Customer Reviews

The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food

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One of the most interesting facts I find about people today is they don't use common sense. We all know that orange juice is good for you, it has vitamin C. But orange juice consumed by the gallon daily is NOT GOOD for you. So if someone consumes a gallon of orange juice everyday and becomes diabetic, does this imply that orange juice is evil and has no merits? Overdoing anything, even the best nutrient, and you can overdose.

As a Chinese, and still eating Chinese food 90% of the time, no one in our family overdoses on soy. We drink 16 oz of soymilk at the most per day. Fresh soybeans (edamame), only a handful twice a week. Fresh tofu, freshly fried tofu, miso, tempeh, real fermented soy sauce, fermented soybean pastes, are consumed in larger quantities. But we never eat soy alone. And we don't have these strange soy hotdogs, soy burgers, soy powders, soy shakes, engineered soy products.

Babies are never fed soymilk. As soon as babies can start eating food, they are fed fresh silken tofu, as it is an easily digested protein. But tofu is never the only source of protein. Small amounts of ground meat, milk and regular food are fed to babies.

As for adults, tofu will always be eaten with eggs, or meat or fish in a meal. Never by itself. The same with soybeans, miso and soy sprouts and soy sauce, etc.

I believe that Chinese and Japanese have eaten this way for centuries. And because we consume mostly tofu and fermented soy products, you don't hear people having these kinds of problems. Soybeans are naturally high in trypsin. The process of fermentation and tofu making is what deactivates trypsin, and makes it safe for consumption. That is why soymilk and edamame are not eaten in large quantities.

Also what is unknown to most people is that Chinese eat larger quantities of soy bean sprouts and black soy beans. The black soy beans are commonly mistaken as "black beans", but they are not the Mexican or South American black beans. Black soybeans have higher protein content, and are considered superioer to yellow soybeans.

Even though soybean sprouts have phytoestrogens, they contain less phytoestrogens than alfalfa sprouts. One birth control pill has 5000 times as much estrogen as 20 grams of soy sprouts. So eating soy sprouts occasionally (as in once or twice a week) does not hurt you. But going overboard and eating large quantities everyday is not good for you.

And until Americans started producing soybean oil, the majority of Chinese was raised on peanut oil and safflower oil (made by pressing you choy).

The first written record of the soybean plant is contained in the book "Ben Ts'ao Kang Mu", describing the plants of China by Emperor Shen Nung in 2838 BC. They have been cultivated and eaten since then.

If a food has been eaten for 4800 years, I'm pretty sure there is enough empirical data to show that soy itself is not evil. If the plant was toxic in any way, it would be listed as such in the "Ben Ts'ao Kang Mu" and the Chinese Materia Medica. Perhaps engineered soy foods, such as soy hot dogs, soy protein powders, and such should be eaten sparingly.

But if you have any doubts about soy, you shouldn't eat too much of it, and definitely do not eat engineered foods. As in everything, moderation is key to good health.

The nutritional literature is littered with books extolling the virtures of soy and soy products. Unfortunately, most are based on hype, poor research and manipulated science. This book explores the history of soy, defines the various types of historical soy products and then proceeds to explore the science of soy and soy prooducts in great detail. I have found it to be a tremendous encyclopedia of knowledge concerning the subject. Having studied soy products for some years, Dr. Daniels taught me a considerable amount about soy. The sections on soy and cancer are especially valuable, since so many women have been convinced that soy products prevent breast cancers, when in fact, there is compelling evidence the opposite is true. I strongly recommend this book for all those interested in the truth about soy and soy products.

As a former vegetarian who relied heavily upon commercial soy products, and suffered because of it, I loudly applaud this important, timely work! It is exhaustively researched and provides for the first time, a revealing glimpse into more industry greed at the expense of consumer's health. I suffered from a compromised Thyroid due to my reliance on Tofu, Soy Milk, and phony burgers to get me through the day. I suffered doubly, from the poor palatability of the products, as well as their hidden hormones. The resulting Thyroid complications, flatulence, and loss of libido caused much unnecessary suffering. I have studied about Soy independently, being a Pharmaceutical chemist, so am somewhat familiar with some of the problems associated with the modern processed varieties. However, I was unprepared and shocked by what I found out from this wonderful book. Being a scientist, I am very impressed with the research that went into it. The author makes it easy reading and humorous as well which helps one to get through the dark truths revealed. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the health of themselves and their loved ones. The current belief that processed Soy is somehow equated with health is just another example of how we are so often controlled by marketing hype.

