More studies show that soy blocks the estrogens that cause breast cancer and other cancers. Not the other way around.
Phytoestrogens are not estrogens. There’s no evidence that soy causes cancer, stimulates breast growth/lactation in men, or other silly rumors.
No, I’m outright saying that the energy required to render soy protein isolate down for feel good milkshakes is far more damaging to the environment than simply eating soybeans or regular soy products.
You don’t need fossil fuels to make tofu.
You need some kind of fuel to render soy beans edible. The production of soy milk to for tofu production involves boiling, but then tofu for all that it is traditional, is a highly processed food by any standard I can think of. Any kind of dry beens needs to be cooked to be rendered edible, but soy beans take longer to cook then most beans, with a trade-off of a higher quality protein than most.
Food energy inputs have to be measured from the farm (including farm inputs) to consumption, and home processing of food is often highly inefficient. There’s incidental product loss just from the use of small containers. The heating processes are extremely inefficient compared to industrial processes—although, to be fair, when the lost heat replaces home heating, that does mean that less of heat is wasted. For most foods, there’s waste, such as peels, that an industrial processor can use, but a home processor will discard. For dry beans, that may be the cooking water.
Of course, you next have to consider packaging and transportation. At that point, a bulk product that can be stored at ambient temperature, such as a protein powder, is going to have some distinct advantages.
Short version: don’t assume that industrial processing is inefficient. It may be, but that has to be demonstrated by comparison with traditional or home production.
From that very article:
But studies so far haven’t provided a clear answer. Some have shown a benefit between soy consumption and breast cancer while others show no association. (4, 8-10)
What’s more, a handful of unsettling reports suggests that concentrated supplements of soy proteins may actually stimulate the growth of breast cancer cells. (11-13)
Also.
The value of eating actual food over highly processed derivatives of food seems clear. Also with soy.
“Last year, in its nutrition guidelines for cancer survivors, the American Cancer Society noted that eating traditional soy foods — like tofu, miso, tempeh and soy milk — may help lower the risk of breast, prostate and other cancers. But the guidelines do not recommend soy supplements, which tend to be highly processed and not very rigorously tested.”
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2013/09/27/ask-well-is-it-safe-to-eat-soy/?referer=
I am aware, but you selectively chose things that support your accusation and ignored all of the ones that don’t. I suggest reading more articles. Soy is safe.
I am a mathematician and the “non-scientist” member of one my university’s committees. Using the older definitions of science (i.e. the original Latin root which just meant knowledge) mathematics is a science. We, however, don’t use the scientific method or conduct experiments, at least in the usual sense. Mathematics isn’t a natural philosophy despite it being essential to natural philosophy.
I think the thing with string theorists is that they aren’t physicists anymore and aren’t mathematicians yet. 
You can’t blame me if the article you chose to cite was equivocal. We all also have differing constitutions. I’m not worried about cardiovascular morbidity as my cholesterol has always been absurdly low with almost all of it being good cholesterol. Cancer is more in my family background unfortunately. The evidence pointing towards higher risk there I need to take more seriously.
On a side note - there’s tons of self experimentation in the trans community regarding using phyto estrogens to feminize and lower testosterone for people who don’t want to take “real hormones”. I give this as much weight as I do the manufacturers of soylent ensure consuming their product and reporting back in the effects they experience. That’s little in either case. Little.
I’ve got to agree with @Biggles here. A scientist is not someone who has some specific degree, but someone who experiments. The problem is that, as @wrecksdart points out:[quote=“wrecksdart, post:14, topic:88402”]
… they should do their ‘testing’ on people they pay …,
[/quote]
they are doing science unethically.
They conduct extensive internal and select-group testing before releasing any products to the general public. Unfortunately it sounds like when released to a much wider audience, .01% of people can’t tolerate some ingredient they’re using. They’re pulling the products from distribution and conducting tests to figure out what that ingredient is.
What part of that is “unethical”?
