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This is not a controlled study. It is an epidemiological study. Epidemiology does not demonstrate nutritional principles. See what I wrote about increasing fat and protein intake. It is also a study for ONE TOWN. If I find a counter-trend in the general population, will it disprove your theory about fat? No, of course not. Because you have an agenda that you want to promote which is why you have to rely on these obscure micro-studies to make your point.
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You claim was that fat boosts metabolism. This study shows that serum cholesterol decreases (at best). So good job shifting the goalposts.
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You did not give me an actual hyperlink. So at this point it is just an appeal to authority.
I have to add with the little knowledge I have of the matter than bodybuilding websites do not encourage a reduction of fat intake but sugar. In fact, the body is used to burning sugar, so to switch to burning fat, you have to eat more fat than you do currently so that the body “adapts” to burning fat.
I mean… yeah if you eat more fat you will burn more fat cus thats where your calories are coming from. But its dietary fat. Not bodyfat. They’re correct that you shouldn’t be AFRAID of fat, but it isn’t some magical recipe for weight loss.
And the nutritional advice of bodybuilding websites is skewed towards what supplement companies want. They want you to believe you need to eat 6 meals a day so you’ll buy their little protein bars. That you need post-workout nutrition so you’ll buy their little shakes. The “eat fat” recommendation lets you rationalize consuming high calorie gainers (back in the day), and now high-fat protein bars and high-fat mixes like muscle-milk.
[edit] They also want you to hate sugar because they want to sell you sugar free snacks to replace your checkout-lane candy. Except their sugar free snacks always contain maltodextrine or some really really high-GI carb that is technically not a sugar according to the strict scientific definition. I actually don’t have a large problem with sugar, but they’re badmouthing it to capitalize on people’s fears. Though I have no idea why all manufacturers don’t just use non-sugar sugars in their mixes… there must be something weird going on with the industries.
Anyway, there is a reason I always ask for controlled studies… 
I don’t trust studies because people can skew results however they want. For every study supporting something, I’m quite sure you could find a study supporting the exact opposite. I prefer to use my logic and realize that people were eating fats and proteins for years and very little sugar and it wasn’t until we started introducing soy, trans fats, low fat products, hormones, antibiotics and chemicals that this crisis of obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, etc has metastasized! Plus, I feel good eating the way I do, as do hundreds of thousands of others. I eat Real Food like eggs, butter, cream, meats, veggies, fruits. No grains, no soy. I’ve lost weight, have more energy than I’ve ever had and as a Type I diabetic have been able to decrease my intake of insulin and stabilize my blood sugars. My doctor says my bloodwork is “better than perfect” and back when I was eating grains, low-fat dairy and processed foods, that was not the case. So I’m not sure any study would convince me I should do anything else.
That said, if someone is in good health doing something else, kudos to them. To each his own.
And p.s. that lady is not fat! I think she looks great. At any rate, I bet she’s got some killer good bloodwork!
Paleo man ate grains. At least some of them did. The human diet has historically been very, very diverse. High amounts of industrial processed trans fat (its categorically different from naturally ocurring trans fat) are about the only things in our diet that have not been there historically. And even trans fat, I am not convinced is bad for you. By all means err on the side of caution and avoid it, but the primary evidence for the “evils” of trans fat are epidemiological. The same kind of studies indict HFCS and saturated fats, which turn out to be just fine or even beneficial in controlled studies.
For what its worth, testing out individual dietary changes should be evaluated over the course of at least a couple of weeks. There are some dietary changes that you’ll be able to measure over days or even hours (lololol carbs), but then some can take months such as fish oil - depending on how much you take it can be a while before your cell walls reach peak w3 concentrations.
And yeah. If you’re concerned with how human beings ate and lived historically, that lady is fat. No paleo caveperson was walking around that fat. Only in our modern society can hyperobesity and loose clothing so drastically affect our perceptions of what “normal” is.
All about trans fats: http://www.westonaprice.org/images/pdfs/trifold-transfats2010.pdf
T****he USDA’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines came out early this year, and the soy industry is thrilled that “soy made the cut.”
