that certification can "” and often has been "— co-opted and corrupted.? As Salatin explains so well, "transparency between consumers and farmers is the answer. That means thinking globally and acting locally by getting "up front and personal with your food source.

• EWG blames animal foods for the diseases of modern civilization, including cancer and heart disease. But the 20th century saw a decline in the consumption of meat, dairy and butter consumption, but a sharp increase in the consumption of sugar, corn syrup, white flour, liquid and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, artificial flavorings, preservatives and other known health hazard of processed, packaged and fast foods. Contrary to popular belief, science does not support the idea that saturated fat and cholesterol found in animal products contribute to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. All health problems associated with animal products lie with factory farming and other commercial and non-sustainable farming and food processing practices. As for plant-based diets, vegan diets especially can lead to vitamin, mineral, fatty acid and amino acid deficiencies and imbalances, contributing to myriad health problems, including cancer and heart disease.

• EWG recommends low-fat dairy because "less fat will mean fewer cancer causing toxins in the body. That's nonsense, of course, when we are talking about the health-giving fat found in the milk of cows and goats who spend their lives out in the sun on pasture. This recommendation further fails to recognize that not all toxins are fat- soluble, many are water-soluble, and commercially grown fruits, vegetables, grains, beans and seeds are often loaded with toxins, including the dioxins that EWG erroneously states are found "entirely in animal products.

• The idea that eating lowfat could be eco-conscious also defies common sense. The lowfat gospel is a key reason why factory farms "” including so-called organic factory farms "” grow freakish hens with size DD breasts. Big Agra's goal with such chickens is to minimize the less-profitable dark meat and maximize the lowfat white meat preferred by "health conscious consumers. The lowfat message pleases Big Pfood immensely because it profits mightily when whole foods are divided into several different products "” which is to say multiple profit centers. All of these, of course, will require manufacturing, packaging and long distance hauling As for the skim milk recommended by EWG, nature put fat in milk for a reason, and that reason wasnot to kill us. When people drink skim milk, their bodies need and crave that missing cream, leading to compensatory bingeing on ice cream and other unhealthy treats high in both fat and sugar. Lowfat thus leads to increased consumption, more packages, more products, higher profits, ill health and environmental destruction.

• Yet another problem with EWG's lowfat recommendation is it encourages people not to cook. How so? Because fat is what gives food flavor. Cooks who choose lean cuts and prepare vegetables without butter or other tasty fats, often think they are lousy cooks. Making lowfat foods tasty, after all, requires complicated spicings and other gourmet tricks. This drives people to eat out often or to dine at home on lowfat packaged foods. Out or in, the manufacturers have ramped up flavors with with MSG and other additives.

• EWG's tips for eco-conscious consumers include reducing food waste by buying "right size portions. What's wrong with that? It buys into the idea that meat comes in little packages. Boneless, skinless chicken breast, for example, instead of the entire chicken "” white meat and dark, tough cuts and tender, organ meats like liver, and skins, bones, tendons and cartilage in old-fashioned broth. EWG is right to point out the cost to the environment of food that goes bad and ends up in landfills, but recommends a "solution that means more packaging, not less. How about some emphasis on old-fashioned thrift? Using leftovers, freezing and, most important of all, valuing and using the entire animal?

• EWG reports that buying vegetables locally helps the environment, but buying eggs, milk, fish, poultry and meat locally has only a minimal effect. This is one of the primary reasons EWG recommends we cut back on all meat and adopt a more "veg centric diet. Such a bizarre finding could only be the case if the researchers evaluated the environmental impact of buying animal products from factory farms "” including "Big Organic operations "” located close to home. It furthermore fails to take into account the role animals play in restoring our soil and growing nutrient-dense vegetables and fruits. Without animals nearby, farmers must use fossil fuel fertilizers and/or compost and manure transported from far away. Not good for the environment!

• Finally, if people give up or minimize meat, what will they eat instead? EWG suggests grains, beans and tofu. In other words, vegetarian foods that are most likely grown and transported from a distance. Furthermore, the mistaken goal of eating less meat will drive many consumers to buy processed and packaged vegetarian entrees full of soy protein isolate, corn syrup, MSG and other excitotoxins, "natural or artificial colorings and flavorings as well as other dubious and non-green ingredients. Clearly not an option for wellness seekers or environmentalists.

What to do instead? How about committing to one day a week in which the menu includes nothing that comes in a package? How about eating nothing with a label or a barcode? How about 100 percent local, preferably from farmers who use only locally obtained feeds, fertilizers and workers? In other words, boycott supermarkets and Join the ranks of the Non Barcode People.

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is The Naughty Nutritionist^TM because of her ability to outrageously and humorously debunk nutritional myths. A popular guest on radio and television, she has appeared on The Dr Oz Show, ABC's View from the Bay, NPR's People's Pharmacy and numerous other shows. Her own radio show, "Naughty Nutrition with Dr. Kaayla Daniel, launched recently on World of Women (WOW) Radio. Dr Daniel is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food, a popular speaker at Wise Traditions and other conferences, a Board Member of the Weston A. Price Foundation and recipient of its 2005 Integrity in Science Award. Her website is www.naughtynutritionist.com and she can be reached at Kaayla@DrKaaylaDaniel.com.

This blog first appeared at www.westonaprice.org.

The Latest Soy Market Report May 26, 2011

"Soyfoods: The US Market Report has come out and and it reports a "protracted slide in soy milk sales as well as "lackluster performance in sales of tofu and soy infant formula in the year 2010.

The industry blames three factors:

• Competition from almond, rice, coconut, hemp and other non dairy milks
• "Premium pricing for many soy products
• "Widely distributed information about the impact of soy on health.

That last makes me proud. Seems the decade-long campaign by the Weston A. Price Foundation is finally paying off. We've also been greatly helped in the past year by Dr. Joseph Mercola, who has reached millions through his website www.mercola.com, the world's leading health and dietary website. Numerous other websites too have helped the message go viral. The soy controversy even aired on The Dr Oz Show on October 5 in a segment that featured Dr Oz, Dr Mark Hyman and me.

Despite growing concerns about modern. industrial soy processing techniques, meat analogue sales saw a four percent growth in 2010 compared to 2009. The largest growth was in the soy-protein energy bar category with a whopping 18 percent increase in just the one year of 2010. According to Joe Jordan, Content Director of Soyatech, "Marketers of soy-based foods have been finding success in developing delicious meat alternative products with sophisticated flavor profiles. In addition, 14 energy bar brands appeared among the top 50 soyfoods brands in 2010, indicating that this broad market affords many opportunities for creative food manufacturers to reach their key target markets.

What are the "current market drivers? Soyatech thinks it's fueled by three things: the consumer focus on convenience; widespread interest in meat-free foods; and new USDA food guidelines that "affect consumer understanding of — and interest in — the added value of foods made from the nutritious soybean.

In short, the good news is that soy sales are slumping, and the bad news is they are not plummeting. And it's very good news of course that soy infant formula sales may have finally peaked. Meanwhile, we at the WAPF will continue to do our best to alert people to the risks of "convenience foods that sooner or later create inconvenient health problems, and the malnutrition and health risks associated with vegan diets and soy-based and other meat substitutes.

c copyright 2011 Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN

New USDA Dietary Guidelines February 15, 2011

The USDA's 2010 Dietary Guidelines came out early this year, and the soy industry is thrilled that "soy made the cut.
Soy products are cited twice in the executive summary of the report with the recommendation that all Americans increase their intake of soy products and fortified soy beverages. In the body of the report itself, soy milk appears right up there with low-fat and no-fat milks as good for us and to be drunk two or three times daily while processed soy products are touted as worthy meat equivalents. Vegetable oils — a code for soy oil in most cases — are recommended to "replace solid fats wherever possible. This triple threat to public health can only be the work of the USDA in conjunction with the soy industry and other manufacturers of processed, packaged and junk foods.

Vegans too ought to be happy. There's still dread animal flesh and "white blood in the picture, but the USDA has kowtowed to vegan mythology, buying into their belief that vegan diets, if carefully planned, can be healthful. USDA even gives vegans their very own appendix, including specific dietary recommendations, including "fortified foods for some nutrients, especially calcium and B12. What might those fortified foods be? Soy milk, energy bars, fake steaks, burgers and other processed, packaged foods tricked out as health foods.

Overall, there's something for everyone who eats packaged, processed and fast foods, even chocoholics. The USDA actually considers fat-free chocolate milk to be a "nutrient dense food, their phrase, not mine, and even though I am a Naughty Nutritionist„¢, I am not making any of this up.

So what might adopting soy milk, fake meats and vegetable oils mean to the health of the American public? Let's look here at two of the USDA's choices: fortified soy beveages, and soy proteins. For information about the inadvisability of vegetable oils, read “The Skinny on Fats," “The Oiling of America" and other articles on this website.

SOY BEVERAGE
Soy beverage–popularly known as soy milk–is a lactose-free dairy substitute that marketers would have us believe has been drunk by healthy Asians since time immemorial. In fact, the earliest historical reference is 1866 and the Chinese did not traditionally value soy milk until vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists missionaries from America popularized it starting in the 1920s.

The soy milks sold in supermarkets and health food stores and recommended by the USDA are not exactly traditional soy products. In the good old days, soy milk-making began with a long soak. The softened beans were then ground on a stone grinder, using massive amounts of water. The mush then went into a cloth bag, was placed under a heavy rock, and pressed and squeezed until most of the liquid ran out. The soy paste was then boiled in fresh water. Large amounts of filthy scum that rose to the surface were carefully removed.

The modern method is faster, cheaper — and retains the scum. It speeds up the presoaking phase with the use of an alkaline solution, skips the squeezing and skimming steps, uses common fluoridated and chlorinated tap water, and cooks the soy paste in a pressure cooker. The speed comes at a cost: the high pH of the soaking solution followed by pressure cooking destroys key nutrients, including vitamins and the sulfur-containing amino acids and leaves toxic residues.

Taste, not nutrition, is what most concerns the soy industry, and the USDA as well if it plans to get Americans of all ages to swig two to three cups daily. The taste problem is the enzyme lipoxygenase, which oxidizes the polyunsaturated fatty acids in soy, causing the “beaniness" and rancidity. The industry's attempted solutions have included high heat, pressure cooking and replacement of the traditional presoaking with a fast blanch in an alkaline solution of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Major manufacturers have even “offed" the off flavors using a deodorizing process similar to that in oil refining, which involves passing cooked soy milk through a vacuum pan at extremely high temperatures in the presence of a strong vacuum.

To cover up any “beaniness" that remains, processors trot out sweeteners and flavorings. Almost all commercially sold soy milks contain barley malt, brown rice syrup, raw cane crystals or some other form of sugar. The higher the sugar, the higher the acceptability among consumers. Accordingly, most 8 ounce glasses of soy milk contain anywhere from four to sixteen grams (slightly less than 1 teaspoon to slightly more than 1 tablespoon). Flavors such as “plain" or “original" are almost always sweetened, although perceived by many consumers as unsweetened. Perhaps the USDA folks who came up with the guidelines thought so as well. Otherwise its recommendation of soy milk would not jive with its recommendation for consumers to cut back on sugar.

Eliminating the aftertaste in soy milk poses yet another challenge for food manufacturers. The undesirable sour, bitter and astringent characteristics come from oxidized phospholipids (rancid lecithin), oxidized fatty acids (rancid soy oil), the antinutrients called saponins and the plant estrogens known as isoflavones. The last are so bitter and astringent that they produce dry mouth. This has put the soy industry into a bit of a quandary. The only way it can make its soy milk please consumers is to remove some of the very toxins that it has assiduously promoted as cancer preventing and cholesterol lowering.

Note the USDA caveat that the soy milk be "fortified soy milk. The reason is soy milk made with soybeans and water has such a poor nutritional profile that it must be fortified with calcium, vitamin D and other vitamins and minerals to compete with cow's milk. Even in health-food store foods, these added supplements are cheap, mass-produced products. The soy milk industry puts vegetarian vitamin D2 in soymilk, even though the dairy industry quietly stopped adding this form of the vitamin years ago. Although any form of vitamin D helps people meet their RDAs (Recommended Daily Allowances), D2 has been linked to hyperactivity, coronary heart disease and allergic reactions. The USDA has singled out Vitamin D in these dietary guidelines as a special nutrient to keep in mind. Too bad it's not specific enough about type.

In keeping with USDA approved lowfat diets, consumers may opt for the low fat — or “lite"– soymilks made with soy protein isolate (SPI), not the full-fat soybean. To improve both color and texture of these "healthier soy milks, manufacturers work with a whole palette of additives, including colorants, flavorizers and texturizers.

Soy-milk derived products such as soy puddings, ice creams, yogurts, cottage cheese whipped “creams" and cheese substitutes also meet USDA guideline, but are even poorer choices, given ingredients such as carageenen, corn oil, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated fats and soy protein hydrolyzates.

Should we really be eating and drinking processed foods with ingredient lists like this? Soy milk has a reputation for being a simple, old fashioned food. It is not. Even Peter Golbitz of Soyatech has admitted this. “Soymilk is one of those unique food products that doesn't exist naturally in nature, such as a fruit, vegetable or cow's milk — it is, and always has been, a processed food. Since there are many options available to processors today in regards to process type, variety of soybean, type of sugar and an array of flavoring and masking additives, product formulators need real guidelines to follow to create winning products." Too bad that the USDA is more interested in pushing "product formulations than Mother Nature's real foods.

