The Whole Soy Story

Steve Jobs died October 5, and the animal rights organization PETA  stepped right up to honor him as a vegetarian who was deeply committed to animal welfare and the environment.  PETA, of course,  has yet to acknowledge the role that Jobs’s near vegan diet may have played in his death, and continues to maintain that their particular brand of “right eating” will virtually guarantee freedom from cancer and other major health problems.

When I blogged about this topic in October,  I promised I would follow up once I learned more about Jobs’s dietary habits from Walter Isaacson’s biography Steve Jobs (Simon & Schuster, 2011).   This column delivers on that promise.

The bullet points below include every reference to diet in the entire book, followed by page numbers.  My brief comments are found at the very end.

• Jobs came to appreciate organic fruits and vegetables as a teenager when a neighbor taught him how to be a good organic gardener and to compost. (14)

• Between his sophomore and junior hear of high school, he began smoking marijuana regularly and by his senior year was dabbling in LSD as well as exploring the mind bending effect of sleep deprivation. (18-19)

• Toward the end of his senior year in high school, he began his “lifelong experiments with compulsive diets, eating only fruits and vegetables so he was as lean and tight as a whippet.”  (31)

• He attended the love festivals at the local Hare Krishna temple, and went to the Zen center for free vegetarian meals. (35)

• During his freshman year at college he went to the Zen center for free vegetarian meals and was greatly influenced by the book Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe.   At that point, he swore off meat for good and began embracing extreme diets, which included purges, fasts or eating only one or two foods , such as carrots or apples for weeks on end.  (36)

• For awhile at college, Jobs lived on Roman Meal cereal.   He would buy a box, which would last a week, then flats of dates, almonds and a lot of carrots.   He made carrot juice with a Champion juicer, and at one point turned “a sunset-like orange hue.”  (36)

• His dietary habits became more obsessive when he read the Mucusless Diet Healing System by Arnold Ehret.     Jobs then favored eating nothing but fruits and starchless vegetables, which he said prevented the body from forming harmful mucus, and determined to regularly cleanse his body through prolonged fasts.   That meant the end of his consumption of Roman Meal cereal — or any bread, grains, or milk.     At one point, he spent an entire week eating only apples, and then began to try even purer fasts.  He started with two-day fasts and eventually stretched them out to a week or more, breaking them with large amounts of water and leafy vegetables.    “After a week, you start to feel fantastic,” he said.  “You get a ton of vitality from not having to digest all this food.  I was in great shape  I felt I could get up and walk to San Francisco anytime I wanted.”   (36)

• As a $5 an hour technician at Atari, he was known as “a hippie with b.o.” and “impossible to deal with.”   He clung to the belief that his fruit-heavy vegetarian diet would prevent not just mucus but also body odor.   As Isaacson writes “It was a flawed theory.” (43)

• “He was doing a lot of soul-searching about being adopted .  . .  (with) the primal scream and the mucusless diets, he was trying to cleanse himself and get deeper into his frustration about his birth.”  (51)

• He was a fan of the Whole Earth Catalog and particularly taken by the final issue, which came out in 1971 when he was still in high school.   On the back cover it said “Stay Hungry.  Stay Foolish.” (59)

• The name Apple Computers came to him when he was on one of his fruitarian diets.  “I had just come back from the apple farm.  It sounded fun, spirited and not intimidating.   Apple took the edge off the word ‘computer.’”  (63)

• His mother Clara Jobs didn’t mind losing most of her house to piles of computer parts and house guests, but she was frustrated by her son’s increasingly quirky diets.  She would roll her eyes at his latest eating obsessions.  She just wanted him to be healthy, and he would be making weird pronouncements like, “I’m a fruitarian and I will only eat leaves picked by virgins in the moonlight.”  (68)

• He was still convinced against all evidence that his vegan diet meant that he didn’t need to use a deodorant or take regular showers.   .  .  .   At meetings people had to look at his dirty feet. Sometimes to relieve stress, he would soak his feet in the toilet.  (82)

• A colleague who recommended he bathe more often was told that “in exchange” he  would have to read fruitarian diet books.  “Steve was adamant that he bathed once a week, and that was adequate as long as he was eating a fruitarian diet.” (82-83)

• In 1979 or so he “put aside drugs, eased away from being a strict vegan, and cut back the time he spent on Zen retreats.”   (91)