I wish I'd found this book 2 years ago. That's when I decided to get healthy and became a vegan. I listened to Christine Northrup, Andrew Weil, Gary Null, Barry Sears telling me soy was the ticket to good health and a long life. Wanting to be "low carb," I went on the Soy Zone Diet. Well, I felt okay at first but within a couple months felt fatigue, spaciness and dizziness, I also started gaining weight and then was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. (TSH way high) Nothing in my life had changed but all the soy I was eating. And I think if it hadn't been fuzzing up my brain I'd have figured it out a lot sooner. I now refuse to eat soy and am getting better. Dr. Daniel explains very clearly what happened to me and why. When I first heard about the book I heard it made sensationalistic claims. This is not true as she backs everything up with discussion and references. Despite this her book is easy to read and understand. I especially liked the "soy stories" from people just like me. I had felt so alone and stupid but the fact is I have plenty of company. I sincerely hope that this book will reach everyone who eats soy or is thinking about eating more soy. We don't need to eat soy to be vegans.

As a college student studying to be a veterinarian, I learned that there are good reasons why high quality animal feeds do not contain soy protein and even advertise themselves as "soyfree." Animals fed too much soy grow poorly, are prone to disease, show less frequent "mounting behavior," infertility, birth defects and even cancer. I never understood why this same food could be advertised as a "health food" for human animals. Common sense said "NO WAY" and I've seen a lotta poor health among the many veggies who eat soy, soy and more soy on campus. I was glad to find this book because it confirmed that my instincts were right and because it has satisfied my curiosity with good science. Don't think it's boring though. It has thousands of references in the back of the book yet is a surprisingly good read.

In Israel parents are now being warned not to give soy formula to babies and not to feed children up to age 18 soy more than 3 times per week. Adults are told to be cautious. But in America the FDA tells us this stuff is a health food. How can that be? Think what else the FDA has given us. "Safe" drugs like Vioxx that have killed people, excitotoxic sugar substitutes such as aspartame that cause neurological and brain damage. Why on earth should you believe the FDA when it tells us that soy stops heart disease? You shouldn't that's what. Nearly everything else you'll read about soy is provided by the people selling it to you . Big business - big profits -- big corruption -- big pulling the wool over the eyes of the public. It takes a big book to expose all this and this book is it.

This book belongs on your shelf right next to "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser. He tells what's horrific about the fast food industry. She exposes the corruption of the soy industry, which by the way has close ties to the fast food industry. Both make you want to think twice about eating anything that comes in a wrapper or package. Just because something calls itself "healthy" doesn't mean it is. That's a best seller and this one should be.

" The Whole Soy Story" is a book for enquiring minds.. It not only challenges commercially motivated lies, platitudes and propaganda about soy with pertinent facts, but it sweeps you along on a voyage of life-altering discovery. It reads like a detective story, but is one where you get to be judge and jury.

This book is an eyeopener that should be read by every doctor, nurse, dietitian and health food store owner in America. Though claims that soy is not healthy have been circulating on the internet for some time, Dr Kaayla Daniel is the first to meticulously and credibly document these concerns. The Swiss Federal Health Service and British Dietetic Association have both strongly warned against the use of soy formula for infants, yet soy formula now constitutes 25% of the American bottle fed market. That and the fact that soy is an ingredient in just about every food you'll find at the supermarket and health food store have led to rising rates of allergies, asthma,thyroid disease, premature puberty in girls, delayed puberty in boys, ADD/ADHD among children and problems for adults as well. In short, there are many safety issues that need to be resolved before we even think about feeding soy formula or soyfoods to our infants and children. All of us in the health care business need to be talking about the information in this book.

Kaayla Daniel is amazing. This book is a prodigious, concerned, scrutinizing body of information and research. Unlike what some of the snarky, ill-considered (they miss the boat altogether) alleged reviewers here say, Daniel has no agenda to serve, EXCEPT to serve the cause of humanity - a great act of generosity in informing us. There's no "opinionizing" here; everything is based on fact and science, and Daniel painstakingly takes the initiative to present all of it as much as possible. The cover-ups, lies and deceptions on the part of the industries is mesmerizing and more than a bit scary: the agendas there are all toward the allmighty buck. They don't CARE about our health. Soy, which had its uses as a terrific industrial product at one point (it was used to produce Bakelite before the advent of plastics) has no place in our bodies as it's served up now, riddled with anti-nutrients and substances which have catastrophic long-term effects. It just serves to show that any substance, if it has to go through such drastic changes from its natural state, should not be consumed. Worse, the diet dictocrats tell us that many of the foods of nature, consumed for millenia, are bad for us. Absolutely no logic in that mindset - especially since modern foods, soy among them - continue to make mankind increasingly riddled with ill health problems.

Daniel is an excellent, lively writer, and her concern, sharpness and unconcealed outrage shines throughout. Everything is exhaustively referenced and resourced. No one - civilians, doctors, scientists, food industries - doesn't need this book.

I hope this book will continue to gain wider currency, because if this soy trend continues without its being exposed, the health of world citizens is in jeopardy. Read and learn.