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Food and Drink

Swimming in truth
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I love things that promise to deliver the truth. There’s something captivating about anything that can be so singular and simple and earnest, as if there’s a great big lake of truth out there we only have to stumble upon to guide us in all matters, dietary and otherwise.

So Felicity Lawrence’s article, “The truth about soya”, in a recent issue of The Guardian really grabbed me the other day as I ate my porridge swimming in soy milk. (“Soya” is British; “soy” the North American variant, all from the Dutch “soja”, from the Malay “soi”.)

As I breakfasted away and poured myself more organic, GMO-free soy milk, it was with a half-cocked eyebrow that I pored through Ms. Lawrence’s article as it effectively poked more needles into the ever-inflating soy balloon. Many of these arguments aren’t new, but they’re ones that vegetarians, lactose-intolerant people, menopausal women and all-round general health-food eaters, including myself, don’t like to hear.

Soy is big food business. In 1965, worldwide soy production was around 30 million tonnes; last year nine times that amount was produced, or about 270 million tonnes.

In Britain, they estimate about 60 per cent of all processed food contains soy in one form or another. It can be whole soy or one of its many components, including soy flour, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, soy protein isolate, textured vegetable protein, vegetable oil (or some form thereof, such as hydrogenated veggie oil), plant sterols or lecithin, the latter which is worshipped by health junkies for staving off dreaded oxidants and free radicals, and by chocoholics, for lecithin is the emulsifier in cocoa butter.

Besides the obvious soy milk and soy-based weenies, if you read your food labels you might be surprised to find soy in cakes, noodles, pastries, breakfast cereal and cereal bars, sandwich spreads, desserts, sausage casings and even dog and cat food.

Of course, in vegetarian and vegan food, soy is regarded as the panacea for delivering protein without meat. But many people, vegetarians included, are blissfully unaware that cheap soy feed has also made the factory farming of livestock possible.

Soy is also used to enhance protein content in processed meat products. It’s added to commercial baked products to keep them from shrinking and, evil of evils, once it’s hydrogenated, soy oil is used by the tonne — 34 million tonnes last year alone — to deep fry all those super-sized fries and more.

The biggest traditional anti-soy argument has been that soy contributes to the demise of rainforests, especially in Brazil, as farmers clear them for this profitable crop. Another is that soy crops are creating big swaths of monoculture, replacing less valuable crops, even right here in Canada. Drive through southern Alberta and you’ll see fields of soy plants, which help put our country among the 10 largest producers.

On top of all this, Ms. Lawrence eloquently explains one of the latest anti-soy arguments: that contrary to soy being a “healthy” food it can be just the opposite. The subject is so complex you could write a book on it, as many have, but in a nutshell the culprits are the plant estrogens or phyto-estrogens in soy, the very elements that were attracting menopausal women for relief from hot flashes and protection against things like osteoporosis or hormone-related cancers such as breast cancer.

More particularly it’s the isoflavones in the plant estrogens that are the hazard, isoflavones that used to be removed in traditional Asian fermenting techniques for tofu or soy sauce, but are retained in modern manufacturing.

In addition, modern soy crops have higher isoflavone levels bred into the plants to make pests that feed on the crops infertile. The principle reflects the rationale behind a traditional diet for Asian monks, who ate unfermented soy to cool their libido. And here we menopausal women thought it was all our fault.

So now scientists are concerned about the impact of plant estrogens on the hormones and thyroids of everybody, especially infants. A 2002 British study concluded that the health benefits of soy were not supported, and that there could be heath risks at certain levels of consumption for certain age groups — a conclusion backed by another British study.

With 30-40 per cent of babies in the U.S. raised on soy formula, many of them in low-income families, scientists are concerned that they could be ingesting, for their size, the equivalent of five birth control pills a day. As for adults, the very things we are trying to ward off with soy may be exacerbated by it.

Whew. So after wading through this lake of truth and putting my soy milk away, I thought I’d see what research has concluded in Canada. I called the David Suzuki Foundation, where a nice young man named Domenico told me that the foundation has no policy papers or position on soy, nor could he refer me to any.

So that leaves me pretty much out fishing for more truth. Maybe I’ll check out the documentary The Future of Food in Squamish next Tuesday and see what else I hook.

 

 

SIDEBAR:

Finding your own food truth

 

In the U.S. about 40 per cent of the soy crop is genetically modified, and there’s no reason to think otherwise in Canada. Soy is but one of hundreds of crops that have been genetically modified to enhance productivity.

If you’d like to find out more about your food, where it’s coming from, and what it might really be doing to you and this planet, check out the documentary The Future of Foo d by Deborah Koons Garcia, wife of Jerry Garcia. It was a big hit at the Telluride Film Festival and in New York. But you can catch it at the Brackendale Fall Fair as Adam Hart is presenting it as a fundraiser for the Coalition for a GE Free B.C.

“We’re at a time in history that’s never been experienced before with regard to the food that we’re eating and what’s inside it,” says Adam. “People just need to be a little bit more aware of what’s in the food that they’re choosing to eat and choosing to feed their families, and this movie will really step them in the right direction.”

The Future of Food screens 5:30 and 7 p.m., Sept. 12 at the Squamish Adventure Centre. Tickets are $10 in advance; $12 at the door, available at the adventure centre, Gelato Carena, Howe Sound Juice Co. or call Adam at 604-815-3751.

 

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who always looks for truth in advertising.