Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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The War on Soy: Why the 'Miracle Food' May Be a Health Risk and Environmental 
Nightmare
http://www.alternet.org/water/144074/the_war_on_soy%3A_why_the_%27miracle_food%27_may_be_a_health_risk_and_environmental_nightmare?page=entire
By Tara Lohan, AlterNet. Posted November 21, 2009.

Vegetarians aren't the only ones who should be concerned; there's soy in just 
about everything you eat these days -- including hamburgers, mac 'n cheese 
and salad dressing.

These days, you can get soy versions of just about any meat -- from hot dogs 
to buffalo wings. If you're lactose-intolerant you can still enjoy soy 
ice-cream and soy milk on your cereal. If you're out for a hike and need a 
quick boost of energy, you can nibble on soy candy bars.

Soy is a lucrative industry. According to Soyfoods Association of North 
America, from 1992 to 2008, sales of soy foods have increased from $300 
million to $4 billion. From sales numbers to medical endorsements, it would 
seem that soy has reached a kind of miracle food status.

In 2000 the American Heart Association gave soy the thumbs up and the FDA 
proclaimed: "Diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol that include 25 grams 
of soy protein a day may reduce the risk of heart disease." Over the course 
of the last decade medical professionals have touted its benefits in fighting 
not just cardiovascular disease, but cancers, osteoporosis and diabetes.

But soy's glory days may be coming to an end. New research is questioning its 
health benefits and even pointing out some potential risks. Although 
definitive evidence may be many years down the road, the American Heart 
Association has quietly withdrawn its support. And some groups are waging an 
all-out war, warning that soy can lead to certain kinds of cancers, lowered 
testosterone levels, and early-onset puberty in girls.

Most of the soy eaten today is also genetically modified, which may pose 
another set of health risks. The environmental implications of soy 
production, including massive deforestation, increased use of pesticides and 
threats to water and soil, are providing more fodder for soy's detractors.

All of this has many people wondering if they should even be eating it at 
all. And you are most likely eating it. Even if you're not a vegetarian or an 
avid tofu fan, there is a good chance you're still eating soy. Raj Patel, 
author of Stuffed and Starved, explains that soy is now an ingredient in 
three-quarters of processed food on the market and just about everything 
you'd find in a fast food restaurant. It's used as filler in hamburgers, as 
vegetable oil and an emulsifier. It's in salad dressing, macaroni and cheese, 
and chicken nuggets.

"Even if you read every label and avoid cardboard boxes, you are likely to 
find soy in your supplements and vitamins (look out for vitamin E derived 
from soy oil), in foods such as canned tuna, soups, sauces, breads, meats 
(injected under poultry skin), and chocolate, and in pet food and body-care 
products," wrote Mary Vance for Terrain Magazine. "It hides in tofu dogs 
under aliases such as textured vegetable protein, hydrolyzed vegetable 
protein, and lecithin--which is troubling, since the processing required to 
hydrolyze soy protein into vegetable protein produces excitotoxins such as 
glutamate (think MSG) and aspartate (a component of aspartame), which cause 
brain-cell death."

Health Risks or Rewards?

"I grew up in Houston on po' boys and the Wall Street Journal," said Robyn 
O'Brien. "I trusted our food system." But all that changed when one of her 
kids developed a food allergy and O'Brien began doing research to find out 
what's actually in our food and the companies behind it.

Her work led to the book,The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick 
and What We Can Do About It, and she's become an incredible crusader on 
multiple fronts when it comes to food. She's also been educating consumers 
about soy's double-edged sword.

To understand why, it helps to know a little history about soy. It's been 
cultivated, starting in China, for 3,000 years. While Asian diets have 
generally included soy it has been in small amounts eaten fermented -- 
primarily via miso, natto and tempeh. "Fermenting soy creates 
health-promoting probiotics, the good bacteria our bodies need to maintain 
digestive and overall wellness,"  wrote Vance. "By contrast, in the United 
States, processed soy food snacks or shakes can contain over 20 grams of 
nonfermented soy protein in one serving."