• He decreed that the sodas in the office refrigerator be replaced by Odwalla organic orange and carrot juices.”   (118)

• The kitchen was stocked daily with Odwalla juices (142)

• At the launch of the Lisa computer in 1983, he ate a special vegan meal at the Four Seasons restaurant.  (152)

• He had edged away from his strict vegan diet for the time being and ate vegetarian omelets. (155)

• In 1984 in Italy, Jobs demanded a vegan meal and became extremely angry when the waiter very elaborately proceeded to dish out a sauce filled with sour cream.  (185)

• The menu for his 30th birthday day celebration included goat cheese and salmon mousse. (189)

• He had a lot of mannerisms.  He bit his nails.   His hands were “slightly and inexplicably yellow” and in constant motion. (223)

• At a meal with Mitch Kapor,  the chairman of Lotus software, Jobs was horrified to see Kapor slathering butter on his bread,” and asked, “Have you ever heard of serum cholesterol?”   Kapor responded, “I’ll make you a deal. You stay away from commenting on my dietary habits, and I will stay away from the subject of your personality.”  (224)

• At a 1988 NeXT product launch, the lunch menu included  mineral water, croissants, cream cheese, bean sprouts. (233)

• Jobs was a vegetarian and so was Chrisann, the mother of his daughter Lisa.  Lisa was not vegetarian, but Jobs was fine with that.   “Eating chicken became her little indulgence as she shuttled between two parents who were vegetarians with a spiritual regard for natural foods.”  Jobs’s “dietary fixations came in fanatic waves,” and he was “fastidious”  about what he ate.  Lisa watched him “spit out a mouthful of soup one day after learning that it contained butter.” (259-260)

• “Even at a young age Lisa began to realize his diet obsessions reflected a life philosophy, one in which asceticism and minimalism could heighten subsequent sensations.  “He believed that great harvests came from arid sources, pleasure from restraint.  He knew the equations that most people didn’t know:  Things led to their opposites.”   (259-260)

• Once he took Lisa on a business trip to Tokyo and they stayed at the Okura Hotel.   At the elegant downstairs sushi bar, Jobs ordered large trays of unagi sushi, a dish he loved so much that he allowed the warm cooked eel to pass muster as vegetarian.    Lisa later wrote, “It was the first time, I’d felt with him, so relaxed and content, over those trays of meat; the excess, the permission and warmth after the cold salads, meant a once inaccessible space had opened.  He was less rigid with himself, even human under the great ceilings with the little chairs with the meat and me.”  (260-261)

• Jobs had hired a hip young couple who had once worked at Chez Panisse as housekeepers and vegetarian cooks (264)

• At his wedding to Laurene Powell, the cake was in the shape of Yosemite’s Half Dome.  It was strictly vegan and more than a few of the guest found it inedible.  (274)

• “Since his early teens, he had indulged his weird obsession with extremely restrictive diets and fasts.  Even after he married and had children, he retained his dubious eating habits.   He would spend weeks eating the same thing — carrot salad with lemon, or just apples — and then suddenly spurn that food and declare that he had stopped eating it.  He would go on fasts, just as he did as a teenager and he became sanctimonious as he lectured others at the table on the virtues of whatever eating regimen he was following.”  (477)

• Jobs’s wife ,Laurene Powell, had been a vegan when they first married, but after her husband’s first cancer operation, the partial Whipple procedure, she began to diversify the family meals with fish and other proteins.  Their son, Reed, who had been a vegetarian, became a “hearty omnivore.”  They knew it was important for Steve to get diverse sources of protein. (477)

• In early 2008, Jobs’s eating disorders got worse.   On some nights he would stare at the floor and ignore all of the dishes set out on the long kitchen table.  He lost 40 pounds during the spring of 2008.

