Should we worry about soya in our food?

[Guest guest]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1828158,00.html

 

Whether you know it or not, you'll probably be eating soya today. It's in

60% of all processed food, from cheese to ice cream, baby formula to

biscuits. But should it carry a health warning? Felicity Lawrence

investigates

 

Tuesday July 25, 2006

The Guardian

 

 

Harvested, unprocessed soya beans

 

 

 

For Dr Mike Fitzpatrick, the saga of soya began in Monty Python-style with a

dead parrot. His investigations into the ubiquitous bean started in 1991

when Richard James, a multimillionaire American lawyer, turned up at the

laboratory in New Zealand where Fitzpatrick was working as a consultant

toxicologist. James was sure that soya beans were killing his rare birds.

"We thought he was mad, but he had a lot of money and wanted us to find out

what was going on," Fitzpatrick recalls.

 

 

Over the next months, Fitzpatrick carried out an exhaustive study of soya

and its effects. "We discovered quite quickly," he recalls, "that soya

contains toxins and plant oestrogens powerful enough to disrupt women's

menstrual cycles in experiments. It also appeared damaging to the thyroid."

James's lobbying eventually forced governments to investigate. In 2002, the

British government's expert committee on the toxicity of food (CoT)

published the results of its inquiry into the safety of plant oestrogens,

mainly from soya proteins, in modern food. It concluded that in general the

health benefits claimed for soya were not supported by clear evidence and

judged that there could be risks from high levels of consumption for certain

age groups. Yet little has happened to curb soya's growth since.

More than 60% of all processed food in Britain today contains soya in some

form, according to food industry estimates. It is in breakfast cereals,

cereal bars and biscuits, cheeses, cakes, dairy desserts, gravies, noodles,

pastries, soups, sausage casings, sauces and sandwich spreads. Soya,

crushed, separated and refined into its different parts, can appear on food

labels as soya flour, hydrolysed vegetable protein, soy protein isolate,

protein concentrate, textured vegetable protein, vegetable oil (simple,

fully, or partially hydrogenated), plant sterols, or the emulsifier

lecithin. Its many guises hint at its value to manufacturers.

 

Soya increases the protein content of processed meat products. It replaces

them altogether in vegetarian foods. It stops industrial breads shrinking.

It makes cakes hold on to their water. It helps manufacturers mix water into

oil. Hydrogenated, its oil is used to deep-fry fast food.

 

Soya is also in cat food and dog food. But above all it is used in

agricultural feeds for intensive chicken, beef, dairy, pig and fish farming.

Soya protein - which accounts for 35% of the raw bean - is what has made the

global factory farming of livestock for cheap meat a possibility. Soya oil -

high in omega 6 fatty acids and 18% of the whole bean - has meanwhile driven

the postwar explosion in snack foods around the world. Crisps,

confectionery, deep-fried take-aways, ready meals, ice-creams, mayonnaise

and margarines all make liberal use of it. Its widespread presence is one of

the reasons our balance of omega 3 to omega 6 essential fatty acids is so

out of kilter.

 

You may think that when you order a skinny soya latte, you are choosing a

commodity blessed with an unadulterated aura of health. But soya today is in

fact associated with patterns of food consumption that have been linked to

diet-related diseases. And 50 years ago it was not eaten in the west in any

quantity.

 

In 1965, the earliest year for which the Chicago Board of Trade keeps

figures, global soya bean production was just 30m tonnes. By 2005, the world

was consuming nine times that a year, at 270m tonnes. World soya oil

production, meanwhile, has increased sevenfold over the same period, from 5m

tonnes to 34m tonnes a year.

 

To feed demand, new agricultural frontiers are being opened up in Brazil,

where large areas of virgin rainforest have been illegally felled to make

room for the crop. US-based transnationals are now exporting soya back to

China, the country from which it originated, as newly urbanised Chinese

switch to industrialised western diets. Thanks to US agribusiness, we have

developed an apparently insatiable global appetite for the bean produced by

farmers in the Americas.