MEAT ANALOGUES AND OTHER SOY PROTEIN PRODUCTS
The USDA supports all-American ingenuity. That's the only positive reason I can think of for its recommendation of the ersatz meat products known in the food industry as "analogues. Soy analogue products marketed over the years have had colorful names such as Soysage, Not Dogs, Fakin' Bakin, Sham Ham, Soyloin, Veat, Wham, Tuno, Bolono and Foney Baloney. Although named after — and often made to look like — the familiar meat products they are meant to replace, taste testers tend to evaluate them as poor imitations at best. But thanks to food technology specialists and their lavish use of sugar and other sweeteners, salt, artificial flavorings, colorings, preservatives and MSG, more and more consumers are willing to tolerate these products, some solely because of their belief in alleged health benefits.

Manufactured using high heat and pressure, chemical solvents, acids and alkalis, extruders and other harsh tools, these USDA-approved meat substitutes are very likely to contain toxic or carcnogenic residues. This is also true of highly processed porducts using fractions of milk, eggs, meat, grains, oils or vegetables. The difference is that processed soy foods are billed as "health foods whereas other processed foods are widely acknowledged to be what they are — junk foods that do not support health. The soy industry typically puts a positive spin on their products by claiming all the health benefits found in soy while insisting that levels of toxins are too low to pose any hazard to the consumer.

But risk is always a product of dose and duration of exposure. Vegans who favor soy protein, wheat gluten and other heavily processed plant protein products as their primary sources of protein are regularly exposed to relatively high levels of toxins. The usual suspects are nitrosamines, lysinoalanines, heterocyclic amines, excitotoxins, chlorpropanols, furanones, hexane and other solvents.

Let's look now at how soy protein isolate and textured soy protein — two of the most common ingredients found in soy meat analogues – are manufactured.

SOY PROTEIN ISOLATE (SPI) is mixed with nearly every food product sold in today's stores — energy bars, body builder powders, breakfast shakes, burgers and hot dogs. SPI is a highly refined product, heavily processed to remove "off flavors, "beany" tastes, and flatulence producers and to improve digestibility. Vitamin, mineral and protein quality, however, are sacrificed. Indeed soy isolates increase the requirements for vitamins E, K, D and B12. Among the minerals, phosphorous is poorly utilized, and calcium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, copper, iron and especially zinc deficiencies appear routinely in animals — including human animals — fed SPI as the primary source of protein in their diets. Soy protein isolates are also more deficient in sulfur-containing amino acids than other soy protein products. What's increased during the production of SPI are levels of toxins and carcinogens such as nitrosamines and lysinoalanines.

The manufacture of SPI has always been a complicated, high-tech procedure. There's nothing natural about it. It takes place in chemical factories, not kitchens. Although the manufacturing process varies, and some companies hold patents on key elements of the process, the basic procedure begins with defatted soybean meal, which is mixed with a caustic alkaline solution to remove the fiber, then washed in an acid solution to precipitate out the protein. The protein curds are then dipped into yet another alkaline solution and spray dried at extremely high temperatures.

SPI is often spun into protein fibers using technology borrowed from the textile industry. The only difference is that taste-enhancing and fiber-binding elements are incorporated into the fibers during processing. The process involves preparing a protein solution with a soy protein content of 10 to 50 percent at a very alkaline pH that is above 10. The solution is aged at about 121 degrees F until it becomes as viscous as honey at which point it is called spinning dope. The dope is next forced through the holes of an extrusion device, coagulated with an acid bath, stretched long and thin, bound with edible binders such as starch, dextrins, gums, albumen and cellulose, and coated with fat flavor, color and other substances. The idea is to attain the fibrous "bite of animal muscle meats.

For chunkier, less well-defined fibers, processor tend to prefer the Textured Soy Protein (TSP) process. Textured Soy Protein or Textured Vegetable Protein is sold as granules, particles and chunks and used by fast food companies and food processors as a meat substitute or extender for chili, spaghetti sauce, tacos, sloppy joes and other strongly spiced recipes. It's been big in the USDA school lunch programs since 1971.

Here's how it's made: First force defatted soy flour through a machine with a spiral tapered screw called an extruder under conditions of such extreme heat and pressure that the very structure of the soy protein is changed. What comes out is a dried out, fibrous, and textured alien protein product that can survive just about anything that a food processor might later do to it. Then add red or brown colors and flavorings before texturization, drying and packaging.

Soy protein extrusion differs little from extrusion technology used to produce starch-based packing materials, fiber-based industrial products or plastic toy parts, bowls and plates. The difference is that extruded foods such as TSP are designed to be reconstituted with water, at which point they resemble ground beef or stew meat. Processing always leaves s toxic residues and TSP furthermore requires using natural and artificial flavors and MSG if it's going to taste anything like ham, chicken or beef.

In conclusion, the USDA sure has an interesting idea of what constitutes healthy proteins. Bringing soy front and center in the new food guidelines will feed the profits required by Big Pfood. Big Pharm is surely happy as well as this latest USDA food fix isn't going to solve any of our great American health crises soon.

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Complete references for the information on soy products contained in this blog can be found in my book The Whole Soy Story:The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food (New Trends, 2005), particularly chapters 6-9, 11 and 14,

Soy to the World: Holiday Wishes from Whole Foods Market January 6, 2011

This holiday season Whole Foods Market is offering gift boxes and certificates brightly printed with the wish "Soy to the World.

Whole Foods Market, of course, perceives soy foods and soy milk — particularly modern packaged and processed soy products — as a major profit center. Soy also fits nicely within CEO John Mackey's vegan agenda and his promotion of soy as the ticket to personal and planetary health. Sadly, soy to the world will not bring joy to the world this holiday season or any other.

The word "soy, however, fits Whole Foods Market very well. As discussed in my last blog, "Talking Tofurky, your Naughty Nutritionist„¢ learned something most curious last month. Seems"soy is urban slang for something false, of poor value or just not what it seems. That pretty much sums up a whole lot of the phoney baloney, pseudo-organic products Whole Foods sells. Indeed a whole lot of what this chain preaches is out of integrity with what it practices.

Greenwashing

Heard of whitewashing? The variant found at Whole Foods is known as “greenwashing." The chain put green leaves on its logo, prominently displays environmentally correct "core values, and gives mouth service to sustainability yet engages in numerous practices that are environmentally unfriendly.

Bagging It, for example. Whole Foods encourages us to bring our own bags to save the environment and gives bag credits to local charities. Eco consumers feel good about this, but what about all those highly processed and overly packaged foods toted home in them? Soy good to know that not one of those pricey crackers or cookies will crack or crumble. As for those sturdy packages, they'll survive for years in the landfills.

Soy Local or Soy Loco

Whole Foods talks the good talk about supporting local farmers. It's one of its conspicuously displayed "core values. But walk down the aisles and most everything comes from somewhere else. Where were all those little soybeans milked to produce soymilk? Where did they catch those tofurkies? Where did those fruits and vegetables grow? California, Mexico, Chili, India? Not soy often in our own backyard.

How do local farmers feel about Whole Foods Market? Many mutter "soy loco ("I am crazy) under their breath whenever they give in and sell to Whole Foods. Farmers who expect a fair wage for their hard work rarely sell there given the chain's aim to buy dirt cheap and sell sky high.

Soy Green

More acres of the Rain Forest are destroyed for soybean crops than for beef cattle yet soy is touted as green for the environment. Most of the Midwest has been destroyed by the monocropping of three vegan staples — corn, wheat and soy.

Soy Generous

"Soy to the World means planeloads of soy products given to survivors of famines and natural disasters. Seems benevolent, but there's more to this than good PR.Disaster relief builds global business by making the world's people dependent upon imported soy and other industrially grown, processed and packaged products. Such “charitable" practices undermine local farmers and cottage industries and wipe out indigenous crops.

Soy Egalitarian

Equal opportunity poor health. Yuppie vegans at one end of the spectrum pay premium prices for health-destroying soy foods. Poor people eat donated soy from relief packages. The results for both are malnutrition, digestive distress, thyroid disorders, reproductive problems, ADD/ADHD, allergies, even heart disease and cancer. Soy to the world.

Meanwhile, John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, likes to be seen as just a regular Joe. He earns only fourteen times the salary of his average team member, after all. While other corporate executives doubtless take home far bigger paychecks, Mackey's “talking tofurky" here. If he were an executive who "talks turkey, he would admit to also earning millions in stock options. He might also be sensitive to the fact that his store is widely mocked as “Whole Paycheck Market" because its extreme markups make it soy overpriced for the average consumer.

Soy Organic

Whole Foods sells only organic soybeans, right? That's what they say, but it took months — and an embarrassing expose by the Cornucopia Institute –before just some of the Silk products made with commercial soybeans was removed from the shelves. Similarly, Whole Foods has sold a whole lot of veggie burgers, energy bars and other "organic products made with soy protein isolate and other ingredients processed using hexane solvents. Cornucopia also exposed that, but you read it first in The Whole Soy Story.

Elsewhere in the store, pseudo organic reigns. Consider factory-farmed "organic Horizon brand milk and butter. As for produce, the artful displays conflate organic and commercial. And if the internet postings of disgruntled Whole Foods “team members" can be trusted, much — if not all — of it is cleaned with non-organic cleaners. Seems the organic cleaners come out, when the inspectors come in.

Shoppers who aren't careful may go home with commercial produce just like that found at the supermarket down the block but at a substantially higher price Whole Foods Market carefully crafts the illusion it sells organic, but far more of what it sells is "natural– whatever that means — or even commercial.

Soyled Health Claims

Is soy the "miracle bean that can cure everything from cancer to ingrown toe nails? Whole Foods would certainly like us to think so. Similarly, consumers who buy baked and deli goods at Whole Foods are almost always con-oiled, though canola is increasingly replaced by soy oil, which if anything is even worse.

Hemp, chocolate, agave anyone? Health claims for any of these are very "soy — i.e. not what they seem. Agave, for instance, is tricked out high fructose corn syrup. Chocolate-covered soy nuts are surely the "tofurky of snacks. Most sanctimonious of all is Whole Foods' promotion of vegan goods with a green smiley face and the words "I'm vegan!

Stepford Foods

All the onions are exactly the same size. Big, round and heavy! All the apples, too.

Never saw anything like that in my own garden or orchard. Yet Whole Foods gives us row after perfectly presented row of produce. Bland but pretty-faced, immaculately clean, blemish free, perfectly made up and not one strand of hair out of place, these are the Stepford Wives of the fruit and vegetable kingdom. Guess Whole Foods thinks Stepford goods provide a stress-free shopping experience. No need to choose. Perfect for the shopper in Calvin Klone jeans.

Soy Latte

The Urban Dictionary defines "soy latte as something overpriced and pretentious, especially something that tastes good initially but leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. Seems to me that sums up Whole Foods Market awfully well.