It's not that all soy is bad; in fact, eating it in small doses can be quite 
healthy, if it's fermented. But when it's not, that's where the problems 
begin. Soy is a legume, which contains high amounts of phytic acid. Phytic 
acid binds to minerals (like calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc), 
interfering with the body's ability to absorb them (which is usually a bad 
thing). Soy is also known to contain "antinutrients," among them enzyme 
inhibitors that interfere with protein digestion. The Chinese figured out 
about 2,000 years ago that antinutrients and phytic acid could be deactivated 
during fermentation, but in the processed-food laden land of the West, we've 
chosen cultural ignorance in favor of quick and cheap. Most of the soy we eat 
is unfermented.

Another issue with soy is its high amounts of isoflavones, which can be good 
and bad (hence the double-edged sword). Isoflavones are a powerful 
antioxidant, writes Robyn O'Brien in her book, that can help boost immunity. 
They also impact estrogen levels and have been shown to have positive effects 
on easing symptoms of menopause. "But that plus can also be a minus," writes 
O'Brien, "because isoflavones' very ability to boost estrogen production can 
also pose hazards to our health. For example, the FDA scientists point out, 
during pregnancy, isoflavones could boost estrogen levels even higher, 'which 
could be a risk factor for abnormal brain and reproductive tract 
development.'" There is also a risk of breast and other reproductive cancers 
for women and the potential for testicular cancer and infertility in men.

While there was much news about the American Heart Association endorsing soy 
in 2000, there was little attention given when the AHA changed its mind and 
quietly withdrew its pro-soy claims in 2006, O'Brien points out. She also 
learned that they were not the only ones who expressed concerned about soy. A 
study in the British medical journal Lancet in 1996 warned of the effects of 
soy in infant formula. The study found babies had levels of isoflavones that 
were five to 10 times higher than women taking soy supplements for menopause. 
The effects in girls could be early-onset puberty, obesity, breast and 
reproductive cancers. Boys could face testicular cancer, undescended 
testicles and infertility. Additionally, O'Brien says, a 2003 British study 
conducted by Gideon Lack of St. Mary's Hospital at Imperial College London 
followed 14,000 children from the womb through age 6 and found that kids who 
had been given soy formula as infants seemed almost three times as likely to 
develop a peanut allergy later on.

As if all this weren't disturbing enough, there's also another reason to be 
alarmed -- most of the soy we eat is genetically modified to withstand 
increasing doses of weed-killing herbicides, and really, we have no idea what 
the long-term affects of that might be. So, what's a person to do? Stay away 
from soy as much as possible, which also means avoiding processed foods. And, 
even if we choose not to eat those things, some of us may end up getting them 
anyway. "There are different sales channels that these companies are using to 
sell soy with little regard for the cost to people down the road," said 
O'Brien. "Soy that is not used in grocery stores, in restaurants, or consumed 
by livestock, is disposed of in school lunch programs, hospitals, and 
prisons."

One organization, the Weston A. Price Foundation, is actually engaged in a 
lawsuit on behalf of Illinois state prisoners who say they're eating a diet 
made of largely soy protein. "In their letters, the prisoners have described 
deliberate indifference to a myriad of serious health problems caused by the 
large amounts of soy in the diet," the WAP Foundation writes. "Complaints 
include chronic and painful constipation alternating with debilitating 
diarrhea, vomiting after eating, sharp pains in the digestive tract after 
consuming soy, passing out after soy-based meals, heart palpitations, rashes, 
acne, insomnia, panic attacks, depression and symptoms of hypothyroidism, 
such as low body temperature (feeling cold all the time), brain fog, fatigue, 
weight gain, frequent infections and an enlarged thyroid gland."