 

James and Fitzpatrick became convinced early on that this entirely new

dependence on soya was, in fact, a dangerous experiment. The dead parrots

were no joke - they were the canaries in the coalmine.

 

For James and his wife Valerie, breeding the exotic birds down under was a

retirement dream. They wanted to feed their young birds the best, so they

began giving the chicks a soya feed. Parrots do not eat soya beans in the

wild but the high-protein animal feed had been marketed in the US as a new

miracle food.

 

The result was a catastrophic breeding year. Some of the birds were

infertile; many died. Other young male birds aged prematurely or reached

puberty years early. "We realised there was some sort of hormonal disruption

going on but we'd eliminated other possible hormone disrupting chemicals

such as pesticides from the inquiry," Fitzpatrick says.

 

So the toxicologist began a systematic review of the scientific literature

on soya. After finding out about the plant oestrogens in soya, Fitzpatrick

says, "My next thought was: what about children who are fed soya milk?" He

calculated that babies fed exclusively on soya formula could receive the

oestrogenic equivalent, based on body weight, of five birth control pills a

day.

 

In fact, it had been known since the early 1980s that plant oestrogens, or

phyto-oestrogens, could produce biological effects in humans. The most

common of these were a group of compounds in soya protein called

isoflavones. Food manufacturers had variously marketed soya foods as an

antidote to menopausal hot flushes and osteoporosis, and as a protective

ingredient against cardiovascular disease and hormone-related cancers. Large

quantities of mainly industry-sponsored scientific research have been

produced to back up these claims. The American soya industry spends about

$80m every year, raised from a mandatory levy on producers, to research and

promote the consumption of soya around the world. The rash of new soya foods

can be seen as the latest in a line of innovative ways devised to use soya.

 

The hypothesis behind the health claims is that rates of heart disease and

certain cancers such as breast and prostate cancer are lower in east Asian

populations with soya-rich diets than in western countries, and that the

oestrogens in soya might therefore have a protective effect.

 

Fitzpatrick, however, looked into historic soya consumption in Japan and

China and concluded that Asians did not actually eat that much. What they

did eat tended to have been fermented for months. "If you look at people who

are into health fads here, they are eating soya steaks and veggie burgers or

veggie sausages and drinking soya milk - they are getting over 100g a day.

They are eating tonnes of the raw stuff."

 

Mass exposure to isoflavones in the west has only occurred in the past 30

years due to the widespread incorporation of soya protein into processed

foods, a fact noted by the Royal Society in its expert report on Endocrine

Disrupting Chemicals in 2000. When the independent experts on the scientific

committee on toxicity trawled through all the scientific data, they

concluded that soya milk should not be recommended for infants even when

they had cow's milk allergies, except on medical advice, because of the high

levels of oestrogenic isoflavones it contains.

 

On breast cancer, they decided that "despite the suggested benefits of

phyto-oestrogens in lowering risk of developing breast cancer, there is also

evidence that they may stimulate the progression of the disease". The lower

risk of certain cancers among Asian populations might be due to other

factors - their high consumption of fish, for example. They advised caution.

On the effects on menopause symptoms, the evidence was inconclusive, the

experts ruled. On bone density, the committee thought there might be some

protective effects, but the data was unclear. The evidence on prostate

cancer was mixed. Since isoflavones cross the placenta, the implications of

pregnant women eating large quantities of soya were unclear. There was some

evidence that soya-based products had a beneficial effect on the good HDL

cholesterol but they were not sure that was down to the isoflavones. On the

other hand - reassuringly - they judged that a study linking soya

consumption to decline in cognitive function was not convincing.

 

What the committee also pointed out was that the way soya was processed

affected the levels of phyto-oestrogens. Traditional fermentation reduces

the levels of isoflavones two- to threefold. Modern factory processes do

not. Moreover, modern American strains of soya have significantly higher

levels of isoflavones than Japanese or Chinese ones because they have been

bred to be more resistant to pests. (One way to tackle pests is to stop them

breeding by making them infertile. It turns out that unfermented soya did

play one role in traditional Asian diets - it was eaten by monks to dampen

down their libido.)