Hormone Therapies for Boys Harmed by Soy Formula December 9, 2010

Every week I get agonized letters from parents who fed their sons soy infant formula and who report estrogenized boys who are flabby, lethargic, high strung and/or embarrassed by breasts and underdeveloped genitals. These parents want to know, "What can we do now?
First, read my two articles “Soy Recovery Part I" and “Soy Recovery: The Toxic Metal Component," which are posted on the Weston A. Price Foundation's website (www.westonaprice.org). The first article discusses the importance of eliminating soy and other estrogenic foods from the diet and the necessity of gut healing. The second article covers the importance of eliminating toxic metals, such as mercury, aluminum, cadmium and lead, as well as reducing toxic levels of needed minerals such as copper and manganese.
Why do toxic metals play a part in soy recovery? By interfering with every metabolic function in the body. Malnourished children — most children these days but certainly those who were put on soy formula — have impaired detoxification pathways. That means widespread heavy metal toxicity. In addition, boys estrogenized by soy formula nearly always have toxic levels of copper. Those given soy formula in the first six months of life are also prone to toxic levels of manganese, contributing to ADD/ADHD and assorted learning and behavior disorders. All of these interfere with hormone production and cause havoc within the reproductive system.
The good news, as I report in the Soy Recovery articles, is that heavy metals and excess copper and manganese can be eliminated. I cannot emphasize the importance of doing this strongly enough. The risk of long-term, late-developing health problems from soy formula problem is far too serious for a "wait and see attitude. It is vital to act NOW rather than wait until puberty or later when hormonal problems are diagnosed and full blown. Cleaning up the gut and clearing out the metals gives the soy-fed boy his best chance to recover his health and go through puberty as normally as possible.
Sadly, there's no guarantee that diet and detox will correct the hormonal damage caused by soy formula. Addressing them will at least improve overall health, but it may also be advisable to consider hormone repletion and balancing.
Thyroid First
The first hormone to consider is thyroid. More than 70 years of studies show that soy causes thyroid damage, most often manifesting as hypothyroidism or auto-immune Hashimoto's thyroiditis. While coconut oil and other nourishing foods can support thyroid health and healing, soy-fed babies may need the additional help of replenishing thyroid hormones to optimum levels, preferably with natural thyroid hormones. Proper levels of thyroid hormone will help improve energy levels, mental acuity, overweight and other issues. If thyroid hormone is needed, it will make a huge difference in your son's overall health.
Testosterone Next
As for reproductive hormones, the first year of life is a critical period for a boy's sexual maturation. The body during this time should surge with testosterones and other hormones designed to program the newborn's reproductive system to mature from infancy through puberty into adulthood. The risk for boys estrogenized by soy formula is that their programming may be interrupted and later reproductive development arrested. Conventional wisdom holds that once this developmental window has passed, it is too late. That said, Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT) could help some soy-fed boys normalize.
The first step is to test the levels and ratios of the boy's testosterone and other hormones. Those who come up deficient or imbalanced may opt for Bioidentical Hormone Replacement, a therapy that is highly experimental for children and adolescents who were fed soy as babies. Whether replacement hormones can help these boys "catch up remains to be seen. However, even when BHRT fails to jump start growth of the gonads, it could still prove worthwhile in terms of overall health and well being. Testosterone, after all, is not just a macho "sex hormone, but needed for growth, repair, red blood cell formation, and immune function. Estrogenized boys might also need help with progesterone or other hormones so a full panel should be tested.
Parents who would like to consider BioIdentical Hormone Replacement need to know that it is by prescription only, and must be carefully dosed and monitored. This is true for everyone considering BHRT, but especially for children and adolescents who have not yet reached adulthood.
Hope from hcG?
Yet another hormone that might help our soy-fed boys is human chorionic gonadotropin (hcG). Given that hcG is naturally found in high levels only in pregnant women, this idea might seem bizarre. Less naturally, hcG has been in the news because of its popularization for weight loss by bestselling author Kevin Trudeau and others. In these programs, hcg injections plus extremely low calorie, no fat diets help patients to lose significant amounts of weight quickly while retaining muscle mass and high levels of energy.
My interest in hcG for soy formula fed-boys does not stem from the fact that many of these estrogenized boys are pudgy. Rather I am intrigued by a couple of paragraphs in a 1954 report on the use of hcG for weight loss written by the late British physician, Dr. A. T. W. Simeons, in which the doctor suggested hcG for boys with underdeveloped sex organs. Back then, none of the boys would have been damaged by soy, but I can't help but wonder if hcG could play an important role in soy recovery. Here is the relevant section of Dr. Simeons' report:
A Curious Observation
Mulling over this depressing situation, I remembered a rather curious observation made many years ago in India. At that time we knew very little about the function of the diencephalon, and my interest centered round the pituitary gland. Proehlich had described cases of extreme obesity and sexual underdevelopment in youths suffering from a new growth of the anterior pituitary lobe, producing what then became known as Froehlich's disease. However, it was very soon discovered that the identical syndrome, though running a less fulminating course, was quite common in patients whose pituitary gland was perfectly normal. These are the so called "fat boys with long, slender hands, breasts any flat-chested maiden would be proud to possess, large hips, buttocks and thighs with striation, knock-knees and underdeveloped genitals, often with undescended testicles.
It also became known that in these cases the sex organs could he developed by giving the patients injections of a substance extracted from the urine of pregnant women, it having been shown that when this substance was injected into sexually immature rats it made them precociously mature. The amount of substance which produced this effect in one rat was called one International Unit, and the purified extract was accordingly called "Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin whereby chorionic signifies that it is produced in the placenta and gonadotropin that its action is sex gland directed.
The usual way of treating "fat boys with underdeveloped genitals is to inject several hundred international Units twice a week. Human Chorionic Gonadotrophin which we shall henceforth simply call hCG is expensive and as "fat boys are fairly common among Indians I tried to establish the smallest effective dose. In the course of this study three interesting things emerged. The first was that when fresh pregnancy-urine from the female ward was given in quantities of about 300 cc. by retention enema, as good results could be obtained as by injecting the pure substance. The second was that small daily doses appeared to be just as effective as much larger ones given twice a week. Thirdly, and that is the observation that concerns us here, when such patients were given small daily doses they seemed to lose their ravenous appetite though they neither gained nor lost weight. Strangely enough however, their shape did change. Though they were not restricted in diet, there was a distinct decrease in the circumference of their hips.

This is all Dr. Simeons says, and all I know about hcG for sex organ development. I have no experience whatsoever working with this therapy. I would very much like to hear from physicians, other health care practitioners and parents currently involved in using Bioidentical Hormone, hcG or other natural, herbal or pharmaceutical therapies to help estrogenized boys with breasts and underdeveloped gonads become healthy and normal men. Ideas and thoughts about this are also welcome, either as comments here below or to me by my direct email kaayla@drkaayladaniel.com. Thank you.

Fowl Play: Pumped and Plumped Meat September 9, 2010

Reply to Dr Mark Hyman's Huffington Post article 

On August 10, 2010, Dr. Mark Hyman posted an article "Soy: Blessing or Curse? on the Huffington Post blog (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ dr-mark-hyman/soy-blessing-or-curse_b_673912. html). Widely circulated online, it is being widely touted as an example of "sanity in the "soy debate. Hyman describes himself as "a practicing physician and an internationally recognized authority in the field of Functional Medicine. He is founder of The UltraWellness Center and author of the best-selling The UltraMind Solution, among other books.

In Hyman's words, he wishes there were "more convincing science to report regarding the soy controversy but he has taken "all the available evidence together to see "what shakes out. Hyman has long recommended soy as part of what he calls a "whole foods diet and is disturbed by fear mongering from anti-soy people. Who these "anti-soy people are exactly, he doesn't say.

The most prominent group warning about the dangers of modern soy consumption would be the Weston A. Price Foundation. The late Valerie and Richard James of Soy Online Service in New Zealand were also extremely active in warning about excessive consumption of modern processed soy products and the use of soy infant formula for babies. Our concerns revolve around the myth of soy as a "health food and how the heavy marketing of soy has led people to over consume soy foods and soy milk and to feed their infants soy formula, putting themselves and their children at risk. To say we are "anti soy, however, would not be entirely accurate as we support the modest consumption of old-fashioned, fermented soy products such as miso, natto and tempeh. They are nutritious and delicious foods in the context of a varied omnivorous diet. I would prefer to say we are pro real foods, whole foods and slow foods, prepared in traditional ways, which modern soy foods most assuredly are not.

NUGGET OF WISDOM
There are indeed some sage and sane observations in Hyman's article. He advises, for instance, that eating tofu would be wiser than chicken nuggets. Presumably he is referring to fast-food nuggets from factory-farmed chickens (fed soy-based feed) with their meat then "extended with soy protein isolate and other additives and fried in soy oil. Wise to get the plain tofu, for sure.

Hyman also advises eating old-fashioned fermented whole soybean products. Wise again to avoid industrially processed soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, textured vegetable protein and hydrolyzed vegetable protein, and other industrially processed products, all of which contain MSG, hexane and other toxic and carcinogenic residues. All of us so-called "anti soy people would agree with that, except the increasing numbers of people who are allergic to soy. They have a reason to be 100 percent "anti soy. And they are angry “anti soy" people because they find it hard to find anything that's safe to eat. Their problem is they are trying to find soyfree, packaged, processed and fast foods, which can be well-nigh impossible to find. Soy ingredients right now are in more than 60 percent of processed and packaged foods and nearly 100 percent of fast foods. The most allergic of these people cannot even tolerate meat, poultry, fish, dairy and/or eggs from animals fed soy feed. Sadly, most of the organic and free range products sold come from animals fed in this unnatural way.

For those who are not allergic, the old-fashioned fermented soy products miso, natto and tempeh are fine, but Hyman reveals his ignorance of processing methods when he claims that tofu and soymilk are fermented. Although they are sometimes fermented in Asia — to remove the "poisons according to one person interviewed in a National Geographic film — none,,if any, of the tofu products widely available in stores are fermented. Even so, a little regular tofu once in awhile — not everyday, and certainly not a whole slab at a time — is not a problem for most individuals. As for soy milk, few if any brands are fermented. Of the brands for sale in stores, most have been loaded up with sugar to make them palatable and with supplements to improve their inadequate nutritional profile. Too bad those supplements include cheap, hard-to-absorb forms of calcium, vegetarian Vitamin D2 (instead of the far superior D3) and beta carotene (in lieu of true Vitamin A).

Hyman is smart, too, to advise against genetically modified soybeans. Their risks to personal and planetary health are high, and described vividly and accurately by Jeffrey Smith in his own s article (www.newswithviews.com/Smith/jeffrey8.htm).

EVERYTHING IN “MODERATION"

Sadly, Hyman dismisses the idea that excessive soy consumption is a problem. In his words: "First, you should be aware that the amount of soy used in many of these studies was much higher than what we normally consume — the average dose of soy was equivalent to one pound of tofu or three soy protein shakes a day. That's a lot of soy! Most people just don't eat like that. So when you read negative things about soy, remember that many of those claims are based on poorly designed studies that don't apply to real-world consumption.

Sounds reasonable, but given the current popularity of plant-based diets and the myth of soy as a "health food, the truth is many people do eat a pound of tofu in a single setting. Add in a daily soy protein shake made with soy milk, a veggie burger washed down with a glass of soymilk and/or soy energy bar snacks and the quantities add up quickly. Vegans who use soy as both meat and dairy replacements are clearly high risk. But so are omnivores who drink soy milk several times a day or snack on soy protein bars and/or nosh on edamame likes its popcorn. Given the increasing numbers of people who react poorly to ultrapasteurized supermarket and health food store dairy products, a whole lot of people drink soy milk several times a day. That's excessive consumption, and it matches the levels in numerous studies showing the dangers of soy.

Hyman mocks the anti soy contingent with the words, "You could apply that thinking to other studies, too — like those that show that broccoli contains natural pesticides or that celery is high in toxins. Sure, those foods might cause you some problems — but not in the amounts that most of us eat. The same is true for soy. Well, yes. There are risks to plant foods! I discuss some of them in my article in the Spring issue Plants Bite Back:The Surprising, All-Natural Anti-Nutrients and Toxins in Plant Foods! About time someone noted this in the popular press. Not having the "fight or flight mechanism, plants fight for their lives with phytochemical warfare. The evolutionary reason is so predators will weaken, possibly die, but most importantly, lose their ability to reproduce.

Until plant-based diets became fashionable, most people didn't eat massive amounts of vegetables. Even now, few people eat, broccoli three times a day every day. And a good thing too, as there are risks to excess consumption of cruciferous vegetables. The supplement industry, however, is doing its best to "improve on real life consumption patterns by formulating broccoli pills that will concentrate the compounds found naturally in the real vegetables. I predict that such supplements will lead sooner or later to serious health problems. In the meantime, some real life people eat soy for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. One weight lifter and fitness buff I know took in a gallon of soy milk everyday for a year or so. He is now coping with neurological problems, stuttering and other speech defects.

SOY AND BREAST CANCER

"Don't worry about soy's effect on breast cancer, advises Hyman, implying there is consensus in the scientific community. No such consensus exists. Indeed numerous studies link soy to breast cell proliferation, a well-known marker of breast cancer risk. Accordingly, the Israeli Health Ministry, French Food Agency and German Institute as well as Cornell University's Center for Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors have all warned women who've been diagnosed with — or have a family history of breast cancer — to exercise caution when it comes to soy.

If it were true that "real life people rarely eat too much soy, we could probably relax. But "moderation means different things to different people, and Hyman recommends both good soy foods like miso and tempeh that are rarely over consumed and bad ones like soy milk that are very easy to overindulge. Furthermore, Hyman's assurances that soy isoflavones have beneficial hormonal effects, rarely contribute to endocrine disruption, do not endanger the thyroid and will reduce breast cancer risk will lead some women to purposely increase their consumption of any and all soy products.

Will all those women be at risk? Probably not. A few studies do suggest soy isoflavones could benefit women by reducing their breast cancer risk. But not all women and not at all stages in the life cycle. Accordingly we need reliable lab tests that will show which women might benefit from soy isoflavones, and which would be harmed. Those women who could possibly benefit from soy isoflavones could then take them like pharmaceutical drugs with appropriate dosing, monitoring and follow up. In other words,we need to treat soy isoflavones like a drug. The soy industry's marketing of soy — of any type eaten in virtually any quantity — as the ticket to an easy menopause and breast cancer prevention is irresponsible.

Hyman's recommendation that women who want to avoid breast cancer avoid saturated fat is yet another example of how he's either not done his homework or is pandering to politically correct ideas of nutrition. At least he's got it right about the dangers of trans fats. They are definitely linked to breast cancer and should be assiduously avoided.

SOY AND THE THYROID

What about the risks of soy to the thyroid? Are the anti soy critics making a "mountain out of molehill? Are the effects "not significant or relevant unless you are deficient in iodine (which you can easily get from eating fish, seaweed or sea vegetables, or iodized salt). Hyman reaches that conclusion from just one study, a study that does not exonerate soy by the way. In fact, more than 70 years of studies — including a human study from the respected Ishizuki Clinic in Japan — link modest to moderate soy consumption to thyroid disorders. Iodine deficiency is certainly part of the problem, but iodine repletion neither consistently nor reliably solves the problem. As for Hyman's idea that iodine deficiency is not a problem, the National Center for Health Statistics reports epidemic iodine deficiency, with intakes plummeting by more than 50 percent between surveys taken between 1970-1974 and 1988-1994, and continuing to decrease in the years since.

SOY INFANT FORMULA

As for babies, Hyman jumps on the "breast is best bandwagon. He would prefer "no one feeds dairy or soy formula to their babies, but if you have to, try not to worry about it and "don't beat yourself up about it. To reassure readers, Hyman cites a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in August 2001. Let's take a look a good look at that study.

A team of researchers led by Brian L. Strom, MD, studied the use of soy formula and its long-term impact on reproductive heath, and announced only one adverse finding: longer, more painful menstrual periods among the women who'd been fed soy formula in infancy. The male researchers dismissed this effect — one that has been painful and debilitating for many women — as unimportant and concluded that the overall results were "reassuring.