By Kaayla T Daniel PhD, CCN
Soy products are cited twice in the executive summary of the report with the recommendation that all Americans increase their intake of soy products and fortified soy beverages. In the body of the report itself, soy milk appears right up there with low-fat and no-fat milks as good for us and to be drunk two or three times daily while processed soy products are touted as worthy meat equivalents. Vegetable oils — a code for soy oil in most cases — are recommended to “replace solid fats wherever possible.” This triple threat to public health can only be the work of the USDA in conjunction with the soy industry and other manufacturers of processed, packaged and junk foods.
Vegans too ought to be happy. There’s still dread animal flesh and “white blood” in the picture, but the USDA has kowtowed to vegan mythology, buying into their belief that vegan diets, if carefully planned, can be healthful. USDA even gives vegans their very own appendix, including specific dietary recommendations, including “fortified foods for some nutrients,” especially calcium and B12. What might those fortified foods be? Soy milk, energy bars, fake steaks, burgers and other processed, packaged foods tricked out as health foods.
Overall, there’s something for everyone who eats packaged, processed and fast foods, even chocoholics. The USDA actually considers fat-free chocolate milk to be a “nutrient dense food,” their phrase, not mine, and I am sorry to say I am not making any of this up.
So what might adopting soy milk, fake meats and vegetable oils mean to the health of the American public? Let’s look here at two of the USDA’s choices: fortified soy beveages, and soy proteins. For information about the inadvisability of vegetable oils, read “The Skinny on Fats,” “The Oiling of America” and other articles on this website.
SOY BEVERAGE
Soy beverage–popularly known as soy milk–is a lactose-free dairy substitute that marketers would have us believe has been drunk by healthy Asians since time immemorial. In fact, the earliest historical reference is 1866 and the Chinese did not traditionally value soy milk until vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists missionaries from America popularized it starting in the 1920s.
The soy milks sold in supermarkets and health food stores and recommended by the USDA are not exactly traditional soy products. In the good old days, soy milk-making began with a long soak. The softened beans were then ground on a stone grinder, using massive amounts of water. The mush then went into a cloth bag, was placed under a heavy rock, and pressed and squeezed until most of the liquid ran out. The soy paste was then boiled in fresh water. Large amounts of filthy scum that rose to the surface were carefully removed.
The modern method is faster, cheaper — and retains the scum. It speeds up the presoaking phase with the use of an alkaline solution, skips the squeezing and skimming steps, uses common fluoridated and chlorinated tap water, and cooks the soy paste in a pressure cooker. The speed comes at a cost: the high pH of the soaking solution followed by pressure cooking destroys key nutrients, including vitamins and the sulfur-containing amino acids and leaves toxic residues.
Taste, not nutrition, is what most concerns the soy industry, and the USDA as well if it plans to get Americans of all ages to swig two to three cups daily. The taste problem is the enzyme lipoxygenase, which oxidizes the polyunsaturated fatty acids in soy, causing the “beaniness” and rancidity. The industry’s attempted solutions have included high heat, pressure cooking and replacement of the traditional presoaking with a fast blanch in an alkaline solution of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). Major manufacturers have even “offed” the off flavors using a deodorizing process similar to that in oil refining, which involves passing cooked soy milk through a vacuum pan at extremely high temperatures in the presence of a strong vacuum.
To cover up any “beaniness” that remains, processors trot out sweeteners and flavorings. Almost all commercially sold soy milks contain barley malt, brown rice syrup, raw cane crystals or some other form of sugar. The higher the sugar, the higher the acceptability among consumers. Accordingly, most 8 ounce glasses of soy milk contain anywhere from four to sixteen grams (slightly less than 1 teaspoon to slightly more than 1 tablespoon). Flavors such as “plain” or “original” are almost always sweetened, although perceived by many consumers as unsweetened. Perhaps the USDA folks who came up with the guidelines thought so as well. Otherwise its recommendation of soy milk would not jive with its recommendation for consumers to cut back on sugar.
