If you are at all like me, you want to serve your family (and yourself) healthy foods. The problem of course comes about when you try to answer the question, “What is healthy?”

There is so much conflicting information out there about individual foods.  It is enough to make my head spin.

Soy is one example.  Some people claim it to be the perfect health food and some claim it to be evil.  I wanted to share a little bit about my journey toward not feeding my family soy.

Shortly after Greyden was born, I got a soy milk maker and regularly made soy milk for myself and the children.  I thought this was a “healthy” food.

And yet, within months, I was having some weird things going on in my body.  A trip to the Doctor revealed that while my thyroid and hormone levels said one thing, my body was displaying symptoms that didn’t match up.

I started really doing some research and discovered that foods containing soy were not as healthy as many people claimed them to be.  I stopped the soy milk and went back to cow milk.  My symptoms disappeared, my hormone levels stabilized, and I soon discovered I was pregnant with Hewitt.

All my research made me conclude that the Jonas family would not be consuming soy.  Why?

I do not believe that soy is a healthy food product.  I don’t believe in soymilk. I don’t believe in soy infant formula.  I don’t believe in soy cheese.  I don’t believe in margarine. I don’t believe in tofu.  I definitely don’t believe in soy meat alternatives for vegans and vegetarians.

I feel that these supposedly healthy foods are very harmful to our bodies and in particular to growing children.

Instead, I believe dairy products and meat raised from pastured animals are much healthier alternatives.

The one exception to this is fermented soy products such as miso.  The Jonas clan does enjoy miso because it is fermented.  Why does this make a difference?  The book “The Whole Soy Story*” by Kaayla T. Daniel says:

The ancient Chinese and Japanese knew what modern food processors choose to forget – that soybeans must be soaked, cooked and fermented in order to transform them into a food both edible and healthful.  When we ferment food, we enlist bacteria, fungi and other beneficial microorganisms to help break down complex proteins, starches and fats into highly digestible amino acids, simple sugars and fatty acids.  The process results in a near-total biochemical transformation…

Of all the foods that are commonly fermented, none needs it more than the soybean.  Soy protein in notoriously hard to digest unless enzymes and microogranisms go to work on it first.  These tiny workers not only predigest the soybeans, but deactivate the powerful protease inhibitors that inhibit our digestive enzymes and overwork the pancreas…

Although antinutrients known as phytates in most soybean products block proper absorption of calcium, iron, zinc and other minerals, fermentation produces the enzyme phytase, which reduces phytate levels substantially…

The microorganisms in fermented soy also help prevent disease.  Of the 161 strains of aerobic bacteria isolated in miso and other fermented soybean products, almost all combat Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus – two common causes of food poisoning…

Traditional fermenting techniques ensure that soy products are almost never contaminated with aflatoxin, mycotoxins or dangerous molds or bacteria.  Aflatoxins – a carcinogenic and toxic factore often found in moldy grains and peanuts – are not stable in soy sauce or miso. 

If you are not eating fermented soybeans such as miso (most soy sauces including Braggs liquid aminos are not fermented), then you open yourself up to many of the antinutrients that are found in soy.  According to The Whole Soy Story*, these include:

• Protease Inhibitors interfere with digestive enzymes which can prevent proper protein digestion, cause stomach upset, and overwork the pancreas.
• Phytates may reduce the body’s absorption of minerals such as calcium, zinc or iron.
• Lectins may cause red blood cells to clump together and lead to immune system reactions.
• Saponins bind with bile and may damage the intestinal lining or lower cholesterol.
• Oxalates may interfere with calcium absorption and may lead to kidney stones.

This book wasn’t around in 2002 when I was doing my research into soy (it was written in 2005). When I did read it, I got to Chapter 26, and it immediately reminded me of my health challenges after Greyden’s birth.

Phytoestrogens are plant estrogens.  Although they are not true hormones, they are similar enough structurally to act like hormones and bind with estrogen-receptor sites throughtout the body. 

This explains so much of what I dealt with and confirms to me that I was correct in pulling myself and my children off soy.

If you are feeding yourself or your family a lot of unfermented soy foods, I hope that you will take a closer look into soy as a supposedly healthy food source.  If you’re unsure how much soy you’re consuming (much of it is hidden), check labels for soy anything such as soy lecithin, soy protein concentrate, or soy protein isolate.  Hidden soy ingredients include texturized vegetable protein and hydrolyzed vegetable protein.

I’d love to hear what conclusions you come to about soy consumption!

Note: We do use soybean oil in some of our soaps. If this seems like a contradiction to you, please read this post about why we use soybean oil in some of our soaps.

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