In fact, the data in the body of the report was far from reassuring. Mary G. Enig, PhD, President of the Maryland Nutritionists Association; Naomi Baumslag, MD, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Georgetown University and President of the Women's International Public Health Network; Lynn R. Goldman, MD, MPH, Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins University; Retha Newbold, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and other experts who analyzed the findings noted numerous flaws in both the design and reporting of this study, including:

• Failure to include mention of statistically significant, higher incidence of allergies and asthma in the study's abstract — the only part read by most busy health professionals and media reporters
• Glossing over or omitting from the main body of the report gynecological problems such as higher rates of cervical cancer, polycystic ovarian syndrome, blocked fallopian tubes, pelvic inflammatory disease, hormonal disorders and multiple births
• Manipulation of statistics by not evaluating still births or failure to achieve pregnancy (higher in the soy-fed women) but evaluating miscarriages (slightly higher in the dairy-formula-fed group)
• Excluding thyroid function as a subject for study (although thyroid damage from soy formula has been the principal concern of critics for decades). Nonetheless, thyroid damage, can be surmised by the fact that the soy-fed females grew up to report higher rates of sedentary activity and use of weight-loss medicines
• Conducting the entire study by telephone interviews, asking subjective — in some cases highly personal and emotionally painful — questions and performing no medical examinations, laboratory tests or other objective testing. Breast development, for example, was gauged by asking participants at which age they first bought their bras.
• Providing no information on the ages at which formula feeding ended; the dose length or the quantity of the soy isoflavones (all of which are basic requirements of valid toxicology studies)
• Using the criteria (trade school, college and post college) as a measure of intelligence, thus rating a graduate of a beauty school at the same level as someone who received a doctorate degree
• Following up infants who were given soy formula as infants for just 16 weeks (though serious damage can occur for at least the first nine months in boys and the first six months in girls) and failing to obtain any information about whether the subjects in the study took soy formula after the initial 16-week study period or ate soy foods during childhood
• Using a study group of 282 soy-fed persons that was too small for most of the negative findings to become "statistically significant

I personally heard scientists at the Fifth and Sixth Symposia on the Role of Soy in Preventing and Treating Chronic Disease held in San Diego and Chicago stand up and speak out about the dismal quality of this "reassuring study. So who funded it? The National Institutes of Health with the International Formula Council (a trade group that represents formula manufacturers). Even more reassuringly, it was carried out under the auspices of the Fomon Infant Nutrition Unit at the University of Iowa, a group which receives support from the major formula manufacturers, including Abbott, Nestle and Mead Johnson.

Hyman also feels comfortable touting the safety of soy infant formula because of a report issued in December 2009 by the National Toxicology Program (NTP) Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR). Its 14-member committee concluded that the health risks of soy infant formula are "minimal and insufficient human or animal data exist to prove the likelihood of harm to the baby's developmental or reproductive health.

Before reaching this conclusion, the committee looked at 700 studies. Sounds like a lot, but the committee failed to examine at least as many others, many of which linked soy formula to severe thyroid and gastrointestinal effects especially when fed during the first few months after birth, a key developmental phase for infants. The panel also arbitrarily decided that reproductive damage had to occur during infancy although it is rare for symptoms to show up before puberty. During public proceedings, the 14 members — many of whose work and careers depend on funding from industry or government sources — were pressured by soy industry representatives who made it clear that a vote indicating "some concern would damage soy's "healthy image and jeopardize industry profits.

THOSE LONG LIVED OKINAWANS
So which people are thriving on lots of soy? According to Hyman, it's the Okinawans, the world's longest-lived people, who "for more than five millennia have eaten whole, organic and fermented soy foods like miso, tempeh, tofu, soy milk, and edamame (young soybeans in the pod). Interesting indeed that the Okinawans have been eating these foods for "five millenia, when miso and tofu only entered the food supply about three thousand years ago. Tempeh came in to the food supply in Indonesia sometime between 1000 and 1595 AD. As for soy milk, the first historical reference is 1866, and it was first popularized in Asia in the 20th century by Seventh Day Adventist missionaries from America.

Where might Hyman's careful research on the “healthy Okinawans come from?" Probably from the Bradley and D. Craig Wilcox and their bestselling popular books The Okinawa Program and The Okinawa Diet Plan. That seems to be where vegetarian John Robbins obtained the information he includes in his article about the same topic. Among other major blunders, the Willcox brothers claim that Okinawans who have reached the 100 year mark in good health did so because of ample quantitities of soy foods and canola oil in their diets. Yes, canola oil — the Canadian oil (Can-ola) that didn't even exist on the planet until a few decades ago! The Willcoxes also show confusion from page to page about just how much soy is eaten. In fact, the amounts vary widely from place to place in Asia, but nowhere is the average very high and everywhere it's treated as a condiment in the diet and not as a staple food. While it's certainly true that Okinawans regularly eat some soy, the evidence indicates they also enjoy a lot of pork in their diet. And the primarily monounsaturated fat those centenarians ate over the course of their long lives was not canola oil but good old-fashioned lard. Yes, lard is a primarily monounsaturated fat.

REVIEWING THE RESEARCH

Hyman claims he has "reviewed reams of research yet lists only three references at the conclusion of his article, the first of which is an review article by soy industry lobbyist Mark Messina, PhD. Hyman winds up by saying he's "eager to see the studies on soy and health. The bottom line is thousands of studies have been carried out over the past eighty years, many of which suggest risks and none prove safety.

Clearly it would be wise to advance the precautionary principle of “better safe than sorry." That has led the Israeli Health Ministry, French Food Agency, and German Institute of Risk Assessment to issue warnings to parents and pediatricians. Warnings have also come from respected independent scientists, including Dan Sheehan, the retired senior toxicologist at FDA's Laboratory of Toxicological Research in Jefferson, Arkansas, Retha Newbold of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Triangle Park, NC, Irvin E. Liener, PhD, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota and the world's leading expert on on antinutrients such as protease inhibitors, phytates, lectins, saponins, etc., Lon R. White MD, a neuro-epidemiologist with the Pacific Health Institute in Honolulu; and Mary G. Enig, PhD, the courageous scientist who first exposed the dangers of trans fats in the late 1970s. Alternative doctors with impressive records of reversing cancer such as the late Max Gerson MD, Nicholas Gonzalez MD and others have also put soy on their “do not eat" lists. Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock MD, has strongly warned against soy's adverse effects on the brain and nervous system. None of these groups or individuals have been militantly "anti soy. All have looked long and hard at the research, and have soberly and responsibly concluded that caution is warranted and soy can put infants, children and adults at risk.

Time for Dr. Hyman to do some real homework and not just express his "eagerness to know more.

Soy, Sanitation and Food Poisoning July 28, 2010

Fears about salmonella poisoning, listeria, swine and avian flus from animal foods are boosting the market for soy and other vegan foodstuffs and supplements. The demand is being fed by vegans, of course, but also from increasing numbers of omnivores who've been convinced that plant foods are the best way to avoid food poisoning. The safest and most sanitary foods of all, according to this line of thinking are processed and packaged goods,

Market analyst Kathie Brownlie reveals in the online newsletterNutraIngredients "the market is driven by crises – and it did not exist a decade ago. Another factor in this new and booming market is the widely perceived “healthy" image of vegan ingredients. According to Chris Olivant of the UK's Vegetarian Society, the numbers of vegetarians have steadily increased over the past decade, but "tend to peak in the immediate aftermath of a animal health scare, then drop back down to prior levels afterwards.

“If you have a complete portfolio of vegetarian ingredients, you will be prepared for any animal health-scare that breaks," says Lukas Christian, global product manager for beta-carotene at DSM Nutritional Products. NutraIngredients reports that DSM is launching a new synthetic beta carotene to compete against animal-derived beta carotenes. Other companies too, including BASF and Biodar have come out with vegetarian beta-carotenes. If you naively thought beta carotene supplements would come from carrots and other vegetables, welcome to the brave new world of supplements . Why grow carrots, after all, when you can produce beta carotene with microorganisms? And why bother with the care and feeding of wee beasties when you can manufacture a synthetic beta carotene that can be billed as vegetarian?

Given all the vegan scare stories and the filthy reality of factory-farming operations, it's

hardly news that people in record numbers are avoiding meat, milk and eggs, but is it wise to go vegan for safety reasons? Not if we patronize local farmers who raise healthy, happy, free-range and pastured animals and make it a priority to run clean operations. And also not if it's diseases from listeria, e coli and salmonella that we are trying to avoid. Most cases come from contaminated commercial vegetables, strawberries, spinach, alfalfa sprouts, peppers etc, and not animal foods at all. As for soy, there are surprising risks of contamination. Packaged soy products seem aseptic, safe and sanitary, but recalls have been legion over the years, suggesting that the squeaky clean packaging might only seal in the disease.

LARGEST RECALL IN FDA HISTORY

Consider what may prove to be the largest recall in FDA history. It occurred in March 2010 and involved salmonella-contaminated hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) produced by Basic Food Flavors Inc of Las Vegas, Nevada. Salmonella was found on the company's processing equipment. HVP is used to enhance flavors of thousands of food products, extend shelf life, and otherwise increase the food industry's bottom line. HVP is an ingredient in just about every processed food available in stores. As a paste or powder, it is added to soups, sauces, chilis, stews, hot dogs, gravies, snack foods, dips and dressings. The name hydrolyzed vegetable protein most often refers to “hydrolyzed corn protein" or “hydrolyzed soy protein" and may sometimes be labeled as such. If mixed with spices, it is routinely identified only as “natural smoke flavor" or “natural flavors." This labeling practice protects proprietary recipes of manufacturers, but has long been a nightmare for people who are allergic to soy or corn, or who react to MSG, which is an inevitable and unavoidable byproduct of the hydrolyzing process. Products containing this additive may even state "No MSG on the label, though this is clearly an untruth.

This particular recall has proved embarrassing to the FDA. Congressional investigators chided the agency for failing to oversee the production of HVP and other additives and food ingredients that are widely perceived as safe. In addition to HVP, these include partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, salt, spices, artificial flavors, emulsifiers, binders, vitamins, minerals, preservatives and other ingredients, most of which are intended to enhance taste, texture, nutritional content or shelf life. In a prepared statement, FDA spokeswoman Rita Chappelle conceded that the FDA “agrees broadly" that its oversight of such ingredients "could be strengthened. Given the misplaced time and effort FDA has put into harassing small farmers, it's not surprising that it has been asleep on its real job.

Health-conscious consumers might think that this is not their issue because the companies in the news are the big names like McCormick, Pringles, National Pretzel, Herbox (boullion), Quaker, Safeway and CVS snack products. Best Food Flavors alone has recalled nearly 800 products. This would suggest the problem lies with the processed, packaged, fast and junk foods on the Standard American Diet (SAD). Sadly, the truth is that many of the brands billed as “healthy" and sold in health food stores and upscale markets use the very same additives. Follow Your Heart brand vegetarian products, for example, recalled its barbecue, kung pao, savory, peanut and curry-flavored tofus as well as its "heart smart veggie burgers, burritos and "chicken pasta because of possible salmonella contamination "from one of our suppliers.

The possibility of salmonella poisoning also drove recalls of those old hippie staples soy grits and flour. The recalled items came from Thumb Oilseed Producers' Cooperative of Ubly, Michigan, sold under the brand names Soy Beginnings and Nexsoy.

NOT HVP ALONE

Other contamination problems have also beset soy-food manufacturers. Lifesoy Inc., a San Diego-based manufacturer of ready-to-eat soy products, was forced to stop manufacturing and distributing its sweetened and unsweetened soy milk, fried tofu, fresh tofu, soybean pudding, and other products because it did not hold and store foods under refrigerated conditions cold enough to prevent the growth of microorganisms. Interesting enough when the FDA first discovered Lifesoy's unsanitary practices in 2007 it did not harass the company (as it does small farmers and cottage industries) but actively tried to help it comply with Good Manufacturing Practices and stay in business. The company's failure to do so led to its shut down.

The LifeSoy case indicates why most tofu products coming out of large manufacturing facilities are pasteurized today. In the good old days, there were also cases of contamination, of course, with most occurring at Asian groceries or old-fashioned small health food stores where fresh blocks of tofu were displayed in water in produce sections. The tofu was non refrigerated and open to airborne contamination as well as bugs from customers reaching into the water with tongs.

Think soy milk is safe? Bonsoy soy drink was whisked out of markets in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, Singapore and Hong Kong this last spring because of dangerously high iodine levels derived from kombu, a seaweed ingredient. That manufacturing error sank at least 38 people's thyroids. Ironically, the kombu was put in there to begin with because of soy's adverse effects on the thyroid, a risk highest among consumers who are iodine deficient. Recently a reformulated version was approved for sale by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). Meanwhile other products containing seaweed are being investigated.

FORMULA FOR DISASTER

One of the most frequently recalled products is infant formula. Between 1982 and 1994 there were 22 significant recalls of infant formula in the United States due to health and safety problems. Seven of these recalls were classified by the FDA as “Class I" or potentially life threatening. And things haven't improved much since then. Recent recalls were made by Nestle (Carnation), Abbott, Mead Johnson, Wyeth, and Nutricia, among other companies, and for for widely sold products under the brand names of Alsoy, GoodStart, Isomil, Nutramigen, Nursoy, and Soylac. Both dairy and soy formulas have been recalled for everything from contamination by Salmonella or Klebsiella Pneumoniae to bits of glass. Yes, glass, as in the shards found in more than 102,000 Mead-Johnson jars.

Manufacturing errors are an especially big problem with soy formula. Failure to add supplemental B1, B12 Vitamin K, chloride and other needed supplements has led to deaths and hospitalizations of babies. When such omissions happen with dairy formula, the deficiency is less likely to be a life-threatening matter. Cow's milk, after all, contains what a mammal needs to grow. Although obviously not at the ideal levels for a human baby as opposed to a calf, vital components don't go missing. In 2003 three babies in Israeli on soy formula died from an extreme deficiency of vitamin B1, and another eight babies were hospitalized, of which four suffered permanent brain damage. The formula manufacturers had left out B1 on the false assumption that soybeans contain plenty of B1.

Hard to believe? Want to check out future recalls? Get industry news from a free online subscription to NutraIngredients and by visiting the FDA's own website. Then put your energy into buying both animal and plant foods directly from small, local farmers you know, visit and trust.