• Dr James Eason “would even stop at the convenience store to get the energy drinks Jobs liked.” (485)

• He remained a finicky eater, which was more of a problem than ever.  He would eat only fruit smoothies and he would demand that seven or eight of them be lined up so he could find an option that might satisfy him.  He would touch the spoon to his mouth for a tiny taste and pronounce  ‘That’s no good.  That one’s no good either.’”   His doctor  lectured him: “You know this isn’t a matter of taste.  Stop thinking of this as food.  Start thinking of it as medicine.” (486)

• Early in 2010, Jobs went to dinner and ordered a mango smoothie and plain vegan pasta.  (505)

• At the launch of the  iPad2, Isaacson reported “For a change he was eating, though still with some pickiness.  He ordered fresh squeezed juice, which he sent back three times, declaring that each new offering was from a bottle, and a pasta primavera which he shoved away as inedible after one taste.   But then he ate half of my crab Louise salad and ordered a full one for himself followed by a bowl of ice cream.”  (527)

• Jobs’s eating problems were exacerbated over the years by his psychological attitude toward food.  When he was young, he learned that he could induce euphoria and ecstasy by fasting.   So even though he knew that he should eat — his doctors were begging him to consume high-quality protein — lingering in the back of his subconscious, he admitted was his instinct for fasting and for diets like Arnold Ehret’s fruit regimen that he had embraced as a teenager.  Powell kept telling him it was crazy. ‘I wanted him to force himself to eat,’ she said ‘and it was incredibly tense at home.’”  (548-549)

• Bryar Brown, their part-time cook would produce an array of healthy dishes, but Jobs would touch his tongue to one or two and then dismiss them all as inedible.  One evening he announced, “I could probably eat a little pumpkin pie,” and the even-tempered Brown created a beautiful pie from scratch in an hour.  Jobs ate only one bite, but Brown was thrilled.”  (549)

• During the final years of his life, Powell talked to eating disorder specialists and psychiatrists to try to get help, but her husband shunned them.   (549)

That’s it.    Not a lot to work with, but more than enough to show a longstanding pattern of eating disorders.

On the plus side, Jobs’s diet seems to  have been consistently organic and high quality.    He employed chefs who’d worked at Chef Panisse, and his wife Laurene Powell founded Terravera, a company that produces ready-to-eat organic meals for stores in northern California.    Jobs does not appear to have ever been a junk-food vegan who indulged in all-American junk foods such as soda, chocolate, cookies and crackers.

Soy is not mentioned at all in Isaacson’s biography.   Although the Apple culture was soy friendly with soy milk readily available in vending machines and at coffee stations, Jobs himself may well have rejected it.   Jobs had a longstanding fascination with the book The Mucusless Diet Healing System by Arnold Ehret (1866-1922), who claimed the human body is an “air-gas engine” that runs well only on fruits, starchless vegetables and edible green leaves.   Soy and other legumes, according to Ehret’s way of thinking, were to be disdained as mucus-producing forbidden foods.   Ehret not only condemned protein and fat as “unnatural” but said they could not be used by the body.   Inspired by such theories, Jobs appears to have eaten a diet low in both fat and protein for most of his life.  And what did he eat instead?  Carbs high in fructose.

Whether or not Jobs was in one of his fanatic fruitarian phases, he favored a lot of fruit and fruit juice.   These are not only high on the glycemic index, but loaded with fructose.   Fruits and fruit juices greatly stress the liver and pancreas, contribute to diabetes and many other blood sugar disorders, and have been linked to pancreatic cancer.   Jobs suffered from a type of pancreatic cancer known as islet cell carcinoma, which originates in the insulin-secreting beta cells.

Research published in the November 2007 issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded there was “evidence for a greater pancreatic cancer risk with a high intake of fruit and juices but not with a high intake of sodas.”   More recently, in the August 2010 issue of Cancer Research, Dr. Anthony Healy of UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center proposed that aberrant fructose metabolism — and not just aberrant glucose metabolism — might be involved in the pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer.   Seems fructose provides the raw material cancer cells prefer to use to make the DNA they need to divide and proliferate.    Although the UCLA findings are preliminary and more research needs to be done, the Reuters headline “Cancer Cells Slurp Up Fructose” is fair warning to all of us addicted to fruit and fruit juices.

Clearly Jobs broke away  from strict veganism from time to time and indulged in a few eggs, salmon and unagi sushi.   The words of his daughter Lisa (quoted above) provide a moving testimony to how well Jobs’s body and mind responded to eating eel, a fish rich in protein and fat.   That said, vegans who would like to think Jobs became sick because he failed to be “perfect vegan” now have evidence to support that belief.

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is The Naughty Nutritionist™ because of her ability to outrageously and humorously debunk nutritional myths. A popular guest on radio and television, she has appeared on The Dr Oz Show, ABC’s View from the Bay, NPR’s People’s Pharmacy and numerous other shows. Dr Daniel is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food, a popular speaker at Wise Traditions and other conferences,  Vice President  of the Weston A. Price Foundation and recipient of its 2005 Integrity in Science Award. Her website is www.naughtynutritionist.com and she can be reached at Kaayla@DrKaaylaDaniel.com.