While the soy industry has profited from the widespread adoption of its 
products here in the United States, other developed countries have taken a 
more precautionary approach and not allowed soy to become as pervasive in 
their food supplies in an effort to protect the health of their citizens, 
says O'Brien. But it's not just people who are at risk. The deleterious 
effects of soy can start with the seed.

Goodbye Rainforests, Hello Roundup

Glenn Beck recently chastised Al Gore about his meat eating, telling him that 
if he really cared about the planet he should put down his burger and pick up 
some Tofurkey. But unfortunately, it's not that simple. Increasing evidence 
is showing that soy production is also catastrophic for the environment. Just 
like a beef burger, a soy-based veggie patty may also be leading to 
deforestation, water depletion, and pesticide pollution. But it's also 
important to note that the vast majority of soy produced globally isn't used 
for tofu and veggie sausage -- it's actually used to fatten livestock and 
create biofuels (so, yeah, you may still want to put down the burger).

"Soy is a really sexy crop; it's fantastic. It's nitrogen fixing, it's full 
of protein; it's very rich and flexible," Raj Patel said in an interview with 
New America Media. "The tragedy is that the way we grow it today has turned a 
blessing into a curse because the way that soy agriculture works is 
monocultural, which means it takes over large parts of land. In Brazil, that 
means the Cerrado and the rainforest in the Amazon, and they are draining the 
water that is beneath that land. There are even some soy and biofuel 
plantations in Brazil where the International Labor Organization says there 
are 40,000 slaves working today. Slaves! In Brazil, producing biofuels and 
soy."

Brazil is one of the leading soy producers in the world, second only to the 
U.S. and poised to quickly move to the top spot. And overall, the growth of 
the world market is huge, with global production doubling over the past 20 
years and 210 million tons produced a year.

But it has also led to problems. Countries across Latin America, including 
Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia, are experiencing environmental problems 
similar to Brazil's. Rainforests are cleared, carbon emissions increase, 
indigenous and small farmers are displaced, aquifers are sucked dry, roads 
are built through sensitive ecosystems, and heavy pesticide use threatens 
waterways, soils and the health of locals. And as with all industrial 
monocultural farming, the rich (Monsanto, Cargill, and Bunge) get richer and 
the poor get poorer.

"The soy 'gold rush' has attracted fierce competition for land, leading to 
violence and murder," Marianne Betterly summarized in Mariri Magazine. 
"Hundreds of acres of rainforest are being cleared everyday, often by slave 
'debt' laborers, to make room for more soy plantations."

So, we may get our cheap burgers and a deluge of soy-infused foods, but at 
great cost.

Adding to all these environmental problems with soy is the fact that much of 
the world's soy (and 85 percent of the U.S crop) is genetically engineered. 
Since the early '90s farmers in the United States (and now across the world) 
have been using Monsanto's Roundup Ready soy that is genetically engineered 
to be resistant to the herbicide Roundup, which is liberally sprayed on the 
crop to kill weeds.

Much of the promise of GE crops was that they'd lead to the use of less 
pesticides and herbicides, which threaten both human and environmental 
health. But that hasn't actually panned out. "Because herbicide-tolerant 
crops are designed to withstand application of weed killers, farmers can 
apply large amounts of pesticides without fear of harming their crops. The 
U.S. has seen more than a 15-fold increase in the use of glyphosate, or 
Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, on major crops from 1994 to 2005," Co-Op 
America reported.

And more damning evidence has just been released. A new study that just came 
out this week funded by a coalition of non-governmental organizations 
including the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Center for Food Safety, the 
Cornerstone Campaign, Californians for GE-Free Agriculture, Greenpeace 
International and Rural Advancement Fund International USA, found that GE 
corn, soybean and cotton crops have increased the use of weed-killing 
herbicides in the U.S. by 383 million pounds from 1996 to 2008.

The study will surely be accompanied by more alarms bells set off by small 
farmers, environmentalists and organic supporters. And it will be one more 
battle in the war against soy that's being fought on both health and 
environmental fronts. Perhaps it will make people think twice before eating 
soy products, processed food and even most meat.