Novel Approach to the Zipper Problem July 26, 2010

April was National Soyfoods Month. Given all the hype, soy must be good for something, right? Absolutely. The Naughty Nutritionist„¢ feels the miracle bean would be very good indeed for politicians with the zipper problem.

The soy industry apparently agrees, because on March 17, it held a special Soyfoods Lunch on Capitol Hill for some 200 members of Congress, government officials and industry representatives. Billed as a way to showcase the "health benefits of soy, the Eighth Annual Congressional Soyfoods Lunch may have had the side benefit of controlling Capitol Hill lust. Soy, after all, in Asia is eaten heavily in Zen monasteries to help monks maintain their vows of celibacy. It's also featured heavily on the menu in Japanese homes where the husband has been unfaithful. Seems that wives know that soy can kill the desire, the ability, . . . or both.

As for US politicians, too bad Bill Clinton didn't eat it. Not because it would have prevented his heart disease problems "— even the American Heart Association (AHA) has backed off from its pro soy position "— but because it might have downed his infamous libido. Accordingly, let's urge Bill Clinton to admit the truth to the American public. The words I'd put in his mouth are, "If that woman and I had eaten soy, I'd have saved a lot of embarrassment to my presidency.

Sadly, the American Soy Association(ASA) has a stereotypical pro soy message for the public. “ASA's Congressional Soyfoods Lunch is a unique occasion for the U.S. soybean industry to provide Members of Congress and other government officials with the chance to taste the ever-expanding selection of soyfoods available today, said ASA president Rob Joslin. Those taste treats included all sorts of fake steaks "— er mis-steaks "— and other soybean ingredients dressed up, brightened, flavored and textured into approximations of Thai Beef Salad, Mediterranean Chicken and Vegetable Pasta, Sautéed Broccoli in Garlic Sauce,and other pseudo pfoods.

The point of it all was for attendees to hear ASA spin doctors tout the "health benefits of soy and learn how they could help acquaint the American public with said benefits. Sadly, the truth is another soy story, with soy linked to malnutrition, digestive distress, thyroid disorders, immune system breakdown, ADD/ADHD, even heart disease and cancer, especially breast cancer. Soy also causes or contributes to reproductive problems in both men and women, including infertility, loss of libido and other problems. The Israeli Health Ministry, French Food Agency and German Institute of Risk Assessment have all issued warnings about soy. Here in the U.S., the marketing of soy is business as usual, moving full speed ahead all year long and especially during April. Too bad the mis-information isn't just an April Fool's Day joke.

Interview with Caroline Sutherland, medical intuitive and author of The Body Knows October 28, 2009

Listen to the full interview (mp3 format, 9.2 MB)

George Clooney Declines to be the Scent of Mr Tofu! March 19, 2009

Several years ago the LA Tofu Festival featured Mr. Tofu Finding his Perfect Match. If PETA — the animal rights organization — known for bringing attention to its cause through blood and nudity, gets its way Mr. Tofu will soon have the smell, if not the looks of George Clooney.
PETA now proposes to sell a unique tofu flavored with the sweat of George Clooney. Even The Naughty Nutritionist„¢ could not make this up! Seems someone stole a gym towel used by the actor, gave it to PETA, which may now manufacture a special tofu product to be known as "Clo-fu.

The idea is women will reject meat in favor of this specially scented tofu, thus saving the lives of millions of animals that would otherwise be killed for meat. Ingrid Newkirk, president of PETA told the Washington Post last week that the towel was the gift of a PETA supporter who thought the organization could raise money by auctioning it off. Instead Newkirk came up with the idea of using food science technology to duplicate Clooney's perspiration into a novel new ingredient that can be added to tofu product. As she put it, "What would make tofu more attractive to people?' . . . I can see people having parties to try CloFu."
Will there be pheromones in that scent? Nope, and the scent itself will be artificial just like the other artificial and "natural flavorings give taste and flavor to tofu.

Sounds PETAful to me. And apparently to Clooney as well. Speaking through his rep, he summed it up in one sentence: “As a mammal, I'm offended."

As for PETA, Clo-fu will be a tough act to swallow!

Soya-based diet linked to lower sperm count July 25, 2008

Men who eat soya-based foods may be harming their fertility, doctors said yesterday, after a study found a link between soya-rich diets and lower sperm counts. The study showed men who consumed more than two portions of soya-based foods a week had, on average, 41m fewer sperm per millilitre of semen than men who had never eaten soya products. Read the full article by Ian Sample here.

Spilling the beans July 13, 2008

Toxic Health Food?
How do you adjust to the possibility your favourite health food is toxic and dangerous? On the good food website Gremolata.com, Lorette C. Luzajic writes a great article “Spilling the Beans". Read the full article here.

Health Claim Re-evaluation December 21, 2007

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing an opportunity for public comment on its intent to reevaluate the scientific evidence for two previously authorized health claims (dietary lipids (fat) and cancer; soy protein and risk of coronary heart disease) and two qualified health claims that were the subject of letters of enforcement discretion (antioxidant vitamins and risk of certain cancers; selenium and certain cancers). The agency is undertaking a reevaluation of the scientific basis for these authorized health claims and qualified health claims because of new scientific evidence that has emerged for these substance-disease relationships. The new scientific evidence may have the effect of weakening the substance-disease relationship for these authorized health claims and either strengthening or weakening the scientific support for the substance-disease relationship for these qualified health claims.

DATES: Submit written or electronic comments by February 19, 2008.
More…

Health Committee Petition December 14, 2007

Read the Report of the NZ House of Representatives Health Committee on Petition 2005/123 of Valerie Ann James and 214 others, submitted with the support of SoyOnlineService.

The committee heard evidence on 17 October 2007 from Valerie Ann James, the New Zealand Food Safety Authority and the Ministry of Health.

“Conclusion: We support the petitioner's request for more accurate labels on soy-based infant formula, which highlight the potential long-term risks of feeding soy-based infant formula to infants. We accept that there is evidence that soy-based formulas have a high phytoestrogen content that may pose a risk to the long-term reproductive health of infants. We acknowledge that the current labels do advise consumers to consult a doctor or health care worker for advice. However, we believe it would be prudent to supplement this advice with more specific wording which points out that the high phytoestrogen content of soy-based infant formula may pose a risk to the long term reproductive health of infants."…

Read the full report here

Soya Supplements May Be a Health Risk: German Consumer Watchdog December 6, 2007

The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) Germany, has undertaken a health assessment of isoflavone supplements. BfR found that there is a lack of evidence to confirm the safety of such supplements, yet there is some evidence to suggest that there may be health risks. Long term studies of these extracts are needed to evaluate the health implications.

Isoflavones are phyto-estrogens that may have a hormone like (estrogen) effect on the body. Isoflavones are found predominantly in soya beans (Glycine hispida max) and Red Clover (Trifloium pratense). Daidzein, genistein and glycitein are the main isofavones found in soya. Red clover is a mix of many isoflavone compounds; formononetin and biochanin A are thought to be the main ones. Isoflavones may be ingested naturally from food or as an isolated, fortified form in food supplements.
One of the main groups who are targeted by isoflavone marketing is post menopausal women. It is often claimed that such supplements can ease the symptoms of the menopause, offering an alternative to hormone replacement therapy. Other claimed advantages of the supplements are heart, bone and breast health.

After reports of adverse events relating the taking of soya / red clover supplements, BfR carried out a health assessment. This included evaluating the scientific studies published to date. The reported adverse events included itching, eczema, nausea, dizziness, abdominal pain, skin rash and sweating. Conflicting reports and a lack of long term studies make isoflavones a difficult subject to evaluate. Indeed one study found that isoflavones stimulated breast cancer cells in mice, while another found that women with a high soy diet generally have lower rates of breast cancer.

More…

GERMAN CONSUMER WATCHDOG ORGANIZATION WARNS CITIZENS ABOUT THE DANGERS OF SOY INFANT FORMULA AND SOY ISOFLAVONE SUPPLEMENTS 

For Immediate Release

December 6, 2007 --

GERMAN CONSUMER WATCHDOG ORGANIZATION WARNS CITIZENS ABOUT THE DANGERS OF SOY INFANT FORMULA AND SOY ISOFLAVONE SUPPLEMENTS
Washington, DC: -- December 6, 2007 -- The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment in Berlin, Germany, warned parents and pediatricians last month that babies should not be given soy infant formula without clear, concrete medical reasons and then only under strict medical supervision.
This week they issued a second warning to adult consumers, saying that soy isoflavones offer no proven health benefits and may pose health risks.
"Soy is not a health food, said Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food. "Soybeans contain plant estrogens known as isoflavones that can cause significant endocrine disruption. Infants on soy formula are at high risk because isoflavones are estrogenic and can disrupt the development of the growing baby's body and brain. Adults self-medicating with soy foods and/or supplements are another high risk group."
Dr. Daniel noted that "Many midlife women over consume soy because of the widespread marketing of soy as a safe and natural way to ease menopausal symptoms. Sadly, soy is neither safe nor natural. There are risks for men and women of every age. Hundreds of studies link soy to digestive distress, thyroid dysfunction, reproductive disorders, ADD/ADHD, allergies, and even increased breast cancer risk. "
Professor Dr. Andreas Hensel, President of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), explains that the main concern for infants is that soybeans naturally contain high levels of estrogenic compounds known as isoflavones, which are similar in chemical structure to human estrogen and can act like hormones in the body. Compared to breastfed or dairy formula-fed babies, babies on soy formula show very high concentrations of isoflavones in their blood.
"Soy formula fed babies are overly estrogenized babies, explained Dr. Daniel. "This can lead to tragic consequences such as premature puberty in girls and delayed or arrested puberty in boys.
Soy infant formula has also contributed to the dramatic increase in soy allergies over the past few decades. "Soy allergies used to be rare, but soy is now widely regarded as one of the top eight allergens and some experts predict it will soon be in the top four, Dr. Daniel says. "The soy infant formula industry has long marketed its products as a hypoallergenic alternative to dairy, but soy itself often triggers allergic reactions and also contributes to asthma, eczema and other disorders.
According to the German Federal Institute of Risk Assessment, milk allergies are not an acceptable reason for pediatricians to recommend soy formula, Dr. Hensel cited several possible medical reasons for giving soy formula to infants, including "cases of congenital, hereditary lactase deficiency and the
equally rare metabolic disease galactosaemia. Lactose intolerance - whether genetic or because of a temporary gastro-intestinal disorder - is not generally a reason to choose soy formula.
Dr. Hensel also expressed concern that soy infant formula contains phytate, a natural plant component that can adversely affect the infant's intake of minerals and trace elements. Phytates have been linked to rickets and poor bone development in babies and children, and to osteoporosis in adults.
In the warning issued December 6, the Institute of Risk Assessment expressed concerns about the marketing of soy foods and isoflavone supplements to menopausal women and doubts about the " claimed advantages of the supplements for heart, bone and breast health. The Institute found that "the assumed positive effects of isolated isoflavones on menopausal complaints have not been sufficiently substantiated and that numerous adverse effects have been noted. . . When administered at high doses in isolated or fortified form, isoflavones impair the functioning of the thyroid gland and can change mammary gland tissue.
Re breast cancer, the Institute concluded that "it can not be ruled out that the estrogen like effects of isoflavones could promote the development of breast cancer. The necessary long term studies to prove the safety of isoflavone containing products are not available. Nor is it currently possible to reliably establish a dose which could be considered safe.
"The Germans have clearly warned about the dangers of soy isoflavone supplements, said Dr. Daniel. "But it's also important to make clear that soy milk and many other soy foods contain high levels of isoflavones. For example, a single glass of soy milk per day contains a higher level of isoflavones that caused thyroid damage in healthy Japanese men and women in just three months as shown in a study by thyroid specialists at the Ishizuki Clinic in Japan.
The two warnings by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment's follow advisories issued by the Israeli Health Ministry and the French Food Agency.
In 2005, the Israeli Health Ministry warned that babies should not receive soy formula, children to age 18 should not drink soy milk or eat soy foods more than once per day to a maximum of three times per week and adults should exercise caution because of adverse effects on fertility and increased breast cancer risk.
In 2006, the French Food Agency announced tough new regulations that will require manufacturers to improve the safety of soy infant formula and to put warning labels on packages of soy foods and soy milk. According to Mariette Gerber, MD, PhD, Professor at the Center of Cancer Research in Montpelier, the new regulations will require a drastic decrease in the isoflavone content allowed in soy formula "to get it as low as possible, to one part per million. Food labels must warn of "special risks to children below three years of age, children treated for thyroid disease and women who've been diagnosed with or have a family history of breast cancer.
The United Kingdom's Chief Medical Officer and the British Dietetic Association has also warned pediatricians and parents to use soy formula only as a last resort. And the UK's Committee on Toxicity has cited vegetarians who use regularly use soy foods as being at special risk for thyroid damage.
"The Israelis, French, British and now the Germans have looked at the evidence and have warned their citizens that soy formula poses a very real danger to babies and soy isoflavones to adults, says Dr. Daniel. "I am impressed with how seriously the Germans have taken their mission as a consumer watchdog organization. It's time that our FDA and other US government agencies did likewise.
Contact:
Kathleen M. Campbell Campbell Public Relations, LLC Publicity & Media Strategies The Complete Solution 1255 Lake Plaza Dr., Suite 244 Colorado Springs, CO 80906 877-540-6022 kcampbell@thecompletesolution.com
*****
Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is THE WHOLE NUTRITIONIST® . She earned her PhD in Nutritional Sciences and Anti- Aging Therapies from the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, is board certified as a clinical nutritionist (CCN) by the International and American Association of Clinical Nutritionists in Dallas and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Weston A. Price Foundation. As a clinical nutritionist, she specializes in digestive disorders, women's reproductive health issues, infertility, and recovery from vegetarian and soy-based diets.
Dr. Daniel is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food (New Trends, March 2005), which has been endorsed by leading health professionals, including Kilmer McCully MD, Doris J. Rapp MD, Jonath- an V. Wright, MD, Russell Blaylock, MD, Larrian Gillespie, MD, Joseph Mercola, OD, Debra Lynn Dadd and Larry Dos- sey, MD, who called it "science writing at its best.
Comfortable in front of radio, television and live audiences, Dr. Daniel has been "media trained by Joel Roberts, formerly co-host of KABC, Los Angeles' most highly rated talk radio program, who calls her a "class A entertainer and a "naughty nutritionist with the ability to outrageously and humorously debunk nutritional myths.
Dr. Daniel has been extensively quoted in major newspapers and magazines, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, Toronto Globe & Mail, Glamour, Utne Reader and Alternative Medicine, and has appeared as a guest on NPR's People's Pharmacy, the Discovery Channel's Medical Hotseat and ABC's View from the Bay. Online her book has been featured prominently on http://www.mercola.com/, the world's leading natural health and dietary website. She has also
appeared as an expert witness before the California Public Safety Committee and the National Institute for Environmental Health Science.
Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, Press and Public Relations Office, Thielallee 88-92, 14195 Berlin, Fax: +49-30-8412-4970, E- Mail: pressestelle@bfr.bund.de

Like Sex Like Chocolate December 5, 2007

Cadbury Chocolate did a survey, and announced with great fanfare last month that more than half the women in the UK would rather curl up with chocolate bar than let a man get a leg over. That's not good news for those British men who like to boast that they've got more than a stiff upper lip!