Can soy be used as an aid to celibacy?    Is it true that Zen monks eat soy because naughty behavior goes down when tofu consumption goes up?  Do Japanese wives feed unfaithful husbands extra helpings of soy?    Could politicians with the “zipper problem” keep their naughty bits better under control if they consumed enough soy?

Anecdotally, the answer is, yes, and a fair amount of science backs it up.  To date, many studies show that soy’s estrogenic isoflavones interfere with the production and usage of testosterone in the body.   Some evidence points to soy as a feminizing influence that can lead to  gynecomastia (man breasts).   And there’s massive evidence of reproductive toxicity.

The latest news is a case study in the journal Nutrition. The subject is a 19-year-old heterosexual man who become vegan, began consuming a lot of soy,  and, soon after, experienced loss of libido and erectile dysfunction.   Prior to adopting veganism, he had an active sex life with no reported problems.

Lab assessment revealed low levels of free and total testosterone with increased levels of DHEA.   During the year prior to this workup, the young man’s diet had packed a whopping punch of soy isoflavones, averaging 360 mg per day, from soy milk, soy crisps, tofu, soy sauce, soy nuts and edamame.   This level of soy consumption is far above average, yet increasingly common these days as people quit meat and dairy products for soy substitutes.   Prior to becoming vegan, the man had been on a Standard American Diet (SAD).  After discontinuing his vegan diet and eliminating soy foods altogether, he noticed a gradual improvement in  sexual function over the course of a year and his lab tests revealed  gradual normalization of testosterone and DHEA levels.

The researchers conclude with the usual caveat “more studies are needed.”  Yes, indeed, and as soy consumption increases, doctors and other health practitioners will most likely report many such cases.   Let’s hope future studies focus on women as well as men, and include a study on the link between sex, soy and vulvodynia.   What to do now?   The science may not be entirely in, but the message is already clear:  “If you love and respect your naughty bits, Practice Safe Soy.”

To read the study:

Hypogonadism and erectile dysfunction associated with soy product consumption.Siepmann T, Roofeh J, Kiefer FW, Edelson DG.Nutrition. 2011 Jul-Aug;27(7-8):859-62. Epub 2011 Feb 25.

For more about soy and reproduction, including citations, read chapter 29 of  The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food. For information on how much soy is safe to eat, visit: www.naughtynutritionist.com/naughtynutritionist.com/Practice_Safe_Soy.html

Thanks to Sylvia Onusic for alerting me to this article.

Steve Jobs died this week, and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is lifting a tall glass of carrot juice to his memory.   That’s what Jobs gave out to trick or treaters one Halloween, and PETA reminds us not only of that, but of some of the many  other positive steps Jobs took for health and the environment.   Jobs played a role in Disney’s 2006 decision not to renew its Happy Meal toy deal with McDonalds, for example, and more recently decided to “green up” Apple’s manufacturing operations in China and elsewhere.

Sadly PETA and other vegetarian groups have chosen to honor Jobs’s commitment to animal welfare and the environment without acknowledging the role that his vegan or near vegan diet may have played in his death.

I say “may have played” because none of us knows what caused the  pancreatic cancer that led to Steve Jobs’s  death.   Diet doubtless played a role, but lifestyle factors, environmental toxicity and genetic proclivities would have contributed as well.  Certainly, Jobs was exposed over the years to massive bombardment from WiFi and other electromagnetic fields (EMFs).   Medical treatments involving radiation, chemotherapy, a modified Whipple surgery, a liver transplant and immuno-suppressive drugs may also have contributed to his demise.

It’s human nature to look for something, or someone, to blame whenever someone dies too young, but the answers are rarely clear cut.   At best, blaming provides simplistic answers, and at worst can be a juvenile “I told you so.”   Not long after Jobs’s death on Wednesday, readers began asking me to comment on Jobs’s death and how his diet — and especially soy — might have contributed to it.  In fact, I never met Jobs and have no first hand knowledge of what he ate.

