Poison Protein: Interview with author of The Whole Soy Story

[Guest guest]

Fri, 27 Feb 2004 23:24:46 -0500 (EST)

 

" David Elfstrom "

 

Poison Protein: Interview with author of The Whole Soy Story

 

Poison Protein

Kaayla T. Daniel, Ph.D. Exposes the Whole Soy Story

by Chris Shugart

 

February 27 2004

http://www.t-mag.com/nation_articles/302poison.jsp

 

Over the past few years, T-Nation has published several articles on the

drawbacks and possible dangers of soy, beginning with a groundbreaking

article by TC that first appeared on the site in 2000. When we first began

running these articles, many critics thought we were way off base. After

all, isn't soy a miracle food with numerous health benefits? Doesn't it

prevent diseases, retard aging, and make you supermodel skinny?

 

The answer we gave was " no. " But the critics kept on soy-bombing us, some

even accusing us of bashing soy simply because we didn't sell it in our

online store (which is ridiculous because we could sell it if we wanted

to, and make a higher profit off of it than the quality whey/casein blends

we do sell).

 

Honestly, we didn't worry about it too much. We suggested that

bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts avoid supplementing with soy-based

protein powders and left it at that. Then something big happened: Atkins

took over the world. Low carb diets became all the rage and food

manufacturers did the dance of supply and demand, stocking the shelves

with low carb foods—foods very often packed with soy.

 

So how bad is this stuff? Bad enough that Dr. Kaayla T. Daniel has written

an explosive new book about it called The Whole Soy Story.

 

T-Nation recently had a chance to sit down with Dr. Daniel and talk about

this controversial subject.

 

T-Nation: Before we get started, tell us a little about yourself and what

you do.

 

Dr. Daniel: I’m a CCN, a Certified Clinical Nutritionist. I also just

received my Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences and Anti-Aging Therapies. I

design diet, supplement, and lifestyle plans for private clients and also

teach classes, seminars, and workshops on everything from anti-aging to

natural ways to reverse ADD and ADHD. Right now I’m most often asked to

talk about The Whole Soy Story.

 

T-Nation: Why write a book on soy?

 

Dr. Daniel: I decided to write this book because I saw so many clients and

friends suffering from vegetarian and near vegetarian diets. Most often

the chief culprit was soy. The Whole Soy Story is based on my dissertation

so there never was any question that I’d have to base every claim on hard

science.

 

T-Nation: Before we talk about the dangers of soy, let's back up a bit and

talk about what soy is and where it came from.

 

Dr. Daniel: Soybeans are beans that grow in fuzzy green pods. They come in

many colors but most are a yellowish tan color and marked with a single,

distinctive black eye— nature’s way perhaps of giving us a warning!

 

Traditionally, Asian soybean plants were not grown to be eaten but to be

used as " green manure " — as a cover crop designed to be plowed under to

enrich the soil between plantings of the crops used for food. It was a

fertilizer. It wasn’t until the Chiang Dynasty that the Chinese came up

with the fermentation methods needed to tame the soybean’s undesirable

elements and make it into a food.

 

The soybean paste known as miso came first, followed by soy sauce, which

was discovered as part of the miso-making process. Other soy foods such as

tofu, tempeh, and natto came much later, around 1000 AD.

 

In the West, the soybean has mostly been used for its soy oil, which is

what you get in most products labeled vegetable oil, margarine, or

shortening. Soy here is a product of the industrial revolution — an

opportunity for technologists to develop cheap meat substitutes, to find

clever ways to hide soy in familiar food products, to formulate soy-based

pharmaceuticals and to develop a plant-based renewable resource that could

replace petroleum-based plastics and fuels. This last could be good for

the planet.

 

T-Nation: So how did soy become known as such a " health " food?

 

Dr. Daniel: For years, the soy protein left over from soy oil extraction

went exclusively to animals, poultry, and more recently fish farms. The

problem is that only so much soy can be used in the feeds before the

animals start developing serious reproductive and other health problems.

So the soy industry still had a lot left over and decided to start

marketing it as a " people feed. "

 

T-Nation: I remember first seeing soy as an ingredient in discount dog

foods. How did it go from dog food to people food?

 

Dr. Daniel: Well, for this to succeed, they had to improve soy’s image

from that of a poverty food or hippie food. Back in 1975 a top-gun

marketer hired by the soy industry recommended that the fastest way to get

poor and middle class people to accept a product was to have it consumed

on its own merit — not just because it was " cheap " — by people who were

affluent enough to buy any foods they wanted. Accordingly, soy is

aggressively marketed as an upscale " health food. "

 

The United Soybean Board has targeted key influences such as food

manufacturers, chefs, dietitians, editors, writers etc., and has

aggressively lobbied in Washington and has invested millions in medical

research. They spent more than a million dollars on establishing the FDA’s

spurious cholesterol lowering heart claim alone. The campaign has been

nothing less than brilliant.