Eliminating the aftertaste in soy milk poses yet another challenge for food manufacturers. The undesirable sour, bitter and astringent characteristics come from oxidized phospholipids (rancid lecithin), oxidized fatty acids (rancid soy oil), the antinutrients called saponins and the plant estrogens known as isoflavones. The last are so bitter and astringent that they produce dry mouth. This has put the soy industry into a bit of a quandary. The only way it can make its soy milk please consumers is to remove some of the very toxins that it has assiduously promoted as cancer preventing and cholesterol lowering.
Note the USDA caveat that the soy milk be “fortified soy milk.” The reason is soy milk made with soybeans and water has such a poor nutritional profile that it must be fortified with calcium, vitamin D and other vitamins and minerals to compete with cow’s milk. Even in health-food store foods, these added supplements are cheap, mass-produced products. The soy milk industry puts vegetarian vitamin D2 in soymilk, even though the dairy industry quietly stopped adding this form of the vitamin years ago. Although any form of vitamin D helps people meet their RDAs (Recommended Daily Allowances), D2 has been linked to hyperactivity, coronary heart disease and allergic reactions. The USDA has singled out Vitamin D in these dietary guidelines as a special nutrient to keep in mind. Too bad it’s not specific enough about type.
In keeping with USDA approved lowfat diets, consumers may opt for the low fat — or “lite”– soymilks made with soy protein isolate (SPI), not the full-fat soybean. To improve both color and texture of these “healthier soy milks,” manufacturers work with a whole palette of additives, including colorants, flavorizers and texturizers.
Soy-milk derived products such as soy puddings, ice creams, yogurts, cottage cheese whipped “creams” and cheese substitutes also meet USDA guideline, but are even poorer choices, given ingredients such as carageenen, corn oil, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated fats and soy protein hydrolyzates.
Should we really be eating and drinking processed foods with ingredient lists like this? Soy milk has a reputation for being a simple, old fashioned food. It is not. Even Peter Golbitz of Soyatech has admitted this. “Soymilk is one of those unique food products that doesn’t exist naturally in nature, such as a fruit, vegetable or cow’s milk — it is, and always has been, a processed food. Since there are many options available to processors today in regards to process type, variety of soybean, type of sugar and an array of flavoring and masking additives, product formulators need real guidelines to follow to create winning products.” Too bad that the USDA is more interested in pushing “product formulations” than Mother Nature’s real foods.
MEAT ANALOGUES AND OTHER SOY PROTEIN PRODUCTS
The USDA supports all-American ingenuity. That’s the only positive reason I can think of for its recommendation of the ersatz meat products known in the food industry as “analogues.” Soy analogue products marketed over the years have had colorful names such as Soysage, Not Dogs, Fakin’ Bakin, Sham Ham, Soyloin, Veat, Wham, Tuno, Bolono and Foney Baloney. Although named after — and often made to look like — the familiar meat products they are meant to replace, taste testers tend to evaluate them as poor imitations at best. But thanks to food technology specialists and their lavish use of sugar and other sweeteners, salt, artificial flavorings, colorings, preservatives and MSG, more and more consumers are willing to tolerate these products, some solely because of their belief in alleged health benefits.
Manufactured using high heat and pressure, chemical solvents, acids and alkalis, extruders and other harsh tools, these USDA-approved meat substitutes are very likely to contain toxic or carcnogenic residues. This is also true of highly processed porducts using fractions of milk, eggs, meat, grains, oils or vegetables. The difference is that processed soy foods are billed as “health foods” whereas other processed foods are widely acknowledged to be what they are — junk foods that do not support health. The soy industry typically puts a positive spin on their products by claiming all the health benefits found in soy while insisting that levels of toxins are too low to pose any hazard to the consumer.
But risk is always a product of dose and duration of exposure. Vegans who favor soy protein, wheat gluten and other heavily processed plant protein products as their primary sources of protein are regularly exposed to relatively high levels of toxins. The usual suspects are nitrosamines, lysinoalanines, heterocyclic amines, excitotoxins, chlorpropanols, furanones, hexane and other solvents.