Based on media reports in Forbes and Fortune, however, Jobs seems to have favored organic foods and a plant-based diet.   A Google search turns up lots of claims that he was “vegan,” one reference to “fruitarian leanings” the possibility that he tried healing  through macrobiotics, a few people saying he was “pescatarian,” and a satire of his vegan ways on  www.MacComedy.com.   A posting this week on  www.scienceblog.com, by “Mike” says: “There might be some truth to Jobs being a vegan .  .  .   I was at Apple during the time Jobs came back to Apple in 1996/1997.  The company cafeteria within weeks of his returning dramatically expanded and improved its vegetarian and vegan menus.”   Finally, Jobs was often reported dining at The Greens restaurant in San Francisco with Dean Ornish, MD, bestselling author and promoter of extremely low-fat, plant-based dietary regimens.

None of the articles and websites I’ve seen talk about Jobs’s soy consumption, but Sean Glazier, a programmer from the Netherlands who often consulted in the Silicon Valley, contacted me Thursday.   Glazier reports that the Apple environment was extremely vegan friendly, with soy milk flowing freely at coffee stations, Silk soymilk for sale in vending machines, and soy meats served up in company cafeterias.  Jobs ordered catered meals for meetings and there were always soy options.   “During the 90’s especially, I am sure Steve ate plenty of soy products.”

With the timely release of Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography Steve Jobs on October 24, we may learn more about Jobs’s dietary and lifestyle preferences.

Presuming Jobs ate a fair amount of soy, the question is, how might it have affected his health?   Again, hard to say, given our  lack of information about dose and duration.  If we look to science, the studies on soy and cancer development are inconsistent and often contradictory.  Soy sometimes prevents cancer but also can cause, contribute to or accelerate the growth of cancer.   Soy isoflavones have been proven to be mutagenic, clastogenic and teratogenic, and are listed as “carcinogens” in many toxicology textbooks, including the American Chemical Society’s 1976 Chemical Carcinogens. In addition, modern industrial soy processing techniques used to make soy protein isolate, textured vegetable protein and other modern soy products create toxic and carcinogenic residues   Finally, soybeans naturally contain goitrogens, allergens, protease inhibitors and other antinutrients and toxins that damage the digestive, immune and neuroendocrine systems, putting consumers at increase risk for many health problems, including cancer.   These facts led the Solae Company in 2005 to withdraw a petition to the FDA, in which the company had requested  a soy/cancer health claim.  (To read WAPF’s request for denial, go to: http://www.westonaprice.org/2004-action-alerts/2004jul11). Yet the soy industry and vegan proponents persist in touting soy as a safe, proven and all-natural cancer answer.

In terms of pancreatic cancer, the protease inhibitors in soy protein interfere with protein digestion, put stress on the pancreas and cause hyperplasia and hypertrophy.   Animal studies indicate soy-heavy diets can cause pancreatic cancers that originate in the exocrine cells that produce digestive enzymes.  About 95 percent of pancreatic cancers are exocrine cancers, the type that felled actors Michael Landon and Patrick Swayze.   Steve Jobs, however, suffered from a much rarer, neuroendocrine form of pancreatic cancer.    Known as islet cell carcinoma, this type represents only about five percent of pancreatic cancers, and originates in the insulin-secreting beta cells.

Soy couldn’t possibly have helped Jobs, and may have contributed to his cancer’s development, but without additional information it would inappropriate to blame his cancer on soy.  But it is fair to say that years before diagnosis he would probably have suffered from subclinical malnutrition if, in fact, he’d been on a low-fat, plant-based diet that included a lot of soy.   Lab testing likely would have turned up deficiencies in vitamins A, D, K, B2, B6 and B12; the sulfur-containing amino acids, methionine, cysteine and taurine; DHA and EFA fatty acids; and calcium, zinc, carnitine and CoQ10.  Such deficiencies are commonly found in vegan and near-vegan clients.  They neither build the body nor allow detoxification, and so  set the stage for the development of cancer and other chronic illnesses.

Most alternative MDs and health practitioners find serious illness among vegans in their clinical practices, yet PETA and other vegan groups dismiss the idea that non-junk food vegan diets cause nutritional deficiencies and blame animal products alone for the ills of civilization.   PETA also wildly, nakedly and bloodily –many would say crudely and offensively — promotes the myth of healthy, sexy vegans.

Similar ideas — more soberly presented — come from the  Physicians Committee on Responsible Medicine,  whose “Cancer Project”promotes cancer prevention via a low-fat, high-soy vegan diet.   The fact that this perfect prescription didn’t work for Jobs, Linda McCartney or many other prominent vegetarians does not seem to stop these “responsible physicians” from continuing to make irresponsible health guarantees.