 

T-Nation: So it seems. Now, generally speaking, why are you suggesting

that everyone avoid soy?

 

Dr. Daniel: Most of us don’t need to avoid it completely, and a good thing

too since it’s in just about everything these days: Bumblebee canned tuna,

Hershey’s chocolate, readymade spaghetti sauces, muffins… Soy can be found

in more than 60 percent of the goods sold in supermarkets. Anyone who's

eating processed, packed, or canned foods is probably getting some " hidden

soy. " It’s even been called the " stealth ingredient. "

 

Those who need to avoid soy completely are people with soy allergies.

These people can experience adverse reactions from even a trace of soy.

For the rest of us, the goal would be to avoid modern soy products like

readymade foods such as energy bars, veggie burgers, " low-carb " pastas,

chilis, and other things containing soy protein isolate, soy protein

concentrate, texturized vegetable protein, or other industrial-age soy

products.

 

The soy industry has convinced a lot of people that anything with soy in

it must be super healthy. The truth is these are highly processed junk

foods. I also recommend against soy milk and other soy dairy products. The

problem goes beyond soy. Take a good look at the ingredient list of soy

milk or soy ice cream. Lotta sugar!

 

T-Nation: Is one type of soy worse than the other?

 

Dr. Daniel: Yes. Old fashioned soy products such as miso, tempeh, natto

and shoyu or tamari soy sauce are fine when eaten occasionally. My two

children and I enjoy them in our house. The fermentation process

deactivates some of the anti-nutrients in soy that cause digestive

distress and mineral loss. Most of the better brands of these products are

also made with organic soybeans.

 

Tofu isn't fermented and so is not so good for us, but a little once in a

while isn't a problem. The worst products are the modern soy foods

manufactured using high tech processes. These products have been subjected

to very high heat, pressure, and chemicals. There’s nothing " natural "

about them.

 

T-Nation: Let's get specific. Why should men, especially weightlifting

studs like we guys here at T-Nation, avoid soy?

 

Dr. Daniel: Soy lowers Testosterone levels! Just about all soy products on

the market contain the phytoestrogens (plant estrogens) known as

isoflavones. Plant estrogens have lowered Testosterone levels in rats,

monkeys, and other animals as well as humans. For grown men, this usually

leads to decreased libido and lower sperm count. There’s an old wives tale

that Japanese women punish their straying husbands by feeding them a lot

of tofu!

 

We can joke about that but not about the effect on baby boys fed soy

formula. Pediatricians are reporting more and more cases of emasculated

boys reaching puberty with breasts and tiny penises. Undescended testicles

are also far more common than they were in the past. Remember too that soy

estrogens damage far more than the reproductive system. The thyroid is

usually hurt first, leading to loss of energy, weight gain, depression,

lethargy, and a host of other symptoms.

 

T-Nation: That's some frightening stuff! Although you'd never hear this in

the popular press, soy isn't good for women either, is it?

 

Dr. Daniel: Many men have avoided soy because they’ve had the idea —

rightly as it turns out — that " real men don’t eat tofu. " Women, on the

other hand, have been sold on the idea that soy will fix anything that

ails them.

 

I’ve worked with a lot of female clients who are purposefully adding large

doses of soy to their diets. A lot of them chug soy milk morning and

evening and eat energy bars on the run. When they come to me, they

complain of fatigue, depression, hair loss, poor skin and diminished sex

drive. When I encourage them to go to their doctors to have their thyroids

tested, they almost always are diagnosed with low thyroids —

hypothyroidism.

 

Women who eat a lot of soy are also more likely to have reproductive

system problems — heavier menstrual flow, increased cramping, infertility,

as well as the loss of sex drive mentioned earlier. There are increasing

reports of a painful urinary tract condition known as interstitial

cystitis and a painful condition called vulvodynia or vulvardynia. This

last refers to pain of the external female genitals — excruciating pain

that's often so severe that sex is impossible.

 

Finally, we’re getting more and more reports of vegan mothers giving birth

to sons with hypospadias.

 

T-Nation: I hate to ask, but what is that?

 

Dr. Daniel: That’s an estrogen-induced birth defect in which the opening

of the penis is on the underside, located anywhere from near the tip of

the penis to right up at the crotch. These cases are tragic. Although

estrogens in the environment have also been implicated, it's prudent for

pregnant women to avoid ingesting soy estrogens.

 

T-Nation: What about soy in infant formulas?

 

Dr. Daniel: Infants on soy formula are extremely vulnerable. Remember that

soy formula constitutes most, if not all, of their diets. Based on figures

from the Swiss Federal Health Service, some of my colleagues have

calculated that an infant on soy formula is getting the hormonal

equivalent of the estrogen found in three to five birth control pills

every day! That’s a lot of estrogen, and this amount is especially

dangerous for infants whose very development requires the right hormones

in the right place at the right time.