Seems the researchers asked 1,524 adults how they like to treat themselves. About 66 percent of the women saw chocolate as a "mood enhancer, and the 18-24 year old women even knew industry buzz about chocolate "releasing mood enhancing endorphins.

The most startling find was 52 percent of the women said they'd choose chocolate over sex. As one of the women put it, "Chocolate provides guaranteed pleasure.

Two things about this quote struck me right away: First, McDonalds and other fast-food franchises have built their businesses on the guarantee of the exact same mediocre experience every time. Secondly, seems to me a love affair with chocolate need not be an "either-or proposition. How about "and-both. In other words, enjoy chocolate and sex together! Whether or not chocolate arouses us with phenylethylamine and other potent "love chemicals, it's a time-honored gift in courtship rituals.

This headline-grabbing study from the Brits is the latest in a marketing push for chocolate that's been going on all spring. Anything after this will surely be anticlimactic! To determine which studies are valid, which justify hope, which are mere hype "” and why "” would take a book the size of The Whole Soy Story. For now, let me simply share some naughty bytes, starting with two great headlines I found in my email box from Nutra-Ingredients-USA

• "Nestle builds science to support cocoa polyphenol claims
• "Hershey builds on health portfolio.

Notice here what Big Choc is "building "— a "science base that can help chocolate shed its image as a "bad snack to emerge as a "health food with "goodness benefits. Just like the soy industry! As senior vice president MIchele Buck of Hershey said, "This interest is driving explosive growth.

To date, most of the health claims for chocolate center on cocoa's antioxidant capacity. Although the studies are inconsistent, some evidence does link cocoa's polyphenols, flavanols and other antioxidants to a positive effect on circulatory system diseases, mental health, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, inflammatory diseases and weight loss. In March, there was even the headline "Should cocoa flavanol be classed as a "˜vitamin'? The chocolate industry, of course, has taken this hype straight to the bank. And with few people warming that for bitter cocoa to taste good and become the chocolate we all love, sugar "” sometimes a lot of sugar "” goes into the mix.

Scientists not in the employ of Willy Wonka or other chocolate companies remain less convinced. An article in the April issue of the American Chemical Society's journal Chemical Research in Toxicology quoted scientists from Rutgers with a sober warning:

"Although consumption of dietary phytochemicals such as flavonoids has been suggested to have beneficial biological effects including the prevention of cancer and heart disease, there is considerable evidence to suggest that such compounds are not without risk of adverse effects. The risk of adverse effects is likely increased by the use of pharmacological doses in prevention/treatment and supplement situations . . . that may increase the bioavailability of test compounds.

Besides the polyphenols found in chocolate, the Rutgers team was concerned about excessive consumption of green tea polyphenols and genistein from soy. Having personally researched genistein in depth, this definitely resonated with me. The takeaway: Always look long and hard at the marketing behind any health claims, however impressive they might first appear!

Now what about those British ladies? Knowing the ins and outs of study design, data recording and conclusions, I expect they didn't really say what Cadbury said they said. [ Sad if really true.] One thing's certain though: when it comes to chocolate, the marketing is way ahead of the science. In time, that will undoubtedly sort itself out though it may take someone "” not me! "— writing The Whole Chocolate Story. In the meantime, The Naughty Nutritionist„¢ would like to know whether chocolate "” presumably dark, unsweetened, traditionally processed cocoa nibs "— was the secret to Montezuma's legendary reputation as a lover.

Now that we're talking about chocolate and sex, here's some Naughty Bits that have been circulating on the internet. They just might explain what Cadbury's researchers found:

• Good chocolate is easy to find
• You can make chocolate last as long as you want it to.
• You can bite the nuts as hard as you'd like.
• Chocolate satisfies whether it's hard or soft.
• The word "commitment doesn't faze chocolate.
• You can have chocolate on your desk both during and after office hours.
• And best of all, with chocolate you never, ever need to fake it!

c copyright 2007 Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN

Soya Formula for Infants Should Only Be Administered on Doctor's Advice, Says German Consumer Safety Watchdog November 19, 2007

Infant formula and follow-up formula based on cow's milk protein or soy protein is for sale in the European Union. Soy formula should only be administered to infants over a longer period when this is necessary on medical grounds.

Press Release — November 19, 2007 — If a mother is unable to breastfeed her baby, she can fall back on infant formula from the drug store or supermarket. Products made from soybean protein and from cow's milk are on sale. Soybeans contain high concentrations of isoflavones. They should, therefore, only be given to infants over longer periods in exceptional, justified cases. Isoflavones are similar to the female hormone oestrogen; however, they have a far weaker effect. Furthermore, soybeans may also contain higher amounts of the plant component, phytate. Professor Dr. Dr. Andreas Hensel, President of the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR), comments, “Infant formula and follow-up formula made from soy protein should only be administered on medical grounds and then only under medical supervision."

More…

Soy and Breast Cancer Awareness Month October 5, 2007

Does soy prevent breast cancer or increase the risk? The debate heats up this month as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

“It's a myth that soy prevents breast cancer," says Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food. “Numerous studies show that soy can cause, contribute to or even accelerate the growth of cancer."

In spite of the most recent research showing the association between soy products and breast cancer women are still being urged to purposefully increase their consumption of soy milk and soy foods in the mistaken belief that soy will prevent or even cure breast cancer.

Dr. Daniel explains, “The truth is that soy protein contains dangerous levels of plant estrogens. Although not identical to human estrogens, these have been proven to increase breast cell proliferation, a widely accepted marker of breast cancer risk."

“The soy industry consistently plays down the evidence that soy can promote breast cancer," says Dr. Daniel. “It is even using Breast Cancer Awareness Month as an excuse to push its products on unsuspecting women."

Companies using Breast Cancer Awareness Month as part of their marketing efforts include Vitasoy, which has launched a breast health education initiative that includes giving away soy milk in bright pink containers "— called “Pinkies" - to women attending Breast Cancer Awareness Month activities such as the upcoming Komen Races for the Cure in Boston and Miami.

“The soy industry also heavily promotes the myth that Asians have lower rates of breast cancer because of soy consumption," says Dr. Daniel. “In fact, Asians eat soy in very small quantities, as a condiment in the diet and not as a staple food. What's more, they eat old-fashioned, whole soybean products such as miso, tempeh, natto and tofu, not the new heavily processed products marketed by the soy industry such as soy milk, veggie burgers and "energy bars.'"

Dr Daniel points to a Japanese study published this month in the journal, Cancer Causes and Control, in which researchers at Nagoya University showed that soy consumption offers no protection and has no effect on breast cancer risk.

“The researchers were curious as to whether Asians enjoy lower rates of breast cancer because of their soy consumption," she says. “Using data from the Japan Collaborative Cohort (JACC) they examined whether soy foods really have a protective effect. They found that Asians on high soy diets did not have a lower incidence of breast cancer. Clearly it's time to credit other dietary and lifestyle factors for their lower rates of breast cancer."

Leading scientists and government agencies share Dr. Daniel's concern. The Israeli Health Ministry has advised women to “exercise caution" when it comes to soy consumption because of increased breast cancer risk.

The French Food Agency will soon require warning labels on soy milk and other soy foods because of the risks to women who've been diagnosed with "— or have a family history of – breast cancer.

In the U.S., Cornell University's Center for Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors has examined the evidence on soy and phytoestrogen-containing herbs such as black cohosh and warned women not to self medicate with soy foods or soy supplements.

“The risks are well established. Soy is clearly not the answer for breast cancer prevention," concludes Dr. Daniel. “The evidence is mounting that soy may even be part of the problem."

AVAILABILITY: Nationwide by arrangement and via telephone

CONTACT: Kathleen M. Campbell, Campbell Public Relations, LLC, 877-540-6022: kcampbell@thecompletesolution.com

About the author

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is THE WHOLE NUTRITIONIST®. She earned her PhD in Nutritional Sciences and Anti-Aging Therapies from the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, is board certified as a clinical nutritionist (CCN) by the International and American Association of Clinical Nutritionists in Dallas and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Weston A. Price Foundation. As a clinical nutritionist, she specializes in digestive disorders, women's reproductive health issues, infertility, and recovery from vegetarian and soy-based diets.
Dr. Daniel is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food (New Trends, March 2005), which has been endorsed by leading health professionals, including Kilmer McCully MD, Doris J. Rapp MD, Jonathan V. Wright, MD, Russell Blaylock, MD, Larrian Gillespie, MD, Joseph Mercola, OD, Debra Lynn Dadd and Larry Dossey, MD, who called it "science writing at its best.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/022224.html#ixzz1GbKVAmRx

Risks of Functional Foods September 2, 2007

RISKS OF "FUNCTIONAL FOODS
"Functional Foods - also known as "neutraceuticals' or "designer foods "— should be
monitored to assess long-term safety and effectiveness.

That's the word from the British
Medical Journal, which recently published findings about the risks of sterol-containing
margarines and yogurts. Once regarded as the waste products of the wood pulping or
soybean industries, plant sterols are now proving profitable as cholesterol--lowering

ingredients added to a variety of nutraceutical foods and drinks.
As reported in the BMJ, sterols can trigger adverse reactions in people taking statin
drugs. This occurs because both sterols and statins lower cholesterol, thus causing
potentially dangerous dosage problems. In addition, plant sterols can increase heart
disease risk by thickening the arteries. As I documented in The Whole Soy Story,
consumers should also be concerned about hormonal disruption as sterols are
estrogenic.
In Australia and New Zealand, sterol--containing "functional foods must carry warning
labels, advising against their use by pregnant women and children.
It will be interesting to see if concerns about other nutraceuticals surface in the future. I
am particularly concerned about "functional foods for menopause such as
soy-enhanced cereals and breads. Proponents of "functional foods and "functional
drinks argue that they allow people to eat and drink more "healthfully without radically
changing their diet. But as the BMJ noted, "at best they are likely to be technical fixes,
and at worst, another confounding factor that nutritional epidemiologists will have to
unravel for years to come." Source www.bmj.com

For more details about the dangers of sterol-enriched margarines read “Toxins on your Toast" by Valerie James of Soy Online Service, NZ, posted at www.westonaprice.org.

“Dating Games" at this Year's LA Tofu Festival 

DATING GAMES FOR TOFU

The theme for this year's L.A. Tofu Festival held last month was finding Tofu's "perfect
match. To this end, hundreds of ingredients went on "blind dates with Tofu and soon
after gave birth to "an exciting assortment of specialty dishes. Or so the publicists
would like us to believe."

Among the winning propositions:

• "Can I get a scoop on you? -- – NiceCream

• "Do you find me a-peeling? — --- Bananafana

• "I bean waiting for you all my life. — BeanyBaby

• "I'm ready to add substance to someone's bland existence. -- — SoyMeetsGirl

• "I'm looking for someone who needs some spice and substance in the frying pan. — Vegan 17

• "You can meet me at my place or we can soy each other wherever you like. — TheSoyWonder

• "I'm adventurous and willing to experiment. –ToFujii

• "Don't forget to use a condiment. –-- SaucySoy

Interesting indeed given the fact that Tofu was welcome at Zen monasteries to help monks maintain their vows of celibacy.

©copyright 2007 Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN

Note to readers: If you liked this column, you might also enjoy my piece Soy Naughty: 69 Weird and Wickedly Funny Facts about Soy, which includes The Naughty Nutritionist's „¢ take on Tofuzilla and other spongy characters from earlier festivals. Truth is stranger than fiction. I did not make these up!

Whole Soy Updates August 27, 2007

Whole Soy Updates August 2007

And now, VeganSexuals! August 26, 2007

Learn all about them from Dr. William Campbell Douglass II MD.

"I'll admit, when I read that headline on Fox News a few days ago, I got a good chuckle
out of it, especially when I read the “why" behind this voluntary sexual exile "” it's
because vegans consider the bodies of meat -eaters to be “a graveyard for animals." Of
all the outlandish things I've heard in my 81 years, this one's up there with the best of
the best. I don't know if this New Zealand phenomenon has extended beyond the
island's borders or not, but it's widespread enough there to warrant an official name for
these weirdoes. They're called vegansexuals.