 

Sue Dibb, now food policy expert at the National Consumer Council, was a

member of the CoT working group that compiled the final report. She

questions whether infant soya milk should still be on public sale and is

troubled by the latest marketing of soya. "We looked in detail at the

claimed health benefits for adults for soya consumption and concluded there

was not sufficient evidence to support many of them. There may be benefits

but there are also risks. The groups of adults of particular concern are

those with a thyroid problem and women with oestrogen-dependent breast

cancer. It worries me that soya is being pushed as a health food by a big

soya and supplements industry. We ought to be taking a more cautious

approach."

 

The Food Standards Agency advice is that soya's potential to have an adverse

effect on babies' hormonal development is still controversial, but that soya

formula should only be given to infants under 12 months old in exceptional

circumstances.

 

Professor Richard Sharpe, head of the Medical Research Council's human

reproductive sciences unit at Edinburgh University, was also a member of the

committee's working group on phyto-oestrogens in food. He has been studying

the decline in male fertility in the past half-century. He recently

completed studies on the effects of soya milk on young male monkeys which

showed that it interferes with testosterone levels. "In the first three

months after birth, baby boys have a neonatal testosterone rise. The testes

are very, very active in hormone production at this point and there is a lot

of cell activity going on that will determine sperm count in adults and will

affect the developing prostate. If you introduce a phyto-oestrogen, which

can, in large amounts, alter these changes, you may predispose children to

later disease. Soya formula milk is a [recent] western invention. There is

not the historical evidence to show it is safe."

 

Manufacturers, however, argue that soya infant formula has been widely used

without problems. "The industry has said that if the CoT comes up with clear

science, we will take note, but the case is not proven," says Roger Clarke,

director general of the industry's Infant Dietetics Food Association. "A lot

of the work it looked at was based on experimental work with animals. There

does not seem to be clear evidence of adverse effects, and there is demand

for it. There are some markets, such as vegan usage, where soya is the only

alternative."

 

While 30-40% of all infants in the US are raised on soya formula - not least

because it is given away in welfare programmes - soya milk for babies has

always been confined to a small minority in the UK. So does Sharpe think

exposure to soya from other sources - vegetarian soya proteins, the soya

flour in factory bread, the hydrolysed proteins added as flavourings, for

example - has a cumulative effect that might be worrying to other age

groups? He says he is not concerned about people who eat soya foods in

moderation or in the way they are traditionally used in oriental diets, but

when it comes to modern processed foods, which use soya proteins in

different ways, he prefers to turn the question round. "If someone said they

were adding a hormone to your foods, would you be happy with that? There may

be lots of effects, some of them may be beneficial, but would you be happy

with that? I am not a fan of processed foods, full stop. And these quick

fixes for protecting against ill-health - you know they can't be true," he

adds.

 

A steaming hiss fills the kitchen of the top London restaurant Nobu, even

after the lunchtime rush. Japanese chefs are filleting the evening's fish

while stock bubbles and concentrates in its stainless steel vat behind.

Executive chef Mark Edwards hands me a teaspoon of one of his soy sauces.

Cool from the fridge, it is thick, rich, dark and sweet, yet remarkably

clear from its long fermentation. The miso that he uses to marinade his

famous black cod for three days is dense and strong from its lengthy brew

too. Muslin cloths envelop delicate curds of tofu, made fresh each day and

added in small cubes to miso soup.

 

Soya is used in traditional oriental diets in these forms, after cultures,

moulds or precipitants have achieved a biochemical transformation, because

in its raw form the mature bean is known not only for its oestrogenic

qualities but for also its antinutrients, according to the clinical

nutritionist Kaayla Daniel, author of The Whole Soy Story. Soya was

originally grown in China as a green manure, for its ability to fix nitrogen

in the soil, rather than as a food crop, until the Chinese discovered ways

of fermenting it, she says.