 

Studies on rats, sheep, monkeys and other animals suggest that the

estrogens in soy infant formula can irreversibly harm the baby’s later

sexual development. And this is exactly what we're hearing from both

parents and pediatricians.

 

T-Nation: Don't baby boys experience a large Testosterone surge during the

first few months of life?

 

Dr. Daniel: Yes, all that Testosterone is needed to program the boy for

puberty, the time when his sex organs should develop and he should grow

facial and pubic hair and start speaking with a deep voice. However, if

receptor sites intended for the hormone Testosterone are occupied by soy

estrogens, appropriate development may be delayed or may never take place.

 

For girls, soy formula has the opposite effect. It's likely to accelerate

puberty and may cause reproductive difficulties later in life. The studies

that supposedly prove that infants on soy formula develop normally

consider only height, weight and other measurements of growth as measured

in infancy and early childhood. Many of the negative effects don’t become

obvious until puberty.

 

T-Nation: Okay, let me play devil's advocate for a minute. One of the

arguments supporting soy always brings up the apparent health and

longevity of soy-eating Asian cultures. What do you say to that?

 

Dr. Daniel: First of all, Asia is a huge continent. It includes people of

very different cultures with widely varying dietary customs and health

records. If we look at the statistics for cancer and other diseases, we

discover that certain types of cancer are more prevalent in the United

States than in, say, China, and vice versa. Though the soy industry likes

to take credit for the good news, it consistently neglects to mention the

bad. And for all anyone knows, the good news could be attributed to other

dietary or lifestyle influences. Claims that soybeans have been a major

part of the Asian diet for more than 3000 years, or from " time immemorial "

as we sometimes hear, are also simply not true.

 

The main point I want to make is that Asians don’t actually eat very much

soy.

 

Peter Golbitz, of Soyatech Inc, a soy-industry information center, reports

that the average consumption per year in China, Indonesia, Korea, Japan

and Taiwan ranges from 9.3 grams to 36 grams per day. Compare that to a

single cup of tofu that weighs in at 252 grams and think about the people

you know who are eating soy every day, several times a day.

 

Others too have reported that Asians eat very little soy. When T. Colin

Campbell of Cornell University traveled around China to survey the dietary

habits of 6,500 adults in 130 rural villages, he reported that they ate an

average of 12 grams of legumes per day. Probably only about one third of

this amount is soy. (For some inexplicable reason he never got the figures

on soy alone.)

 

Finally, keep in mind that the type of food Asians eat is very different

from the soy that's appearing on the American table. Think small amounts

of old-fashioned whole soy products like miso and tempeh, not soy

sausages, soy burgers, chicken-like soy patties, TVP chili, tofu

cheesecake, packaged soymilk or any other of the ingenious new soy

products that have infiltrated the American marketplace.

 

T-Nation: Since soy is getting hard to avoid, is there a minimum intake

you'd suggest? How many grams per day are okay?

 

Dr. Daniel: Total grams can be hard to calculate because of all the hidden

soy in packaged and restaurant and deli foods. This type of soy can be

avoided by preparing fresh, whole foods from scratch.

 

I’d say that people who are healthy can safely eat several small servings

of soy foods per week, preferably the old-fashioned foods such as miso,

tempeh and natto. They can also safely use shoyu or tamari soy sauce as a

condiment. Those are found at health food stores and are far superior to

the soy sauces sold at supermarkets. I wouldn't exceed an average of 36

grams per day — an amount equivalent to what’s ordinarily eaten in Japan,

which is the country with the highest soy consumption in Asia.

 

T-Nation: When we first started writing about the dark side of soy, we

were attacked from many different directions, mainly from those who sold

soy protein. Have you experienced any backlash because of your views on

soy?

 

Dr. Daniel: My news really upsets some vegans, but even some of the vegan

websites are getting wise to soy. Chet Day’s site is one that dares to

tell the truth. In my experience, most non-vegetarians are enormously

relieved when they learn that they don’t need to eat soy. These people

loathe the " beany " taste of soy products and the side effects such as

cramps and flatulence.

 

People who've harmed their thyroids or experienced other serious health

problems because of soy can get very angry, but not at me. The backlash is

against the soy industry.

 

T-Nation: Understandable. It seems soy has taken on a new role now that

everyone is going low carb. Why exactly are so many low carb foods being

stuffed with soy?

 

Dr. Daniel: Soybeans have a lower carbohydrate content than other beans,

but the main reason is that the food industry has lots of soy protein left

over from soy oil manufacturing. Soy protein is cheap! The soy industry

has convinced the public that it’s " healthy " and desirable. The current

low carb fad has made it possible for the soy industry to stop trying to

hide the soy that goes into pastas, breads, chips, cereals, etc., increase

the content and brag about it!

 

T-Nation: In your book, you write about " hidden soy " and " undeclared soy

content " and " aliases. " Sounds scary. What is all that exactly?

 

Dr. Daniel: It’s very scary, at least for people with soy allergies. As I

mentioned before, there's at least trace amounts of soy in the majority of

supermarket and health food store products. People who are allergic must

avoid all soy and can experience terrible allergic reactions from even a

trace of it.