One vegansexual said, “I believe we are what we consume, so I really struggle with
non-vegans when it comes to sexual contact." Another said, “I would not want to be
intimate with someone whose body is literally made up from the bodies of animals who
have died for their sustenance."

Oh brother. I think all that processed soybean junk food has gone to their heads "” and
their sex organs, too. The research is in, and it's alarming: Veganism from birth causes
mal development of sex organs in males. (Read The Whole Soy Story to get the scoop.
You'll be astounded.)

Next thing you know, vegans will be cutting out sex altogether, which, come to think of it,
wouldn't be much of a stretch. And that's what I think this story is REALLY about. It's not
so much that vegans don't want to have sex with meat-eaters "” it's that they can't
handle being partnered up with someone who actually has a sex drive." -- Source:
Daily Dose, August 21, 2007." To subscribe, www.douglassreport.com/dailydose/
freecopy.html

As The Naughty Nutritionist„¢ gotta LOVE Dr. Douglass!
Other omnivores have also shown a great sense of humor." One blogger said he
would consider the body of a vegan to be a "rotting compost pile of vegetables." This
Naughty Nutritionist „¢says "No-Fu to bodies built of tofu (whether soft or firm).

Omnivore vs Vegan August 25, 2007

This article “Omnivore vs Vegan" was a cover story for EnergyTimes magazine. It may help you decide whether Mother Nature designed us to eat animal products or we should consider veganism “our next big evolutionary leap." Speaking for the vegans is Hope Ferdowsian, MD, of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. EnergyTimes selected me to represent the omnivores because I'm on the Board of Directors of the Weston A. Price Foundation, but did so only on the condition that I NOT speak out about soy. I agreed, expecting to be identified as the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food. Apparently that was too much for EnergyTimes" advertisers as the book's entire title was eliminated from my biography. Didn't get identified as The Naughty Nutritionist„¢ there either. Guess they didn't want to offend any vegans with my humor or the implication that they aren't “naughty."

Health food caution May 30, 2007

"Functional Foods' – also known as "nutraceuticals' or "designer foods' – must be monitored to assess long-term safety and effectiveness, say a group of scientists writing in today's British Medical Journal. Nynke de Jong, project director at the Duth Institute and colleagues, focused on the potential risks of cholesterol lowering margarines and yoghurts. These products, he wrote, could trigger reactions in people taking statins – drugs that do the same job but act more powerfully – which might actually increase their risk of heart disease, the Dutch experts say. The margarines contain plant sterols which lower cholesterol but when eaten by people taking statins, the level of plant sterols in their blood is raised. There are concerns that this could increase the thickening of the arteries – and the risk of a heart attack – and Canada has banned the sale of these product. Download the British Medical Journal article here. Also see a related article in the NZ Hearld, 21st May 2007.

Death by Veganism May 21, 2007

When Crown Shakur died of starvation, he was 6 weeks old and weighed 3.5 pounds. His vegan parents, who fed him mainly soy milk and apple juice, were convicted in Atlanta recently of murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty.
This particular calamity "” at least the third such conviction of vegan parents in four years "” may be largely due to ignorance. But it should prompt frank discussion about nutrition.

I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.

Indigenous cuisines offer clues about what humans, naturally omnivorous, need to survive, reproduce and grow: traditional vegetarian diets, as in India, invariably include dairy and eggs for complete protein, essential fats and vitamins. There are no vegan societies for a simple reason: a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run.

Protein deficiency is one danger of a vegan diet for babies. Nutritionists used to speak of proteins as "first class (from meat, fish, eggs and milk) and "second class (from plants), but today this is considered denigrating to vegetarians.

More…

Singing the Low Carb Blues March 4, 2007

Over the past decade, soy has been widely promoted as a "miracle food that can prevent heart disease, fight cancer, fan away hot flashes and build strong bones and bodies in far more than 12 ways. Lately its health-building reputation has been kicked up yet another notch as the perfect solution for low-carb dieters. Accordingly, low carb, high soy products are being heavily marketed to 64 million overweight Americans and the 46 million Americans currently on some form of a diet.
Many of these dieters are doing their darndest to stick to the bestselling Atkins, South Beach and Zone diets. Indeed Nutra-Ingredients USA reported recently that the hottest marketing trend of 2003 was low-carb versions of high-carb favorites such as pasta, bread, crackers and cookies. Nearly 4000 new products reached supermarket and health food store shelves, with most achieving their low-carb status by substituting soy protein or soy flour for traditional flours.
Although sales initially experienced double — and even triple — digit growth, the market collapsed as consumers discovered that they didn't much care for the taste, aftertaste texture or mouth feel of the higher priced goods. What's more, many gained weight either from the license to eat or from the soy itself. [Soy protein, after all, was used in Japan to fatten animals not employed in farm work.]
The New York Times reported that Atkins Nutritionals "took some of the biggest financial hits and by May 2004 wrote off $53 million of unsold and expired food products, sending the company into a financial tailspin. Founded in 1989, the company began pushing soy with a vengeance after Robert Atkins' death from a fall on ice in April 2003.
Surprisingly, the collapse of Atkins Nutritionals did not stop Kraft Foods from striking a deal with Arthur Agatston M.D.of South Beach Diet fame to cash in on the low-carb dieting trend. At that point, his bestseller had been on the New York Times bestselling list for more than a year, making it likely that products fitting within the doctor's recommendations would sell. As Lance Friedmann, senior vice president of Global Heath and Wellness, put it, “We will use the South Beach Diet trademark on certain Kraft products to identify some food choices that fit within the doctor's recommendations. Meanwhile, The South Beach Diet chugs on in paperback, followed by two sequels The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook and The South Beach Diet Dining Guide.
And that's not all, folks. Copy-cat low-carb books fill the bookstore and even include low-carb books geared specifically for vegetarians and vegans. While most of the low-carb plans over rely on packaged and processed foods and can lead to fat soluble vitamin and other nutritional deficiencies, the plans catering to vegetarians are extremely high in soy protein. Barry Sears, author of the bestselling Zone Diet produced The Soy Zone after learning the regular Zone was too challenging for vegans. Thick in soy protein products, he bills it as nothing less than "the healthiest Zone diet diet ever.
Sadly most dieters who go on The Soy Zone – or any high soy protein diet – will sooner or later sing the low carb blues. More than 70 years of studies link soy to thyroid damage, manifesting most often as hypothyroidism, a cause of weight gain, fatigue and brain fog — three ills people enter The Zone to avoid! In addition, soy contributes to digestive distress, reproductive disorders, infertility, immune system breakdown and even — health claims to the contrary — heart disease and cancer. The fact that so many of these low-carb foods are loaded with MSG and other additives designed to compensate for the loss of both fats and carbs is dangerous as well.
Sadly, soy isn't just selling to the low-carb crowd. Sales of soy foods reached a whopping $4 billion in 2004, with most segments of the industry reporting double-digit growth. The marketing of soy as a health food has been so successful that few people realize that respected scientists have warned that possible benefits should be weighed against proven risks. Even researchers working for the soy industry have admitted that the "marketing is way ahead of the science. The bottom line is people eating large quantities of soy are unwittingly participating in a large, uncontrolled and basically unmonitored human experiment.

* * * * *

© copyright 2006 Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is The Whole Nutritionis® and The Naughty Nutritionist„¢ because she outrageously and humorously debunks nutritional myths. Her discovery that soy is not a health food led her to debunk that myth by researching and writing The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food. For more information and to contact Dr. Daniel, visit her website www.wholesoystory.com. She lives in Santa Fe, NM.

LATEST WAY TO ESTROGENIZE BOYS February 27, 2007

Parents and pediatricians are reporting increased numbers of feminized boys. Although soy phytoestrogens, plastics and other environmental estrogens are the likeliest culprits, lavender and tea tree oils may also be to blame." These oils -- widely used for aromatherapy -- have long been considered safe. However, the Endocrine Society announced last summer that the oils are estrogen mimickers and that shampoos containing these oils appear to have caused serious hormonal imbalances and breast growth in some young boys." Researchers for the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences investigated after a Denver pediatric endocrinologist reported abnormal breast development -- known as gynecomastia -- in five boys, aged 4 to 7. The symptoms subsided after the boys stopped using the products."
As yet, the study remains unpublished so it's hard to know how credible the evidence is. While this is important information for parents and pediatricians, we must ask why newspapers from the Washington Post on down were willing to scare parents with articles entitled "Bad Shampoo for Boys? but stay mum on the proven dangers of soy infant formula. Times for the media to alert people to the dangers of all endocrine-disrupting environmental estrogens.

SOY SALES STILL RISING February 21, 2007

Soy protein sales have stagnated in the U.S. but are perking at 7.4 percent per year globally. Peter Golbitz, president of Soyatech, the industry's leading source of information on companies, products and sales, predicts that per capita consumption of soy protein will increase 3.3 percent annually through 2010." He credits population growth and rising incomes in developing nations. Seems that the more "developed a nation becomes, the more protein it consumes, and the more packaged and processed food products it wants.
One greatly expanding market is China." Although soy proponents tell us that the Chinese eat massive amounts of soy all day, every day, the reality is that the people (on average) eat very little. That means a huge market waiting to be tapped by American corporations selling the Chinese on their "natural heritage. The latest venture is a new Solae plant in Luohe City that will manufacture soy protein isolate ingredients for processing into "convenient food forms that "deliver nutritional benefits." According to Tony Arnold, president and CEO of Solae, "Healthy eating and diet management will play an increasingly important role in China." Indeed Solae has stated that its products will protect the Chinese from heart disease, obesity and cancer." Hmmm. Aren't we Americans told to eat soy because the Chinese don't have those problems!

Whole Soy Updates February 20, 2007

WHOLE SOY UPDATES Feb 2007

Whole Soy Updates January 18, 2007

Whole Soy Updates Jan 2007

Soy Naughty: 69 Weird and Wonderful Facts about Soy December 18, 2006

SOY NAUGHTY!
69 Weird and Wickedly Funny Facts about Soy

by Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN
The Naughty Nutritionist„¢

1, The Los Angeles Tofu Festival this year stars a blocky "Mr Tofu, a spongy fun guy who says "it's hip to be square. Has soy fried his brain or have things changed since I took geometry in 1967? Looks like a cube to me!

2. Last year's mascot was Tofuzilla, a giant blob who descended on Little Tokyo, which fortunately is still standing.

3. Before that Ninja Tofu bid us "unleash the SECRET POWER of tofu. A secret all right!

4. All those guys are anticlimactic though after "Fresh Naked Tofu of 2003. PG rated, of course, due to missing naughty bits. Not the kind of guy equipped
"to fu . .

5. For next year's festival, I propose "Sponge Brain, Square Pants in honor of the incredible shrinking brains scientists have found among tofu-eating elders.

6. Seriously, there was nothing sexy about tofu's invention. Lord Liu-An of Hua-nan China, was a ruler and inventor committed to adding a low-cost protein to the vegetarian monastic diet.

7. Soon after, the aptly named "meat without a bone appeared on monastery menus as an aid to spiritual development and sexual abstinence.

8. Seems the monks noticed that when tofu consumption went up, the naughty behavior went down!

9. And that's why Japanese wives serve extra helpings of soy to straying husbands.

10. What else might soy be good for? Feeding politicians with the zipper problem, of course.

11. Just think if Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky had eaten soy. It could have saved a lot of embarrassment to his presidency.

12. Taking thyroid medications? Don't eat soy or at least don't eat at the same time. Doctors know that can cause a "push-pull effect on the thyroid that can stress it out, and even cause a "blow out.

13. Similarly, men taking the little blue pills shouldn't eat the little yellow beans. With so much push pull and stress on the male endowment, it could wag right off.

14. As for Viagra, rumor has it The FDA went looking for a generic name. After careful consideration, it announced that it has settled on Mycoxafloppin. Also considered were Mycoxafailin, Mydixadrupin, Mydixarizin, Dixafix, and, of course, Ibepokin.

15 Okay, that last entry is fiction. Found it on the internet somewhere and don't know whom to credit. Back to the facts, the Israeli Health Ministry wants its citizens to obey the Biblical injunction to "be fruitful and multiply and has warned parents and pediatricians to limit consumption of soy foods for young children and adults and for babies to avoid soy formula altogether. The reason for their concern: soy's known contribution to infertility.

16. And now the French kiss of death for soy: Out this month, the French Food Agency wants warning labels on packages of soy food and soy milk, particularly products marketed to children.

17. But soy was one of the Five Sacred Gains of ancient China, right? Yes, indeed, but it was not honored as a food — like rice, millet, barley and wheat — but as a "green manure with nitrogen fixing roots. Soy as a food came much later in human evolution, in China around the second to fourth century BC.

18. Over in Japan around 500 AD, the goddess Oketsuhime Mikoto gave birth to fermented soybeans for the benefit of future generations. Was that a "virgin birth?

19. Asians traditionally used whole soy foods thogh soy oil was extracted in the good old days. Not for cooking but for kerosene type lamps, to make soap, caulk boats grease axles and lubricate machinery. Seems the real men didn't want to be anywhere near it because the soy oil making was done by eunuchs in the palaces.

20. As for the leftover soy protein, the eunuchs fed it to the palace animals to fatten them up as quickly as possible.

21. President Sukarno of Indonesia once admonished his fellow citizens, "Don't be a tempeh nation. Although people of all classes ate this indigenous dish, Sukarno and others of his class considered it a food for the poor.