 

The young green beans, now sold as a fashionable snack, edamame, are lower

in oestrogens and antinutrients, though not free of them. But raw mature

soya beans contain phytates that prevent mineral absorption and enzyme

inhibitors that block the key enzymes we need to digest protein. They are

also famous for inducing flatulence.

 

Christopher Dawson, who owns the Clearspring brand of organic soy sauces,

agrees. He lived in Japan for 18 years and his Japanese wife, Setsuko, is a

cookery teacher. "I never saw soy beans on the table in Japan - they're

indigestible."

 

Dawson describes the traditional craft method of transforming the soya bean

through fermentation, so that its valuable amino acids become available but

its antinutrients are tamed. The process involves cooking whole soya beans,

complete with their oil, for several hours, then adding the spores of a

mould to the mix, and leaving it to ferment for three days to begin the long

process of breaking down the proteins and starches. This initial brew is

then mixed with salt water and left to ferment for a further 18 months,

during which time the temperature will vary with the seasons. The end result

is an intensely flavoured condiment in which the soya's chemical composition

has been radically altered. Traditional miso is similarly made with natural

whole ingredients, slowly aged.

 

Most soya sauces (and misos) are not made this way any more, however.

Instead of using the whole bean, manufacturers short-cut the fermentation by

starting with defatted soy protein meal. Soya veggie burgers and sausages

generally use the same chemically extracted fraction of the bean.

 

This meal is the product of the industrial crushing process the vast

majority of the world's soya beans go through. The raw beans are broken down

to thin flakes, which are then percolated with a petroleum-based hexane

solvent to extract the soya oil. The remains of the flakes are toasted and

ground to a protein meal, most of which goes into animal feed. Soya flour is

made in a similar way.

 

The oil then goes through a process of cleaning, bleaching, degumming and

deodorising to remove the solvent and the oil's characteristic "off" smells

and flavours. The lecithin that forms a heavy sludge in the oil during

storage used to be regarded as a waste product, but now it has been turned

into a valuable market in its own right as an emulsifier.

 

In so-called "naturally brewed" soya sauces the processed soy protein meal

is mixed with the mould spores and given accelerated ageing at high

temperatures for three to six months. Non-brewed soya sauce, the cheapest

grade, is made in just two days. Defatted soya flour is mixed with

hydrochloric acid at high temperatures and under pressure to create

hydrolysed vegetable protein. Salt, caramel and chemical preservatives and

flavourings are then added to provide colour and taste. This rapid

hydrolysis method uses the enzyme glutamase as a reactor and creates large

amounts of the unnatural form of glutamate that is found in MSG.

 

Most commercial soya milk today is made from soya isolates, although some of

the pioneers of soya foods as health products in Europe avoid the chemical

extraction process and use whole beans to make their milk. The key selling

points for both types of soya milk are that they contain complete proteins

and oestrogenic isoflavones.

 

Bernard Deryckere, president of the European Natural Soyfood Manufacturers

Association, says that his members' products, made using natural processes,

are a healthy alternative to diary products. "A lot of people in Europe are

lactose-intolerant. Soya milk was invented in China 4,000 years ago and

today it's consumed by all types of people as a cholesterol-free source of

quality protein."

 

Daniel's detailed examination of the history of soya milk, however, suggests

that soya milk was made not to drink, except in times of famine, but as the

first step in the process of making tofu. After the long, slow boiling of

soya beans in water to eliminate toxins, a curdling agent was added to the

liquid to separate it. The curds would then be pressed to make tofu and the

whey, in which the antinutrients were concentrated, would be thrown away.

 

Dibb points out that if you are drinking non-dairy milk because you want

calcium without cow's milk, there are plenty of other sources such as green

leafy vegetables and nuts. And only those eating extremely limited diets are

likely to be short of protein as adults.