 

T-Nation: Are a lot of people allergic to soy?

 

Dr. Daniel: Soy is now one of the top eight allergens and some experts put

it as high as in the top four. People with the highest risk are children

who are allergic to peanuts and have asthma. There have been fatalities

because of hidden soy.

 

By " hidden soy " I mean soy where you wouldn't expect it. For example, the

soy protein found in Bumblebee canned tuna, in a fast-food burger, whipped

cream or in a loaf of bread.

 

By " undeclared soy " I mean soy that's not listed on food labels. For a

variety of reasons, labels aren’t always accurate. Manufacturers can be

careless and neglect to mention soy. Perhaps the recipe was changed and

the label hasn’t caught up.

 

Undeclared soy is also a possibility from cross-contamination caused by

soy used in other products produced at the same facility. For people with

soy allergies, soy dust in the air from the bulk bins at health food

stores can be a problem. So can a trace amount of soy that has rubbed off

from cardboard packaging in which soy protein isolate has been used as a

bonding ingredient.

 

By " aliases " I mean commonly used ingredients that people don't recognize

as soy. Some good examples would be " textured vegetable protein " or

" boullion " or " vegetable oil. " These may or may not contain soy — usually

they do.

 

T-Nation: What do you think about this: certain soy products can now sport

a heart-healthy label from the US Food and Drug Administration. The new

claim says something like " 25 grams of soy protein a day, as part of a

diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart

disease. "

 

Dr. Daniel: I think 25 grams a day will harm your thyroid! That’s a proven

risk supported by dozens of well-designed studies. Furthermore, thyroid

disease is itself a risk factor for heart disease. Cholesterol level has

never been an accurate marker of heart disease risk. Homocysteine levels,

c-reactive protein, lipoprotein (a) are all more telling.

 

As for saturated fats, it’s the artificially saturated fats — the

hydrogenated fats full of trans fatty acids — that are dangerous to heart

health. These come from vegetable oils, mostly soy oil, not from animal

products.

 

Now about that FDA heart health claim… The FDA bills itself as " The

Nation’s Foremost Consumer Protection Agency " and its mission statement

ends with the phrase " helping the public get the accurate, science-based

information they need to use medicines and foods to improve their health. "

Yet the handling of this dubious claim suggests nothing so much as an

unholy alliance with big business.

 

T-Nation: " Unholy alliance? " Those are fightin' words. Do tell.

 

Dr. Daniel: The original petition submitted by Protein Technologies

International requested that the health claim be made for the soy

isoflavones, the plant estrogens found abundantly in soybeans. Provided

with only weak and conflicting proofs that isoflavones lower cholesterol

and besieged by strong evidence of toxicity and hormone disruption, the

FDA should have thrown out the PTA petition. It had a duty to do so.

 

Instead, the agency took the unprecedented step of rewriting PTI’s

petition and substituting a claim for soy protein. This step violated the

industry’s own regulations. Then the FDA speeded the decision-making

process by reducing the time in which members of the public could protest

to only 30 days. In doing so, they disregarded the testimony of top

scientists at the FDA’s own National Center of Toxicological Research,

British government researchers and other qualified experts providing

strong evidence of danger from allergens, protease, inhibitors, and other

soy components as well as the plant hormones.

 

It's all the more shocking because the FDA never had good evidence of

soy’s cholesterol lowering effect to begin with! It relied almost entirely

on just one study — a 1995 meta analysis of 29 studies by James W.

Anderson that was sponsored by Protein Technologies International.

 

T-Nation: This is starting to sound like a big conspiracy. I can't help

but think all this positive press and the use of mega amounts of soy in

regular foods isn't padding someone's pockets. Is there a " Big Soy " out

there to go along with " Big Tobacco? "

 

Dr. Daniel: The little soybean is big business. Soy foods are one of the

fastest growing sectors in the food industry with retail sales growing

from $0.852 billion to $3.2 billion during the decade from 1992 to 2002.

In order to accomplish this, the soy industry had to convince a lot of

people that soy is good for them. To do that they’ve had to cover up and

suppress a lot of evidence to the contrary.

 

T-Nation: Lots of money changed hands under the table it sounds like. How

can T-Nation readers find out more and get their paws on your book?

 

Dr. Daniel: I’d like to welcome T-Nation readers to my website:

www.wholesoystory.com. The site includes several free chapters from the

book, questions and answers and other good info. People who order a

prepublication copy can download the book and read it right now. Anyone

who wants the references backing what I said today will want to do this.

Once the book itself is printed, I’ll send them an autographed copy about

a month before it becomes available in bookstores or on Amazon.

 

Web buyers will also get a free copy of my newsletter, with updates on

foods and products to avoid. I'm also using my website to collect stories

from people who have been harmed by soy.