Generally the state they reside in grants credentials to a Dietitian.
That’s not what I’m arguing. I’m arguing that they aren’t going about it in scientific way. They’re going about it in an engineering way. And engineering isn’t science. Insomnia makes me long winded and not clear.
Credentials are just one of your major signs that some one has the relevant expertise to understand or work in a particular area of science. The credentials aren’t a necessity. But the understanding of the subject is.
Soy Protein Isolate has very little in common with soy (which has been vastly oversold, and is really only safe to eat regularly when fermented). Back to Soy Protein Isolate, do a little reading on it before you cut and paste industry trade group bullshit on it, it’s terrible. Soy has been a con job. Itis now, in highly processed form, in literally everything.
Don’t get me wrong, I love tempeh, tamari, and occasional tofu. But s.p.u. is a scourge that has found it’s way into an unbelievable array of products, even ‘health’ foods.
Edit: Your reply kind of read like a prepared statement from Kraft or Pepsi. And you linked the Wikipedia page for ‘Soy Protein’ when we are talking about ‘Soy Protein Isolate’, two totally different things.
Edit: A better primer on soy:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1480510/
As I don’t really know how credible Dr. Mercola is. Just used his writeup because he sums up most of the prevailing criticism of soy. One last thing, replacing much/most/all animal plant protein has been largely demonstrated to be very healthy. This foes not however grant any and all of those benefits to soy (or highly processed soy). Saying s.p.u. is soy is like saying high fructose corn syrup is corn. Processed soy has become an incredibly cheap and useful (for food manufacturers)additive that has enjoyed coasting on a little promising research based on diets that include a small amount of whole soy. So although I admire anyone who wants to improve the world in the ways you listed, esp. if that includes abstaining from the unfathomable Lovecraftian abyssal hell that is modern factory farming, I think you should look into it more, there is a lot of industry noise to wade through.
I’m stoked to follow this thread but I wish I had an animated .gif of Michael Jackson excitedly munching popcorn, only instead of popcorn he’s dumping a beige liquid in his mouth instead.
Are you seriously posting Mercola links and claiming science?
Do you have some NaturalNews for us as well?
I don’t kow who he is. Enlighten me? His writeup on soy was good enough for my needs (illustrating holes in the soy propaghanda).
I wonder how many eyeballs your theory would get on your own blog? Hmmmm.
lb. for lb. its carbon, water, land, health, etc footprint is a trivial fraction of that of any meat products.
Not that i’d eat it, but its quite fair to say it has significantly less environmental impact prior to the point it enters the distribution network.
a grass fed local cow can have a lot lower impact then imported soy protein isolate.
I’ll have to read your links (which I have not yet done) and get back to you, but this sounds absurd.
Comparing a factory food (Soy stuff) to a bespoke food (grass fed local beef) reeks of privelige and doesn’t strike me as science. Local beef is a myth to most people, aside from those with the land to DIY or the money to pay for local land to be used that way.
Ungrounded antivax quack-scammer who sells “detox” supplements and cure-alls.
https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/9-reasons-to-completely-ignore-joseph-mercola-and-natural-news/
He runs one of (if not THE worst) “health” blog on the internet.
Was your need “confirming your gut instincts”?
I ask because that’s not how science or science based policy work.
There is a bit of hubris here… how harmful, I don’t know. Michael Pollan makes the case that nutrition is so complex that we can’t yet synthesize it. That’s why his advice is so simple - “eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” And by “food”, he means something whose ingredients our grandparents would recognize. We have evolved over millennia with our foods.
A comparable situation is the development of synthetic fertilizer out of just a few chemicals. Yes, you get a plant growing, and it may look a whole lot like corn, but on the molecular level, modern “corn” or a modern “carrot” has been pithed of complexity. And we just don’t know enough to know how that complexity interacts with out biology.
So the hubris is to think they know everything, or even enough, to make a product that fulfills our nutritional needs.
