Soy Is Not A Health Food
It’s Part of the Obesity Problem
In November of 2016, my life changed. Drastically.
I stopped eating soy.
So why did I stop eating soy?
Despite a steady exercise regimen and close monitoring of my diet, I continued to gain weight and felt terrible. I also lost the hair on my forearms, and I was starting to lose my eyelashes. I freaked out.
After years of trying to find out was wrong and switching physicians, I forced my current doctor to test my zinc levels. It’s not a common test, and I think I was his first patient to ask for it. But after a lot of research, I thought it might be the problem.
It turns out, my instincts were correct. I had a zinc deficiency probably caused by soy. Apparently, something called phytic acid in soy products disrupts the absorption of minerals like zinc, calcium, etc.
After adding a cheap over-the-counter zinc supplement, I began to lose weight rapidly, and thankfully returned to my old self. Initially, I dropped 10 to 15 pounds — no small feat for a middle-aged guy in his 40s.
After eliminating soy from my diet, I’m now down more than 25 pounds, with the same food and exercise regimen — albeit without the soy.
What’s the connection between weight gain and soy?
My own personal proof aside, quite of bit of science implicates the widespread use of soy in food products as a major contributing factor to the rising obesity epidemic.
The study discovered “soy consumption correlates significantly with levels of obesity, irrespective of GDP and caloric intake. Soy consumption seems to contribute approximately 10% — 21% to the worldwide variation in obesity, depending on the method of statistical analysis. The ubiquitous presence of unfermented soy products in mass-produced foods seems to be an important contributor to the obesity epidemic.”
How did we get here?
Did someone wake up one day and say, “Hey, I wish soybeans were in virtually every prepared food in the country”? No. The proliferation of soy is a byproduct of the industrialization of agriculture and food production.
Soybeans have long been used as a rotational crop, thanks to their ability to take nitrogen from the air and replenish the soil. Its value as a rotational crop and source of oil was discovered by an American chemist, George Washington Carver, in 1904. His discovery helped farmers increase cotton production by rotating their crops with soybeans.
Like corn, soybeans are subsidized by the government. It’s hardy, easy to grow, and can be stored for long periods of time. It’s a cheap, abundant source of protein that was once classified by the FDA as heart-healthy, which made it safe to market as a health food.
Soybeans are also used to create trans fats. Via a process called hydrogenization, oils derived from crops such as soybeans are used to create hydrogenated oils or trans fats.
In 2015, the FDA banned the use of use of trans fats, and by June of 2018 manufacturers must ensure that their products no longer contain partially hydrogenated oils.
In 2017, the FDA also considered revoking soy’s heart-healthy claims due to numerous studies showing inconsistent findings on the relationship between soy protein and the reduction of heart disease.
Despite these measures, soy has been introduced into, and will likely remain in, virtually every aspect of the American diet. As always, there are loopholes. Fully refined and hydrogenated oils, many sourced from soybeans, are still legal. From French fries cooked in vegetable oil (i.e., soybean oil) to bread to salad dressing to chocolate to virtually any item on a fast food menu, all are drenched in soy. To make matters worse, the FDA allows manufacturers and restaurants to label foods “soy-free” even if they have trace amounts.
Hidden soy is an issue I run into all the time. Even cooking at home, in a controlled environment, ingredients with unlabeled soy sneak into our food and make me sick.
Soybeans are also a primary source of protein for livestock. About 98% of soybeans are currently used as an animal feed, so it’s also in your beef, poultry, and pork. It’s everywhere.
Why is soy so prevalent in the food supply?
Fermented soybeans have been used by Asian cultures for centuries as a flavoring agent and in soups. However, it was traditionally a small part of their diet, and they only ate unfermented soybeans in times of desperation.
Soybeans gained prominence in the U.S. thanks to The Glidden Company. Yes, the paint company. From the 1930s to the 1940s, unfermented soybeans were used for paper coatings, firefighting foam for the U.S. Navy, and in paints.
Glidden figured out how to use hexane to isolate soy proteins from soybeans and built a solvent extraction plant in 1934, followed by protein and lecithin plants. Lecithin is the sludge left behind after the oils are refined. Yes, that’s what you’re eating in your favorite candy bar. Glidden initially used it as a paint additive.
Even Henry Ford created plastic bodywork for his cars from soybeans.
These innovations led to the rise of hydrogenated oils as a common food ingredient.
By the end of World War II, Glidden was one of the largest manufacturers of Oleo Margarine, a butter substitute made from soy-derived oils.
Real butter, short in supply during the war, was replaced by the trans-fat laden “vegetable” based product, much to the horror of dairy farmers.