 

T-Nation: Thank you very much for chatting with us today, Dr. Daniel. It's

been, well, scary.

 

Dr. Daniel: My pleasure. Thank you, Chris.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Poison Protein

Kaayla T. Daniel, Ph.D. Exposes the Whole Soy Story

by Chris Shugart

 

February 27 2004

http://www.t-mag.com/nation_articles/302poison.jsp

 

Over the past few years, T-Nation has published several articles on the

drawbacks and possible dangers of soy, beginning with a groundbreaking

article by TC that first appeared on the site in 2000. When we first began

running these articles, many critics thought we were way off base. After

all, isn't soy a miracle food with numerous health benefits? Doesn't it

prevent diseases, retard aging, and make you supermodel skinny?

 

The answer we gave was " no. " But the critics kept on soy-bombing us, some

even accusing us of bashing soy simply because we didn't sell it in our

online store (which is ridiculous because we could sell it if we wanted

to, and make a higher profit off of it than the quality whey/casein blends

we do sell).

 

Honestly, we didn't worry about it too much. We suggested that

bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts avoid supplementing with soy-based

protein powders and left it at that. Then something big happened: Atkins

took over the world. Low carb diets became all the rage and food

manufacturers did the dance of supply and demand, stocking the shelves

with low carb foods—foods very often packed with soy.

 

So how bad is this stuff? Bad enough that Dr. Kaayla T. Daniel has written

an explosive new book about it called The Whole Soy Story.

 

T-Nation recently had a chance to sit down with Dr. Daniel and talk about

this controversial subject.

 

T-Nation: Before we get started, tell us a little about yourself and what

you do.

 

Dr. Daniel: I’m a CCN, a Certified Clinical Nutritionist. I also just

received my Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences and Anti-Aging Therapies. I

design diet, supplement, and lifestyle plans for private clients and also

teach classes, seminars, and workshops on everything from anti-aging to

natural ways to reverse ADD and ADHD. Right now I’m most often asked to

talk about The Whole Soy Story.

 

T-Nation: Why write a book on soy?

 

Dr. Daniel: I decided to write this book because I saw so many clients and

friends suffering from vegetarian and near vegetarian diets. Most often

the chief culprit was soy. The Whole Soy Story is based on my dissertation

so there never was any question that I’d have to base every claim on hard

science.

 

T-Nation: Before we talk about the dangers of soy, let's back up a bit and

talk about what soy is and where it came from.

 

Dr. Daniel: Soybeans are beans that grow in fuzzy green pods. They come in

many colors but most are a yellowish tan color and marked with a single,

distinctive black eye— nature’s way perhaps of giving us a warning!

 

Traditionally, Asian soybean plants were not grown to be eaten but to be

used as " green manure " — as a cover crop designed to be plowed under to

enrich the soil between plantings of the crops used for food. It was a

fertilizer. It wasn’t until the Chiang Dynasty that the Chinese came up

with the fermentation methods needed to tame the soybean’s undesirable

elements and make it into a food.

 

The soybean paste known as miso came first, followed by soy sauce, which

was discovered as part of the miso-making process. Other soy foods such as

tofu, tempeh, and natto came much later, around 1000 AD.

 

In the West, the soybean has mostly been used for its soy oil, which is

what you get in most products labeled vegetable oil, margarine, or

shortening. Soy here is a product of the industrial revolution — an

opportunity for technologists to develop cheap meat substitutes, to find

clever ways to hide soy in familiar food products, to formulate soy-based

pharmaceuticals and to develop a plant-based renewable resource that could

replace petroleum-based plastics and fuels. This last could be good for

the planet.

 

T-Nation: So how did soy become known as such a " health " food?

 

Dr. Daniel: For years, the soy protein left over from soy oil extraction

went exclusively to animals, poultry, and more recently fish farms. The

problem is that only so much soy can be used in the feeds before the

animals start developing serious reproductive and other health problems.

So the soy industry still had a lot left over and decided to start

marketing it as a " people feed. "

 

T-Nation: I remember first seeing soy as an ingredient in discount dog

foods. How did it go from dog food to people food?

 

Dr. Daniel: Well, for this to succeed, they had to improve soy’s image

from that of a poverty food or hippie food. Back in 1975 a top-gun

marketer hired by the soy industry recommended that the fastest way to get

poor and middle class people to accept a product was to have it consumed

on its own merit — not just because it was " cheap " — by people who were

affluent enough to buy any foods they wanted. Accordingly, soy is

aggressively marketed as an upscale " health food. "

 

The United Soybean Board has targeted key influences such as food

manufacturers, chefs, dietitians, editors, writers etc., and has

aggressively lobbied in Washington and has invested millions in medical

research. They spent more than a million dollars on establishing the FDA’s

spurious cholesterol lowering heart claim alone. The campaign has been

nothing less than brilliant.

 

T-Nation: So it seems. Now, generally speaking, why are you suggesting

that everyone avoid soy?

