There are so many people in my life that when I tell them I'm vegan they freak out and ask if I'm eating soy. "Oh, that shit will give you cancer." "Don't eat too much soy it will mess with your estrogen and give you ovary cancer" and so on.
I always thought that soy had been proven safe? Like it's plant estrogen, our bodies don't absorb it, right?
What do I say to these kinds of people? I like tofu :vegan-tofu:
Edit: Thanks for the info folks, you rule. :bean:
There’s basically no reputable studies linking soy to any of the things carnivore diet cranks and righties claim. But tbh I’ve not found a lot of actual studies that refute the claims strongly either because it’s not a big area of study.
Hbomber’s video on the subject covers the origin of it, but it basically dates back to one weird reading of a super old study of sheep, that got turned into sensationalist claims by a crank internet dietician. This started getting popular in right wing circles, and it’s so obviously a post hoc justification of their need to feel like eating meat makes them alpha or whatever.
Not only that but 3 out of 5 places with the highest life expectancy in the world (HK, Japan, Singapore) eat a shit load of soy.
The incidence of ovary cancer in Australia is almost identical to the rates in China. If soy was so detrimental, you'd expect a massive rise in incidence in China considering the amount of soy in Chinese diets.
Just ask the people telling you that soy is dangerous to consider why there isn't a massive health crisis in all of East Asia.
consider why there isn’t a massive health crisis in all of East Asia
"There is but the CCP is hiding it!!!1"
I think it's smoked. The smoked tofu from Aldi has the exact same look.
just tell them that meat also causes cancer
pretty much any food you can find a reason not to eat. beans? they contain antinutrients. spinach? you don't want too much oxalic acid. there's not really any perfect food - this is why a varied diet is important. Soy has been a staple food for many cultures for stretching back millennia. If it caused cancer at an rate higher than, say, meat, I think someone would've noticed by now. And I assure you, compared to the typical western diet, soy isn't terribly unhealthy - its even often used in the production of many junk foods common in the west. Unless those people you talk to are health nuts, they're probably also consuming soy.
If soy makes you uncomfortable though, feel rest assured that fermented soy products were considered "okay" by the people who first popularized the soy estrogen theory. I don't know what the alt-right all-meat diet types believe, but Sally Fallon (who I believe sort of started the whole soy theory) said the fermentation process is supposed to break down the toxins in soy. And miso is a great addition to any diet anyway.
Not a vegan, but soy and phytoestrogens don't have the same effects on human bodies as estrogen. They do bond to our cells' estrogen receptors, but that's where the similarity between estrogen and phytoestrogen ends, to my knowledge. I've never heard anything about soy causing cancer, sounds like fake news to me.
I mean, a ton of "meat" you can buy in the US already has soy additives in it anyway. Why not just cut out the middle man?
H. Bomber guy has some nice videos on the rise of the myths and the figures that spread them. He even does a high soy diet just to dunk on them.
I bought into the whole "phytoestrogens bad" thing for years before I became a vegan. It was the very last hurdle I had to overcome. I actually think you can find some old comments I made on this site asking about.
Long story short, phytoestrogens don't create a response in your body similar to what estrogen does, which is the entire argument the anti-soy folks rely on. Not to mention when you research who it is making these claims about soy, they are always chuds.
The Game Changers - while it certainly has some flaws - is pretty good about this and was one of the two documentaries along with Dominion that convinced me to go vegan.
ugh. I had an effort post on this a long time ago, somewhere, that I was proud of and can't find now. but the short answer is that no, there's nothing harmful about eating soy!
I had the same worries as you, likely inspired by faint memories of seeing things like "Soy and estrogen??" on magazine headlines in the supermarket checkout aisle or whatever. Couldn't actually tell you the source of that mental association with certainty though. But, regardless of the origin, it's wrong. Tofu/soy is perfectly safe, even in relatively large quantities. And if it weren't, we'd know by now. Soy is consumed in massive amounts globally each year--it's not exactly a niche food.
according to this article soy may reduce the risk of breast cancer and heart disease. carnists love to badmouth soy for some reason.
https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/soy-and-cancer-risk-our-experts-advice.html
im a vegetarian and its my understanding that the amount of soy you would have to consume to have an effect on your estrogen levels is akin to eating a gajillion bananas to die of radioactivity.
idk, i had some soy, and now i have boobs. idk where they came from or if they're mine
I had some soy once and now feel a violent need to destroy capitalism and usher in a workers revolution.
