The 10 Health Dangers of Soy

One of the pri­mary rea­sons it would be wise for you to avoid soy is that more than 90 per­cent of soy­beans grown in the United States are genet­i­cally mod­i­fied. Since the intro­duc­tion of genet­i­cally engi­neered foods in 1996, we’ve had an upsurge in low birth weight babies, infer­til­ity, and other prob­lems in the U.S., and ani­mal stud­ies have shown dev­as­tat­ing effects from genet­i­cally engi­neered soy includ­ing aller­gies, steril­ity, birth defects, and off­spring death rates up to five times higher than normal.

Soybean crops are also heav­ily sprayed with chem­i­cal her­bi­cides, such glyphosate, which a French team of researchers have found to be carcinogenic.

Soybeans—even organ­i­cally grown soybeans—naturally con­tain “anti­nu­tri­ents” such as saponins, soy­a­toxin, phy­tates, trypsin inhibitors, goitro­gens and phy­toe­stro­gens. Traditional fer­men­ta­tion destroys these anti­nu­tri­ents, which allows your body to enjoy soy’s nutri­tional ben­e­fits. However, most Westerners do not con­sume fer­mented soy, but rather unfer­mented soy, mostly in the form of soymilk, tofu, TVP, and soy infant formula.

Unfermented soy has the fol­low­ing 10 adverse affects on your body:

1. High Phytic Acid (Phytates): Reduces assim­i­la­tion of cal­cium, mag­ne­sium, cop­per, iron and zinc. Phytic acid in soy is not neu­tral­ized by ordi­nary prepa­ra­tion meth­ods such as soak­ing, sprout­ing and long, slow cook­ing, but only with long fer­men­ta­tion. High-phytate diets have caused growth prob­lems in children.

2. Trypsin inhibitors: Interferes with pro­tein diges­tion and may cause pan­cre­atic dis­or­ders. In test ani­mals, trypsin inhibitors in soy caused stunted growth.

3. Goitrogens: Potent agents that block your syn­the­sis of thy­roid hor­mones and can cause hypothy­roidism and thy­roid can­cer. In infants, con­sump­tion of soy for­mula has been linked with autoim­mune thy­roid dis­ease. Goitrogens inter­fere with iodine metabolism.

4. Phytoestrogens/Isoflavones: Plant com­pounds resem­bling human estro­gen can block your nor­mal estro­gen and dis­rupt endocrine func­tion, cause infer­til­ity, and increase your risk for breast cancer.

5. Hemagglutinin: A clot-promoting sub­stance that causes your red blood cells to clump, mak­ing them unable to prop­erly absorb and dis­trib­ute oxy­gen to your tissues.

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