Let’s look now at how soy protein isolate and textured soy protein — two of the most common ingredients found in soy meat analogues – are manufactured.
SOY PROTEIN ISOLATE (SPI) is mixed with nearly every food product sold in today’s stores — energy bars, body builder powders, breakfast shakes, burgers and hot dogs. SPI is a highly refined product, heavily processed to remove “off flavors,” “beany“ tastes, and flatulence producers and to improve digestibility. Vitamin, mineral and protein quality, however, are sacrificed. Indeed soy isolates increase the requirements for vitamins E, K, D and B12. Among the minerals, phosphorous is poorly utilized, and calcium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, copper, iron and especially zinc deficiencies appear routinely in animals — including human animals — fed SPI as the primary source of protein in their diets. Soy protein isolates are also more deficient in sulfur-containing amino acids than other soy protein products. What’s increased during the production of SPI are levels of toxins and carcinogens such as nitrosamines and lysinoalanines.
The manufacture of SPI has always been a complicated, high-tech procedure. There’s nothing natural about it. It takes place in chemical factories, not kitchens. Although the manufacturing process varies, and some companies hold patents on key elements of the process, the basic procedure begins with defatted soybean meal, which is mixed with a caustic alkaline solution to remove the fiber, then washed in an acid solution to precipitate out the protein. The protein curds are then dipped into yet another alkaline solution and spray dried at extremely high temperatures.
SPI is often spun into protein fibers using technology borrowed from the textile industry. The only difference is that taste-enhancing and fiber-binding elements are incorporated into the fibers during processing. The process involves preparing a protein solution with a soy protein content of 10 to 50 percent at a very alkaline pH that is above 10. The solution is aged at about 121 degrees F until it becomes as viscous as honey at which point it is called ”spinning dope.” The dope is next forced through the holes of an extrusion device, coagulated with an acid bath, stretched long and thin, bound with edible binders such as starch, dextrins, gums, albumen and cellulose, and coated with fat flavor, color and other substances. The idea is to attain the fibrous “bite” of animal muscle meats.
For chunkier, less well-defined fibers, processor tend to prefer the Textured Soy Protein (TSP) process. Textured Soy Protein or Textured Vegetable Protein is sold as granules, particles and chunks and used by fast food companies and food processors as a meat substitute or extender for chili, spaghetti sauce, tacos, sloppy joes and other strongly spiced recipes. It’s been big in the USDA school lunch programs since 1971.
Here’s how it’s made: First force defatted soy flour through a machine with a spiral tapered screw called an extruder under conditions of such extreme heat and pressure that the very structure of the soy protein is changed. What comes out is a dried out, fibrous, and textured alien protein product that can survive just about anything that a food processor might later do to it. Then add red or brown colors and flavorings before texturization, drying and packaging.
Soy protein extrusion differs little from extrusion technology used to produce starch-based packing materials, fiber-based industrial products or plastic toy parts, bowls and plates. The difference is that extruded foods such as TSP are designed to be reconstituted with water, at which point they resemble ground beef or stew meat. Processing always leaves s toxic residues and TSP furthermore requires using natural and artificial flavors and MSG if it’s going to taste anything like ham, chicken or beef.
In conclusion, the USDA sure has an interesting idea of what constitutes healthy proteins. Bringing soy front and center in the new food guidelines will feed the profits required by Big Pfood. Big Pharm is surely happy as well as this latest USDA food fix isn’t going to solve any of our great American health crises soon.
Complete references for the information on soy products contained in this blog can be found in my book The Whole Soy Story:The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food (New Trends, 2005), particularly chapters 6-9, 11 and 14,
http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/2011/02/14/the-usda’s-new-dietary-guidelines-2/
That’s not a study. That’s propaganda.
And what you posted is also not a study. It is also propaganda. It consists of bashing non-specific soy products. Yes, of course there will be unhealthy products like drinks and bars made from soy. There are unhealthy products made from just about all types of food. So what? This is not an argument against soy in itself.
But apparently “references”, which I doubt will be controlled studies, can be found if you buy this chick’s book. Lol. Hey dude I have an opinion but u gotta buy my book to see the sources.
