I had someone contact me asking me why I thought soy was bad, or if soy was always bad, or something like that. She was Asian so soy is naturally a big part of her diet (also it’s tasty).
Again, these are my opinions from reading and testing things out on my own body, I could be wrong and maybe (hopefully) your body is different.
First, I have an IgG response to soy. If you don’t, your reaction isn’t going to be as bad as mine. So that’s something to take into consideration. If you’re worried about it, do the IgG food sensitivity test. If you don’t have an IgG reaction to it, maybe it’s okay in small quantities. Maybe the fermented soy products are good for you. If you have an IgG reaction to soy it is not good.
Secondly, soy in Asian cultures has changed a lot. Especially when it was brought over here. Actually, let me rephrase that. Soy here is nothing like soy in Asian cultures. Granted I don’t know what it’s like now, but from what I’ve read it was originally fermented mostly. For instance, the original way of making soya sauce involved fermentation. Maybe that breaks down a lot of the problem with soy? Human beings used to soak beans before they ate them to make them digestible. When we started mass-producing we forgot that those were necessary parts of cooking. Fermented soy could be a very different story than unfermented soy.
This explains a lot, and it explains it better than I will. (I know it’s Mercola and he’s kind of out there but he’s onto a lot – just try to ignore the unimportant stuff) – http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/09/18/soy-can-damage-your-health.aspx
He goes into detail about unfermented vs fermented soy.
The reason I’m not happy with soy is that in North America they put it into everything. Soybean oil in salad dressing, dips, pills, soy protein isolate in anything else. Unfermented soy being toted as a healthy food. It’s not good for you. But that doesn’t mean fermented soy is in the same category. So from now on when I’m complaining about soy I’ll complain specifically about unfermented soy. Unless you have an IgG response and in that case, it’s all soy.
Hope that helps clarify a bit!
I think your family and I started in on this journey around the same time. I suffered many of the same issues and was just about to the point that I thought things were wrapping up for me. Like you, I examined my daily intake and for me the largest culprit was legumes and more specifically soy. Over the past few years I have shifted from the “it’s just affects certain people” to the mindset of “we have s big problem”. I now notice the ticks, physical effects and psychosis in others. It’s not generally severe like we’ve had but the influence is there. I appreciate you and your dads exposure to all of this. In my case no testing was conclusive and I know some people assume I’m just self-diagnosing and over reacting (while missing out on 1000s of items diet wise I enjoyed) yea. Sure.
If you haven’t experienced a daily impending sense of doom, hyperactive joint destruction or walked the path wide eyed toward schizophrenia it’s pretty hard to understand how one little bite of food can rock your world.
Have you looked into the study of lineolic acids and cultural violence? Could be another tie back for your pops works.
I’d be happy to trade notes on what I’ve learned and experienced any time with you. Feel free to email.
Thanks again. Take care.
Leave a comment