 

Dr. Daniel: Most of us don’t need to avoid it completely, and a good thing

too since it’s in just about everything these days: Bumblebee canned tuna,

Hershey’s chocolate, readymade spaghetti sauces, muffins… Soy can be found

in more than 60 percent of the goods sold in supermarkets. Anyone who's

eating processed, packed, or canned foods is probably getting some " hidden

soy. " It’s even been called the " stealth ingredient. "

 

Those who need to avoid soy completely are people with soy allergies.

These people can experience adverse reactions from even a trace of soy.

For the rest of us, the goal would be to avoid modern soy products like

readymade foods such as energy bars, veggie burgers, " low-carb " pastas,

chilis, and other things containing soy protein isolate, soy protein

concentrate, texturized vegetable protein, or other industrial-age soy

products.

 

The soy industry has convinced a lot of people that anything with soy in

it must be super healthy. The truth is these are highly processed junk

foods. I also recommend against soy milk and other soy dairy products. The

problem goes beyond soy. Take a good look at the ingredient list of soy

milk or soy ice cream. Lotta sugar!

 

T-Nation: Is one type of soy worse than the other?

 

Dr. Daniel: Yes. Old fashioned soy products such as miso, tempeh, natto

and shoyu or tamari soy sauce are fine when eaten occasionally. My two

children and I enjoy them in our house. The fermentation process

deactivates some of the anti-nutrients in soy that cause digestive

distress and mineral loss. Most of the better brands of these products are

also made with organic soybeans.

 

Tofu isn't fermented and so is not so good for us, but a little once in a

while isn't a problem. The worst products are the modern soy foods

manufactured using high tech processes. These products have been subjected

to very high heat, pressure, and chemicals. There’s nothing " natural "

about them.

 

T-Nation: Let's get specific. Why should men, especially weightlifting

studs like we guys here at T-Nation, avoid soy?

 

Dr. Daniel: Soy lowers Testosterone levels! Just about all soy products on

the market contain the phytoestrogens (plant estrogens) known as

isoflavones. Plant estrogens have lowered Testosterone levels in rats,

monkeys, and other animals as well as humans. For grown men, this usually

leads to decreased libido and lower sperm count. There’s an old wives tale

that Japanese women punish their straying husbands by feeding them a lot

of tofu!

 

We can joke about that but not about the effect on baby boys fed soy

formula. Pediatricians are reporting more and more cases of emasculated

boys reaching puberty with breasts and tiny penises. Undescended testicles

are also far more common than they were in the past. Remember too that soy

estrogens damage far more than the reproductive system. The thyroid is

usually hurt first, leading to loss of energy, weight gain, depression,

lethargy, and a host of other symptoms.

 

T-Nation: That's some frightening stuff! Although you'd never hear this in

the popular press, soy isn't good for women either, is it?

 

Dr. Daniel: Many men have avoided soy because they’ve had the idea —

rightly as it turns out — that " real men don’t eat tofu. " Women, on the

other hand, have been sold on the idea that soy will fix anything that

ails them.

 

I’ve worked with a lot of female clients who are purposefully adding large

doses of soy to their diets. A lot of them chug soy milk morning and

evening and eat energy bars on the run. When they come to me, they

complain of fatigue, depression, hair loss, poor skin and diminished sex

drive. When I encourage them to go to their doctors to have their thyroids

tested, they almost always are diagnosed with low thyroids —

hypothyroidism.

 

Women who eat a lot of soy are also more likely to have reproductive

system problems — heavier menstrual flow, increased cramping, infertility,

as well as the loss of sex drive mentioned earlier. There are increasing

reports of a painful urinary tract condition known as interstitial

cystitis and a painful condition called vulvodynia or vulvardynia. This

last refers to pain of the external female genitals — excruciating pain

that's often so severe that sex is impossible.

 

Finally, we’re getting more and more reports of vegan mothers giving birth

to sons with hypospadias.

 

T-Nation: I hate to ask, but what is that?

 

Dr. Daniel: That’s an estrogen-induced birth defect in which the opening

of the penis is on the underside, located anywhere from near the tip of

the penis to right up at the crotch. These cases are tragic. Although

estrogens in the environment have also been implicated, it's prudent for

pregnant women to avoid ingesting soy estrogens.

 

T-Nation: What about soy in infant formulas?

 

Dr. Daniel: Infants on soy formula are extremely vulnerable. Remember that

soy formula constitutes most, if not all, of their diets. Based on figures

from the Swiss Federal Health Service, some of my colleagues have

calculated that an infant on soy formula is getting the hormonal

equivalent of the estrogen found in three to five birth control pills

every day! That’s a lot of estrogen, and this amount is especially

dangerous for infants whose very development requires the right hormones

in the right place at the right time.

 

Studies on rats, sheep, monkeys and other animals suggest that the

estrogens in soy infant formula can irreversibly harm the baby’s later

sexual development. And this is exactly what we're hearing from both

parents and pediatricians.