What it comes down to is that you don’t like it when other people say “Do X”, so you say “Don’t do X”. Except there’s a third option, and in nutrition it is actually the correct option 99% of the time. Which is “X is not a big deal”. There is no particular reason to go out of your way to get soy, and there’s no real reason to avoid it (within reason).
In fact, since low-fat soy milk is so freaking volumous for the amount of calories you get, it rivals vegetables for caloric density. I want to see a diet called GOSAD (Gallon of Soymilk a Day; parody of GOMAD) for weight loss. It is nearly impossible to consume large quantities of low-fat soy milk, even in conjunction with other foods.
(Btw I make this recommendation just for laughs - cus I think it will work, but there are more eloquent ways to achieve dietary success)
All the references can be found here: http://www.westonaprice.org/soy-alert
This forum is filled by nasty people. How many of you are Federal plants?
First, I didn’t see any controlled studies. You can use epidemiology to prove ANYTHING. I see studies on rats. I see studies talking about “potential” health problems. And they’re all masquerading as studies that are supposed to prove that regular human beings should avoid soy. Lol.
Would you listen to me if I linked you hundreds of studies showing a “correlation” between saturated fat intake and obesity/high blood pressure/diabetes? Hmm? Would you listen to me if I showed you a controlled and well conducted study showing that Soy improves health markers?
No. Because you’re an ideologue. Sheesh.
This forum is filled with people who do not swallow BS just because you can spam a bunch of TLDR links to the same propaganda website. And its ironic that you
Here, I will troll you. I’m going to innocently punch in some search terms in “Google Scholar” and give you the first 3 links. This should be pretty unbiased.
Search “Soy Cholesterol”:
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A metastudy concluding that Soy lowers LDL cholesterol
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An epidemiological study concluding that Soy lowers serum cholesterol.
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A CONTROLLED (yay!) study concluding that Soy improves cholesterol and mineral density in the spine in post menopausal women.
Search “Soy Weight Loss”
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A CONTROLLED (yay again!) study showing that a high-soy protein and LOW FAT diet preserves muscle mass during weight loss
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A controlled study concluding that Soy meal replacements are highly effective at controlling blood sugar and promoting weight loss in type II diabetic patients.
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A controlled study similar to the above but in “regular” obese people. Similar weight loss and health marker benefits.
Search “Soy Cancer”
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A metastudy concluding that soy has protective effects against cancer development
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A journal article explaining anti-carcinogenic effects of Soy.
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An epidemiological study observing that soy is effective at preventing breast and prostate cancers.
Wow! Would you look at that. I just gave you a whole bunch of evidence that soy is actually not that bad. Are you going to ignore it? Yes. Are you going to spam me with more of your TLDR garbage from your westonaprice website? Yes. It doesn’t make a difference to you. You want to believe what you want to believe. This is some sort of weird cultural battle for you. It has nothing to do with intellectual honesty or finding out the truth.
Yeah we don’t need people like you on mises.org.
Sieben, the Foundation state that soy, in moderate quantities, properly fermented and then unpasteurized is good for you so long as it isn’t from GMO sources.
The problem is, that modern soy is highly processed, unfermented and from GMO sources and eaten in vast quantities. Each of those things is the opposite to how soy is consumed in the east, where its fermented form is used first and foremost as a probiotic to aid digestion. It is not used in the East as a protein replacement. In Japan, they have fish and in China they have pork for that purpose.
So of course you will find beneficial elements of soy, and, amongst the bad aspects of modern soy, positive benefits can be isolated, but that is not to say that modern, procesed, GMO soy is bad for you in vast quantities.
You see, some problems are non-linear.
Yeah. She isn’t actually making ANY arguments against Soy, and yet the article has Soy in the title. Virtually ALL processed foods fit the same profile she is complaining about. Here - she writes:
“Soy-milk derived products such as soy puddings, ice creams, yogurts, cottage cheese whipped “creams” and cheese substitutes also meet USDA guideline, but are even poorer choices, given ingredients such as carageenen, corn oil, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated fats and soy protein hydrolyzates.”