By the 1950s, Glidden sold soybean oil and soybean oil meal, edible soy products — including high-protein soy flours for bakers, confectioners, and meat packers — lecithin, food emulsifiers and oil-free phosphatides for pharmaceuticals. Soy was now a common ingredient in bread, medicine, vitamins, candy bars, and of course, paint.
Western methods of processing soybeans have been exported back to Asian cultures, who are now dealing with their own obesity issues. Today, China is the world’s largest soybean importer.
The Restaurant Challenge
I can usually avoid soy in products I buy at the store and prepare at home. Product labeling requirements help. But they’re not foolproof.
The Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA) of 2004 requires food producers to label major food allergens. This includes milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and my nemesis, soybeans.
The act exempted highly refined oils derived from one of the eight major food allergens, including peanuts and soybeans. Yes, the FDA exempted highly refined peanut oil and highly refined soybean oil from these labeling requirements.
According to the FDA, people with soybean allergies can safely eat soy-based oils and soy lecithin. Let me emphasize this again: citing studies, the FDA believes highly refined oils do not contain allergenic proteins and are safe to eat.
My digestive system begs to differ.
Highly refined oils give me just as much trouble as any other soy product. They’re rarely disclosed on most products on the shelf, and they’re almost never listed on the allergen menu of a restaurant.
There are also a ton of alternative names or packaging ingredients that contain soy. Ingredients such as mono-diglyceride, glycine max, and hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) are all probably soy based. Even the dreaded monosodium glutamate (MSG) may contain soy.
Faulty allergen labeling makes cooking at home a challenge, and it makes it difficult for restaurant employees to help their customers make smart choices.
And there’s the rub. I like to eat out and support local businesses. Since I’ve been off soy for several years, my stomach tends to point out quickly when I’ve accidentally ingested a soy-based product. It’s not pleasant. Benadryl seems to help, but I would rather avoid the problem than have to treat it.
To further complicate matters, my wife has issues with gluten. When we eat out, it’s an exercise in food science as we try to discern what’s safe for us to eat. We are at the complete mercy of kitchen and wait staff. When we find a safe menu, and a server who gets it and works with us, we are ridiculously loyal.
We have no choice. Nothing worse than a mistake at dinner that cuts an evening short.
Despite our best efforts, it happens. Way too often.
Restaurant staff are often hopelessly ignorant of soy. Many do not realize that soy lecithin is a soy product or that soybeans are probably the “vegetable” in the vegetable oil. If it’s a highly refined soy-based oil, there’s no requirement to label it on the packaging. Without the warning on the label, restaurant staff are challenged to identify it as a problem even when I tell them I have a soy allergy.
We need to improve label requirements to help kitchen staff and servers understand what they’re serving.
Restaurants can help, too. If you own or manage a restaurant, please educate your staff on the ingredients used in your dishes and identify what could be a potential problem for a patron. Communication between customers with allergy issues and the kitchen staff is important.
If you own an independent restaurant, think about cutting soy from your menu and develop gluten-friendly options. Use it as a selling point for your restaurant against the chain restaurants who are overly reliant on soy-based ingredients in their food.
Members of the food allergy crowd are very loyal when we find something that works. There’s a local restaurant near my office that has a soy- and gluten-free bun that allows my wife and I to enjoy a hamburger we didn’t have to cook at home. The restaurant uses peanut oil in their fryers, so I can even have a side of fries. We’re regulars, and it’s our safe night out place.
Let’s Get Healthy
Putting aside the challenges of those who can’t tolerate soy, if we are truly serious about obesity, we should get soy-based products out of the food supply. War-related food shortages are thankfully a thing of the past. There’s simply no need for food replacements or highly processed fillers to add extra protein to our diets.
There are too many unanswered questions about soy, and my own experience indicates when it comes to soy exposure leading to weight gain, these studies are valid. How many middle-aged guys you know can drop 30 pounds by eliminating one food product?
Doctors already advise women diagnosed with breast cancer to avoid soy. Studies indicate soy might worsen their prognosis and, in some cases, possibly cause female cancers. And the warnings for all women to avoid soy are growing in number.
I can’t think of two better reasons to eliminate it from our diet.
It took me much too long to find out what was wreaking havoc with my health. If you know something is wrong and your doctor is simply chalking it up to middle age and poor diet, find a doctor who is interested in helping you. For too many years, I felt terrible, and regardless of what I did at the gym or the dinner table, nothing seemed to work. Via research, trial and error, and a lot of work, I found my culprit. Maybe it will work for you like it did for me.
And let’s face it, life’s too short for bad food.