 

T-Nation: Don't baby boys experience a large Testosterone surge during the

first few months of life?

 

Dr. Daniel: Yes, all that Testosterone is needed to program the boy for

puberty, the time when his sex organs should develop and he should grow

facial and pubic hair and start speaking with a deep voice. However, if

receptor sites intended for the hormone Testosterone are occupied by soy

estrogens, appropriate development may be delayed or may never take place.

 

For girls, soy formula has the opposite effect. It's likely to accelerate

puberty and may cause reproductive difficulties later in life. The studies

that supposedly prove that infants on soy formula develop normally

consider only height, weight and other measurements of growth as measured

in infancy and early childhood. Many of the negative effects don’t become

obvious until puberty.

 

T-Nation: Okay, let me play devil's advocate for a minute. One of the

arguments supporting soy always brings up the apparent health and

longevity of soy-eating Asian cultures. What do you say to that?

 

Dr. Daniel: First of all, Asia is a huge continent. It includes people of

 

very different cultures with widely varying dietary customs and health

records. If we look at the statistics for cancer and other diseases, we

discover that certain types of cancer are more prevalent in the United

States than in, say, China, and vice versa. Though the soy industry likes

to take credit for the good news, it consistently neglects to mention the

bad. And for all anyone knows, the good news could be attributed to other

dietary or lifestyle influences. Claims that soybeans have been a major

part of the Asian diet for more than 3000 years, or from " time immemorial "

as we sometimes hear, are also simply not true.

 

The main point I want to make is that Asians don’t actually eat very much

soy.

 

Peter Golbitz, of Soyatech Inc, a soy-industry information center, reports

that the average consumption per year in China, Indonesia, Korea, Japan

and Taiwan ranges from 9.3 grams to 36 grams per day. Compare that to a

single cup of tofu that weighs in at 252 grams and think about the people

you know who are eating soy every day, several times a day.

 

Others too have reported that Asians eat very little soy. When T. Colin

Campbell of Cornell University traveled around China to survey the dietary

habits of 6,500 adults in 130 rural villages, he reported that they ate an

average of 12 grams of legumes per day. Probably only about one third of

this amount is soy. (For some inexplicable reason he never got the figures

on soy alone.)

 

Finally, keep in mind that the type of food Asians eat is very different

from the soy that's appearing on the American table. Think small amounts

of old-fashioned whole soy products like miso and tempeh, not soy

sausages, soy burgers, chicken-like soy patties, TVP chili, tofu

cheesecake, packaged soymilk or any other of the ingenious new soy

products that have infiltrated the American marketplace.

 

T-Nation: Since soy is getting hard to avoid, is there a minimum intake

you'd suggest? How many grams per day are okay?

 

Dr. Daniel: Total grams can be hard to calculate because of all the hidden

soy in packaged and restaurant and deli foods. This type of soy can be

avoided by preparing fresh, whole foods from scratch.

 

I’d say that people who are healthy can safely eat several small servings

of soy foods per week, preferably the old-fashioned foods such as miso,

tempeh and natto. They can also safely use shoyu or tamari soy sauce as a

condiment. Those are found at health food stores and are far superior to

the soy sauces sold at supermarkets. I wouldn't exceed an average of 36

grams per day — an amount equivalent to what’s ordinarily eaten in Japan,

which is the country with the highest soy consumption in Asia.

 

T-Nation: When we first started writing about the dark side of soy, we

were attacked from many different directions, mainly from those who sold

soy protein. Have you experienced any backlash because of your views on

soy?

 

Dr. Daniel: My news really upsets some vegans, but even some of the vegan

websites are getting wise to soy. Chet Day’s site is one that dares to

tell the truth. In my experience, most non-vegetarians are enormously

relieved when they learn that they don’t need to eat soy. These people

loathe the " beany " taste of soy products and the side effects such as

cramps and flatulence.

 

People who've harmed their thyroids or experienced other serious health

problems because of soy can get very angry, but not at me. The backlash is

against the soy industry.

 

T-Nation: Understandable. It seems soy has taken on a new role now that

everyone is going low carb. Why exactly are so many low carb foods being

stuffed with soy?

 

Dr. Daniel: Soybeans have a lower carbohydrate content than other beans,

but the main reason is that the food industry has lots of soy protein left

over from soy oil manufacturing. Soy protein is cheap! The soy industry

has convinced the public that it’s " healthy " and desirable. The current

low carb fad has made it possible for the soy industry to stop trying to

hide the soy that goes into pastas, breads, chips, cereals, etc., increase

the content and brag about it!

 

T-Nation: In your book, you write about " hidden soy " and " undeclared soy

content " and " aliases. " Sounds scary. What is all that exactly?

 

Dr. Daniel: It’s very scary, at least for people with soy allergies. As I

mentioned before, there's at least trace amounts of soy in the majority of

supermarket and health food store products. People who are allergic must

avoid all soy and can experience terrible allergic reactions from even a

trace of it.

