is soy a health food? (allergy, heart, diet, vitamins)

[lemon&lime]

Do you include soy in your diet?

[skhimmelreich]

Yes, I was a vegetarian for 6 years. Even now that I have gone back to "the dark side" I still include soy in my diet. My husband- who is the cook in our house travels a lot for work and when he is gone I usually buy vegetarian "meat" items. I do not like to handle raw meat and the veggie stuff is pretty good(my kids like it too)

[Sampaguita]

I've been eating soy since I was a kid (Asian) so I don't really view it as a health food - it was always just "bean curd" to me.

I use soy milk over cow's milk now, too.

[SmerkyGrl]

Soy, if cooked the right way, is absolutely a health food. On that note, I have coworkers who take endamames and coat them with flour and deep fry them. And then they come in going "Its soy! I'm eating healthy!" Truly the type of situation that causes one to facepalm.

[southdown]

I was reading my trusty Dorothy Hall 'Natural Health Book' last night, and she has a whole chapter on soy and its wondrous health-giving properties!

Depending how you buy soy - as fresh or dry beans, as tofu, or flour, soy sauce, soy milk or yoghurt....it has;

• twice as much protein as meat, and 'complete proteins', ie; have all the amino-acids
• half the carbohydrate of other beans
• little starch
• rich in calcium, phosphorus and iron (dried beans) potassium
• vitamins A, D, E, F K
• fresh green beans are vitamin C-rich
• lecithin - controls cholesterol metabolism

and a few more goodies besides

[molochai2580]

I avoid soy. Which of course means I avoid a lot of prepackaged and frozen dinners, not to mention soups. It takes me a few hours just to get a hundred dollars worth of groceries because I have to read every label every time!

The reason I avoid soy is an allergy to it in all forms.

Soy is in almost everything at the grocery store!

[frogandtoad]

I think soy is overrated. Many of the forms soy takes in our foods is highly processed, which is not good for you. Once in a while (moderation in everything), edamame is great. Tofu once in a while, great. But soy milk, many tofu products, and other forms of soy, though once in a healthy unprocessed state are not that way by the time they make it to the table.

I was reading the other day how, although a regular part of the diet in many Asian nations, soy is not eaten the way many here eat it: great big chunks of it, turning it into "cheese" and "butter" and "milk" and all these processed forms. Small, unprocessed quantities are healthy but thinking somehting is healthy just b/c it's "soy" and thinking "the more the better" is not healthy (I believe).

[groove1]

You're probably right frog, bit soy, as a bean, is definitely a health food.

[Fat Freddy]

Originally Posted by frogandtoad

...Many of the forms soy takes in our foods is highly processed...soy milk, many tofu products, and other forms of soy, though once in a healthy unprocessed state are not that way by the time they make it to the table...

I used to make soy milk and tofu. The process consists of grinding the soy beans, adding water, heating, and straining. To make the soy milk into tofu you add a coagulating agent like sea salt or vinegar.

It's been made this way for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years and the procedure is hardly what I would call "highly processed".

[litlux]

Soy is a good food, especially when prepared in traditional ways, but the packaged foods with all the health claims should be taken as advertising, not health advice. By the time they are done with the soybean, it is hardly recognizable.

Even the few studies that show some heart related benefits are grossly exaggerated by the food industry.

Read Marion Nestle's book "What to Eat" for the lowdown on all those supermarket package health claims.

You are dealing with a very greedy industry that will promise you anything to get you to buy their product, and neither the FDA or the USDA does much to rein them in.