22. Soy went west when traders, missionaries, botanists and other travelers brought soybeans back from China and Japan. Guess what they used it for: mostly ballast on ships. Or as a culinary or horticultural curiosity.

23. In 17th century France, soy sauce became the "secret seasoning used to fuel romantic intrigue at court banquets.

24. In the U.S., soy was heavily promoted by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, a married man and lifelong virgin who regularly warned followers that sex was not only immoral but health depleting.

25. Henry Ford produced a Soymobile out of soy plastic but failed to strengthen that plastic with spinach. Or improve its smell with soy sauce.

26. Indeed it smelled so bad drivers wouldn't take it as a gift. Seems it had a "strong odor reminiscent of a mortuary. Guess we could say Ford's carma ran over his dogma!

27. Ford often appeared in public sporting a tie made of soy fiber, and he once made a pubic appearance in a suit tailored out of soybean-fiber cloth. Although the Detroit Times reported, "He is as delighted as a boy with his first pair of long pants, the truth was another soy story. The suit was itchy when dry, smelled like a wet dog when damp, and was so prone to ripping that he could not bend over or cross his legs.

28. Vegetarian Adolf Hitler was a fan of soy, but considered soy margarine "unnatural.

29. The Communist party in the Soviet Union once pushed soy protein and soy margarines as the solution to low-cost feeding of the masses and called the soybean "our young revolutionary Chinese ally.

30. In 1973 Richard Nixon went to Japan and alienated US soybean farmers by confessing he had never seen, much less eaten, a soybean.

31. Soybeans quite naturally taste beany and greasy with bitter aftertastes and other deal breakers. Hardworking food scientists though have found ingenious ways to make soybeans palatable with sugar and other additives. The tasks are many: to improve and disguise the color, flavor, "bite characteristics, "mouth feel and aftertaste.

32, Even the soy boys admit their products are missing something. As a booster told a writer for the New Yorker in 1985, "There's something about the soybean that just seems to put a lot of people off. You know if soybeans are in storage along with cereals, rats will always eat the soybeans last. Even the rats don't like us.

33. Nabil Said, PhD, Director of Research and Development at Insta-Pro invented a "value added " product made of animal poop and soy protein that was transformed into an animal chow. Although Said finds this development exciting, fears of mad cow disease and other problems have kept bean turd production small.

34. The 1973 movie Soylent Green starring Charleton Heston is a cult classic. That too featured a revolutionary "value added product — soy protein improved with ground up human corpses — which led to the shocking ending: "Soylent Green IS PEOPLE!

35. Our FDA approved a soy-prevents-heart disease health claim in 1999 yet keeps a "Poisonous Plant Database in which there are nearly 300 references to soy. Does the left hand there know what the right hand's doing?

36. In his Far Side collection Unnatural Selections, cartoonist Gary Larson appeals to tofu haters everywhere when he depicts a hunting scene with the punch line, "in sudden disgust, the three lionesses realized they had killed a tofudebeest — one of the Serengeti's most obnoxious health antelopes.

37. The satirical magazine The Onion — "America's Finest News Source — offers up "13 of the most popular items for meat-shunning Americans, to wit: "Approximeat, Roast Almost, Prosciuttofu, Rocky Mountain Soysters, Kielbeancurdasa, Soystrami, Misteak, Fake-un Double Cheesebulghur, Neauseages, Mockwurst, I Can't Believe It's Not a Dead Animal, "Tofuck You, Meat Lover, Nofu– The Tofu Substitute.

38. Natto's a healthy soyfood, but so odoriferous that many Japanese restaurants require natto eaters to sit apart from other patrons.

39. Is soy milk made in Willy Wonka's Soymilk Factory? Measure the sugar in a glass of soy milk and it will weigh in at anywhere from a teaspoon to more than a tablespoon.

40. Vegan soy cheese products incur the wrath of reviewers, who have described these imitations as "barely edible, "yukky, "disgusting, "plastic, "rubbery and "smelling like old, stinky socks Yum!

41. Don't like the flavor and aroma of traditional soy foods? The soy industry plans to come out soon with a "Non-PU Bean. The LSTAR hybrid soybean is on its way,"naturally deodorized " and readymade for food manufacturers who wish to eliminate that embarrassing inner bean odor and put greater amounts of soy flour and soy oil into food products.

42. American ingenuity has created ersatz meat and dairy products with names like Soysage, Not Dogs, Fakin' Bacon, Sham Ham, Soyloin, Veat, Wham, Tuno, Bolono, Foney Baloney and, just the thing for a vegan Thanksgivingl, Tofurky.

43. As for ersatz dairy, think Ice Bean, Hip Whip and Tofurella.

44. Humorist Dave Barry has described a soyburger as "a well-constructed extremely cylindrical frozen unit of brown foodlike substance. Dave recommended it highly to anyone who either "needed more soy or wanted a "backup hockey puck.

45. Back in 1979, the US military dictated precise specifications for purchase of 60 million pounds of ground beef extended with soy protein concentrate at a level of 20 percent. The military approved SPC — even though it is considerably more expensive than soy flour — for two reasons: "better taste and lower flatulence potential.

46. In an episode of The Simpsons, Lisa, the vegetarian, goes to a vending machine for a snack and buys a "Soy Joy energy bar. The wrapper does more than make inflated health claims, it boasts "Now with gag suppressor.

47. "Eat Here, Get Gas. Many health experts believe soy burgers, soy hot dogs, TVP chili and other modern soy products provide high octane fuel. Figures released by the American Oil Chemists Association prove them right! SPI (soy protein isolate — the ingredient you most often find in veggie burgers, energy bars and other modern products — contains some 38 petroleum compounds including, but not limited to: butyl, methyl and ethyl esters of fatty acids, phenols, diphenyls and phenl esters, abietic acid derivatives, diehydroabietinal, hexanal and 2-butyl-2-octenal aldehydes; dehydroabietic acid methyl ester; dehydroabietene and abietatriene. The American Oil Chemists Association did not provide data on what kind of mileage soy eaters can expect.

48. In the late 1970s, the Federation of the American Society for Experimental Biology (FASEB) concluded that the only safe use for soy protein isolates was as a binder and sealer for cardboard boxes. No one then would have ever guessed soy protein isolate would be the product sold in those boxes!

49. Afraid to eat up that soy oil in your cupboard? You needn't throw it out even though it's sure to be rancid. Joseph Mazzela, an eighth grader who exhibited at the 2002 California State Science Fair, proved old vegetable oils can shine as lubricants for skateboards, bikes, boats, cars or door hinges.

50. In 1967 North Dakota legislators pressed for a law that would have forced margarine manufacturers to dye it pink or green. Yellow was reserved for real butter, and legislators thought it best that consumers not be fooled.

51. Robert Novak a medical entomologist at the University of Illinois, reports soy oil is an excellent mosquito killer. If that seems unfair to mosquitoes, consider this buzz from the soy industry: that soy could later save them from developing cancer, heart disease, hot flashes and osteoporosis!

52. And now "The Mysterious Case of the Squirt Attacks. A Brisbane, Australia, man was arrested for repeatedly squirting soy sauce at another man in a shopping mall. The victim told police he did not know the man or agree to — or in any way encourage — a soy sauce squirting game. The soy sauce assailant refused to talk to police or explain his behavior in court. He was ordered to pay $300 so the man could buy a soy-free new pair of trousers and pay a fine of $150.

53. Soy is an incomparable gas producer — the King of Musical Fruits. Accordingly research dollars have poured into studies with titles such as "Flavor and flatulence factors in soybean protein products, "Effects of various soybean products on flatulence in the adult man, and "Development of a technique for the in vivo assessment of flatulence in dogs.

54. About those studies . . . test subjects have included rats, college students and other animals. "Containment devices have included gas tight pantaloons sealed to the skin at the waist and thighs using duct tape and equipped with two ports.

55. Soy eaters who complain that their favorite foods make them gain weight and pass gas at the same time will soon have their prayers answered with a hot, new product named Thermobean. It's a gas-suppressing legume-protein formula that's literally full of beans — and the enzymes that will not only make those beans behave but go to work fueling your body generator.

56. Get wind of this! Texas inventor Frank Lathrop came up with the perfect solution to the soy flatulence problem — a seat cushion known as the Toot Trapper Billed as a "reverse whoopee cushion, it is packed with a carbon air filter that is guaranteed to absorb odors and stop toots in their tracks.

57. Pandas in zoos have problems mating and becoming pregnant. Rather than look at the soy in the panda diet, however, the researchers are doing behavioral therapy and even showing the pandas videos of humping pandas.

58. Like edamame, those green vegetable soybeans found in the freezer case at your store? The Chinese considered them useful to kill bad or evil chi

60. Bumper sticker time: "Soy, Aspartame, Vioxx "— FDA Approved!

61. "Soy "— Not Worth Beans!

62. "No Soy is Good Soy!

63. "Soy Infant Formula "— Formula for Disaster.

64. "Real Men Don't Eat Tofu!

65. "Oy, Soy, Veh!

66. And for the naughty among us, "I Love To Fu (though enough soy will eventually stop the "fu-ing.

67. Gotta stop thinking about soy. Going crazy. Soy loco!

68. Time to go "cold tufurky.

69. Christmas 2006 coming up soon. No Soy to the World!

© copyright 2006 Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN

Kaayla T. Daniel PhD, CCN, is The Whole Nutritionist® and The Naughty Nutritionist„¢ She is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food (New Trends, 2005) where many of these facts first appeared. A popular guest on radio and television, she looks forward to reporting on next year's Los Angeles Tofu Festival, where she hopes to meet Mr. Tofu and write a "tell all about him. She can be reached at 505-984-2093 and wholenutritionist@earthlink.net. Her website is www.wholesoystory.com

FRENCH GOVERNMENT TO REQUIRE WARNING LABELS ON SOY FOODS November 5, 2006

November 5, 2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FRENCH GOVERNMENT TO REQUIRE WARNING LABELS ON SOY FOODS
Albuquerque, NM: The French Food Agency (AFSSA) has announced tough new regulations that will require manufacturers to improve the safety of soy infant formula and to put warning labels on packages of soy foods and soy milk.
"The French Food Agency has acted with wisdom and courage, said Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food. "The new regulations will require manufacturers to remove the isoflavones from soy infant formula. This will greatly improve product safety and protect soy-fed babies from the damage that plant estrogens can cause to their developing bodies and brains. The French will also require warning labels on packages of soy foods and soy milk that will alert consumers to the risks for children under 3, children with hypothyroidism and women who have been diagnosed with or have a family history of breast cancer. "
Mariette Gerber, MD, PhD, Professor at the Center of Cancer Research in Montpelier, discussed the new regulations at the "Sixth International Symposium on the Role of Soy in Preventing and Treating Chronic Disease and at a special one-day symposium entitled "Effects of Soy on Growth and Development: How Much Do We Know held in Chicago late October and early November. "The Agency's primary concern was the isoflavones in soy, she said. "We have recommended a drastic decrease in the isoflavone content of soy infant formula to get it as low as possible, to one part per million. "We will not require that isoflavones be removed from regular soy foods and soy milk but such products must carry a warning label with the security limits we've set of 1 mg per kg of body weight per day. The food label must address special risks to children below 3 years of age, children treated for hypothyroiditis and to women with a previous history of breast cancer and/or a history of familial breast cancer.
Dr. Gerber said that the Agency has not yet determined when the new regulation will go into effect, but that the Agency considers it a priority. Although industry representatives at the symposium stated that the reducing isoflavone levels down to 1 ppm was impossible, Dr. Gerber noted that Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and other companies have routinely provided isoflavone-free products for use in clinical and laboratory testing. "It is their problem, she said. "If pediatricians do not recommend soy formula any more, they will have to change. When industry representatives scoffed that even onions contained possible health hazards, Dr. Gerber retorted, Do you feed infants with only onions?"
The French Food Agency is the first government agency to require the removal of isoflavones from soy infant formula and the first to require warning labels on soy foods. Last summer the Israeli Health Ministry warned its citizens that babies should not receive soy formula, that children to age 18 should eat soy no more than once per day to a maximum of three times per week and that adults should exercise caution because of adverse effects on fertility and increased breast cancer risk. In the U.S., soy is still widely regarded as a health food, though the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Reform and Quality issued a report last September stating that the majority of studies on soy and health are inconsistent, contradictory, of poor quality and of limited clinical value.
"Clearly, the French Food Agency believes in the precautionary principle of "Better Safe than Sorry, said Dr. Daniel. "I hope their action will encourage other government agencies to alert their citizens to the fact that it is myth that soy is a "health food' and that there are very real dangers to babies, children and women at risk for breast cancer.
*****

CONTACT: Deborah Kohan, PLANNED TELEVISION ARTS, 212-593-5885 Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, 505-266-3252 wholenutritionist@earthlink.net www.wholesoystory.com

Help Wanted at the FDA October 16, 2006

HELP WANTED
Need a job? Apply to the FDA.
According to the satirists at NewsTarget, several positions are available.

• Propaganda Officer: Help the FDA create and spread information that discredits products, companies and ideas that threaten FDA control. No scientific background necessary.

• Science Censor: Bury scientific findings that harm the prestige and credibility of the FDA.

• Chief Oppression Officer: Conduct armed raids on places where dangerous criminals are teaching patients about nutrition.

• Kickback Coordinator: Keep tabs on FDA managers' investments in pharmaceutical companies. Criminal background preferred. Mob ties are a plus.

• Morale Officer: Keep FDA employees in line to boost morale and work efficiently.

• Public Safety Program Director: Not really a full-time job. In fact, you don't even need to show up.

Darn! The Naughty NutritionistTM here thought she could serve in the kick back position but it's just not her kind of kicking back!

Practice Safe Soy September 28, 2006