 

T-Nation: Are a lot of people allergic to soy?

 

Dr. Daniel: Soy is now one of the top eight allergens and some experts put

it as high as in the top four. People with the highest risk are children

who are allergic to peanuts and have asthma. There have been fatalities

because of hidden soy.

 

By " hidden soy " I mean soy where you wouldn't expect it. For example, the

soy protein found in Bumblebee canned tuna, in a fast-food burger, whipped

cream or in a loaf of bread.

 

By " undeclared soy " I mean soy that's not listed on food labels. For a

variety of reasons, labels aren’t always accurate. Manufacturers can be

careless and neglect to mention soy. Perhaps the recipe was changed and

the label hasn’t caught up.

 

Undeclared soy is also a possibility from cross-contamination caused by

soy used in other products produced at the same facility. For people with

soy allergies, soy dust in the air from the bulk bins at health food

stores can be a problem. So can a trace amount of soy that has rubbed off

from cardboard packaging in which soy protein isolate has been used as a

bonding ingredient.

 

By " aliases " I mean commonly used ingredients that people don't recognize

as soy. Some good examples would be " textured vegetable protein " or

" boullion " or " vegetable oil. " These may or may not contain soy — usually

they do.

 

T-Nation: What do you think about this: certain soy products can now sport

a heart-healthy label from the US Food and Drug Administration. The new

claim says something like " 25 grams of soy protein a day, as part of a

diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart

disease. "

 

Dr. Daniel: I think 25 grams a day will harm your thyroid! That’s a proven

risk supported by dozens of well-designed studies. Furthermore, thyroid

disease is itself a risk factor for heart disease. Cholesterol level has

never been an accurate marker of heart disease risk. Homocysteine levels,

c-reactive protein, lipoprotein (a) are all more telling.

 

As for saturated fats, it’s the artificially saturated fats — the

hydrogenated fats full of trans fatty acids — that are dangerous to heart

health. These come from vegetable oils, mostly soy oil, not from animal

products.

 

Now about that FDA heart health claim… The FDA bills itself as " The

Nation’s Foremost Consumer Protection Agency " and its mission statement

ends with the phrase " helping the public get the accurate, science-based

information they need to use medicines and foods to improve their health. "

Yet the handling of this dubious claim suggests nothing so much as an

unholy alliance with big business.

 

T-Nation: " Unholy alliance? " Those are fightin' words. Do tell.

 

Dr. Daniel: The original petition submitted by Protein Technologies

International requested that the health claim be made for the soy

isoflavones, the plant estrogens found abundantly in soybeans. Provided

with only weak and conflicting proofs that isoflavones lower cholesterol

and besieged by strong evidence of toxicity and hormone disruption, the

FDA should have thrown out the PTA petition. It had a duty to do so.

 

Instead, the agency took the unprecedented step of rewriting PTI’s

petition and substituting a claim for soy protein. This step violated the

industry’s own regulations. Then the FDA speeded the decision-making

process by reducing the time in which members of the public could protest

to only 30 days. In doing so, they disregarded the testimony of top

scientists at the FDA’s own National Center of Toxicological Research,

British government researchers and other qualified experts providing

strong evidence of danger from allergens, protease, inhibitors, and other

soy components as well as the plant hormones.

 

It's all the more shocking because the FDA never had good evidence of

soy’s cholesterol lowering effect to begin with! It relied almost entirely

on just one study — a 1995 meta analysis of 29 studies by James W.

Anderson that was sponsored by Protein Technologies International.

 

T-Nation: This is starting to sound like a big conspiracy. I can't help

but think all this positive press and the use of mega amounts of soy in

regular foods isn't padding someone's pockets. Is there a " Big Soy " out

there to go along with " Big Tobacco? "

 

Dr. Daniel: The little soybean is big business. Soy foods are one of the

fastest growing sectors in the food industry with retail sales growing

from $0.852 billion to $3.2 billion during the decade from 1992 to 2002.

In order to accomplish this, the soy industry had to convince a lot of

people that soy is good for them. To do that they’ve had to cover up and

suppress a lot of evidence to the contrary.

 

T-Nation: Lots of money changed hands under the table it sounds like. How

can T-Nation readers find out more and get their paws on your book?

 

Dr. Daniel: I’d like to welcome T-Nation readers to my website:

www.wholesoystory.com. The site includes several free chapters from the

book, questions and answers and other good info. People who order a

prepublication copy can download the book and read it right now. Anyone

who wants the references backing what I said today will want to do this.

Once the book itself is printed, I’ll send them an autographed copy about

a month before it becomes available in bookstores or on Amazon.

 

Web buyers will also get a free copy of my newsletter, with updates on

foods and products to avoid. I'm also using my website to collect stories

from people who have been harmed by soy.

 

T-Nation: Thank you very much for chatting with us today, Dr. Daniel. It's

been, well, scary.

 

Dr. Daniel: My pleasure. Thank you, Chris.