 

Dawson, a lifelong vegetarian, does not drink soya milk and only eats tofu

in moderation. "I will only use a product for my family if there is 200

years of tradition behind it. You are asking for trouble if you take an

isolate from soya - yet so much effort seems to go into taking industry's

waste and turning it into new food."

 

The effort that has gone into creating the global soya market has indeed

been enormous. Today it is dominated by a handful of American trading

companies. Three of them - Bunge, ADM and Cargill - control 80% of the

European soya bean crushing industry. These three, together with allied

companies, are also estimated to control up to 80% of European animal feed

manufacturing. They dominate the US soya market, and also account for 60% of

Brazil's soya exports.

 

Before the first world war, only a very few soya beans were crushed. The

Americans had begun experimenting with using the protein meal as animal

feed, but farmers were reluctant to take it up because it was indigestible

to chicken and pigs. The oil produced was considered "a bit of an

embarrassment", according to Kurt Burger, a fats and oils technical expert

at the Society of Chemical Industry, whose experience in the food industry

goes back to 1944. It was mainly used in soaps because it was considered

unpalatable. (Henry Ford later funded research projects to turn soya into

plastic for car parts.)

 

Cottonseed oil, a byproduct of the cotton industry, was the main edible oil

used in the US. But then the combination of disease in monocropped cotton

and demand from European allies in the first world war for oil both to eat

and to make the glycerine needed for nitroglycerine in explosives,

stimulated American soy oil production.

 

It was not until the 1940s that industry worked out how to deactivate the

enzyme inhibitor in the protein meal sufficiently for animals to tolerate

it, and it was only technology taken from the Nazis at the end of the second

world war that solved the problem of the oil's horrible smell and flavour.

That left the way for the US to promote the soya that suited its

agricultural conditions as part of the reconstruction of Europe through the

1950s. Soya oil exports to Europe tripled under the Marshall Plan, and

heavily subsidised exports of surplus US soya ensured the commodity's

dominance in animal feed. The subsidies continue. Between 1998 and 2004, US

Department of Agriculture figures show that its soya farming received $13bn

in subsidies from the American taxpayer.

 

Until 2003, the US was the largest exporter of soya. But through the 1990s,

multinationals promoted the expansion of the crop in Latin America, helping

finance farmers and building the infrastructure for soya exports. The

attraction of Latin America is that land is cheap and labour costs are

minimal too. Three years ago, the combined exports from Brazil and Argentina

surpassed US exports for the first time. The cost is now being counted there

in environmental damage and social upheaval. The cost to western consumers

may yet be counted in health.

[Guest guest]

For those who don't read all the way to the end, this is about products

derived industrially from soya, and is not applicable to traditional uses

such as tofu, tempeh, miso, and traditionally prepared soya sauces.

[Guest guest]

Although it is my understanding that Srila Prabhupada was not very keen

about soy products in general. Hari Sauri prabhu does not eat much soy

including

tofu because of this or didn't when we discussed this a few years back in

response to devotees' enthusiasm over tofu compared to paneer. A few years ago

 

there was also a study that Asian men who consumed large amounts of tofu had

reduced brain size in old. I remember reading it and remembering what HS had

said about Srila Prabhupada's opinion and thought "Hmmmm " .

 

My husband never lived in a temple and was not a vegetarian when I met him.

Now he really likes tofu, he really likes paneer as well, but we limit both

because it seems to be a prudent thing to do. It seems that the American palate

 

appreciates big hunks of protein and maybe this is not such a good thing

nutritionally. Real vegetable matter with as little processing as possible is

probably healthier than highly process food whatever its origin. Just a

thought. Someone could contact HS prabhu for further information about the

tofu

issue. yhs, Kanti dasi

 

In a message dated 7/26/2006 6:40:42 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,

gourdmad (AT) ovnet (DOT) com writes:

 

For those who don't read all the way to the end, this is about products

derived industrially from soya, and is not applicable to traditional uses

such as tofu, tempeh, miso, and traditionally prepared soya sauces.