Wow. Soy products are FAR from the only ones that contain these evil ingredients. Soy is not even the worst offender. And even if Soy is included with all these bad ingredients, what’s the net? Do the pros from Soy outweigh the evils from corn oil? Does she check? Does she even include it as a possibility? Nope. No controlled studies. Not even any lip service. Its just a big TLDR rant that fits yours and her cultural agenda. Its a joke.
Btw HFCS is surprisingly unproblemmatic. Its just that when you use epidemiological studies and use buzzwords like “processed” in place of real arguments like a HACK, you can conclude a lot of crazy stuff. But yeah I’m glad she’s around to be your thug to beat up all the cultures you don’t like (vegans).
Yeah you’re going to have to show a specific controlled study where this is the case. I’m not digging through hundreds of that crazy lady’s “studies” on rats and research reviews that say “maybe soy could be bad” - all of which she uses as evidence that soy IS bad for humans.
The same is true of ALL processed foods. It is not because Soy is bad, or because saturated fats or fructose are bad. It is because when you eat garbage + anything, its bad for you. Except for some reason you have to single out soy because it fits your nutritional agenda.
You see, you ignored all the studies, especially the controlled studies, which used “processed” soy.
Hey Siebien, go fry your testicals with the phyto-oestrogens in soy, or increase your chances of breast cancer if you are a female. Be my guest. Go drink and lap down the delicious, nutritious, GMO, processed soy products grown by Monsanto with so much roundup pesticide that you will never go wanting for it. Enjoy your fate, or your paycheck.
And of course, your ancestors, for millions of years have been fully wrong about animal fats, and you are right about low fat processed foods. Of course, we survived and faught cave bears and survived an ice age as a species because we had terrible high fat diets.
Heck, I bet cave men would, if they were around now, desire your low fat, soy food, pesticide rich nutrition wisdom, because maybe that is what they really should have had. Yes, Paleolithic man would have been far better with MSG instead of salt, aspartame instead of honey, veg oil and margarine rather than full fat dairy.
Thank goodness I found you, for my common sense had mislead me.
That’s not what phyto-estrogens do. They bind to estrogen receptors and exert a very mild agonist effect. You will NEVER find anyone getting… oh… I don’t know… gyno from eating soy. That’s because it simply isn’t a big deal.
I actually cited a study that showed Soy decreaesd your risk of cancers, including breast and prostate cancer. I TOLD you you’d ignore it.
I don’t think eating pesticides is a good idea. Then again, pesticides aren’t really specific to Soy.
Oh great. Now we’re on to straw mans. It doesn’t matter to you that I never wrote a word against high fat diets. You’re going to lump me in with your perceived enemies. Good job.
I also never said “Soy was good”. I’m just pointing out that there are studies saying the opposite of what you’re saying. If you read me carefully (impossible, I know), I said that in nutrition the correct answer is usually “X is not a big deal”. Soy is not a big deal. Saturated fat is not a big deal. Stop masturbating about it.
Quote me advocating any of these things. You’re straw manning me so hard so you don’t have to engage what I’m actually saying. Please, continue talking past me. Don’t rebut any of my claims or evidence. Lolololol
You won’t listen to me. You know why? Because you want to beat up on other people. You’re a bully. You want to beat up on Vegans. You want to beat up on the low-fat crowd. You want to beat up on anyone who doesn’t tell you what you want to hear. You’re a complete basket case.
Babies fed soy-based formula have 13,000 to 22,000 times more estrogen compounds in their blood than babies fed milk-based formula.
Infants exclusively fed soy formula receive the estrogenic equivalent (based on body weight) of at least five birth control pills per day.
Sieben, you claim that pesticides are not common to Soy, yet 2/3 of the USA crop is genetically engineered to be Roundup Ready so it can be soaked in excess pesticide.
The low fat crowd?! That would be THE GOVERNMENT and those stupid enough to believe the industry propaganda they act as proxy for.
Source? If that were true, wouldn’t they go into premature puberty?