Could anything have saved Steve Jobs?   No way to know, but I think he would have had his best shot at recovery with Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez in New York City.   Dr. Gonzalez has an impressive track record of helping people recover from pancreatic and other cancers.  He prescribes specific diets and supplement programs based on extensive interviews and labwork.    To learn more about his programs, listen to this fascinating interview with Dr Joseph Mercola and Dr. Gonzalez:  http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/09/dr-nicholas-gonzalez-on-steve-jobs.aspx?e_cid=20111009_SNL_Art_1

Would Jobs  have been best served by a traditional diet that contained ample amounts of fat, cholesterol and even red meat?   Would a more modest amount of animal foods have better suited him?   Might he have been one of the few people who thrives on a carefully designed diet high in fruit and vegetables and low in animal foods?    Had he been a patient of Dr. Gonzalez, Jobs would have learned the code to a well-designed, high-functioning iJobs diet.   As it stands, the one thing we know for sure is Steve Jobs is dead.   Sadly, his diet did not save him.

*  *  *  *  *

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is The Naughty Nutritionist^TM because of her ability to outrageously and humorously debunk nutritional myths. A popular guest on radio and television, she has appeared on The Dr Oz Show, ABC’s View from the Bay, NPR’s People’s Pharmacy and numerous other shows. . Dr Daniel is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food, a popular speaker at Wise Traditions and other conferences, Vice President of the Weston A. Price Foundation and recipient of its 2005 Integrity in Science Award.  To read more of her work, visit  www.naughtynutritionist.com.

Hello: I  have 2 vegans in my household and they eat quite a bit of commercial soy (meatless) products. Are there any, that you know of that I could order or buy that have been processed correctly so that it is not harmful. I am very, very interested in reading your book and have ordered it!  Thank you, Mary

Dear Mary, The only soy products that are truly healthy for your family to eat are old-fashioned fermented products miso, natto and tempeh.   A little tofu once in awhile would also not be a problem.   Modern industrially processed products — including soy milk, soy nuts  as well as veggie burgers, energy bars or other products using soy protein isolate and similar modern soy ingredients definitely pose risks.  Vegans are a high risk group because so many consume excess amounts of soy and use it as both meat and dairy replacement.

I recommend your family closely read  The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith, not only for its discussion of soy but of the deficiencies of vegan diets in general.    My book The Whole Soy Story discusses the specific risks of soy in great depth.   Thank you for already ordering it.    Good luck to you and your family.

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is The Naughty Nutritionist™ because of her ability to outrageously and humorously debunk nutritional myths. A popular guest on radio and television, she has appeared on The Dr Oz Show, ABC’s View from the Bay, NPR’s People’s Pharmacy and numerous other shows. Her own radio show, “Naughty Nutrition with Dr. Kaayla Daniel” debuted this spring on World of Women (WOW) Radio. Dr Daniel is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food, a popular speaker at Wise Traditions and other conferences, a Board Member of the Weston A. Price Foundation and recipient of its 2005 Integrity in Science Award. Her website is www.naughtynutritionist.com and she can be reached at Kaayla@DrKaaylaDaniel.com.

Dear Kaayla, I am so terribly sorry to hear about the deaths of Richard and Valerie James. That is truly devastating news. What an amazing legacy they have left behind for the world. A testimony to the people they were I am sure.  I got very sick a few years ago and have turned to nutrition to help set me aright. Yet, something that should seemingly be easy (i.e. figuring out what to eat) is actually a very daunting task. After working with a nutritionist here in the U.S. for months and after reading her assigned reading (mainly The China Study and Dr. Robert Young’s alkaline diet books) I went vegan, because the case presented was so compelling. But then I get newsletters from Dr. Mercola’s website condemning veganism with many testimonies and studies backing him up as well. It all becomes so overwhelming. I find myself throwing my hands up in the air asking myself, “Who do I listen to? Who is right?” Ah! I suppose, the answer is, I listen to my own body. And my body certainly does not do well with soy. I am cutting it out completely. I am terrified that a food could have such a nasty effect on human health, and even more shocked that soy is sold as a “health food.”  Thank you for your help .    – Cathy

Dear Cathy,   Many people have been led astray nutritionwise because of the growing fashionability of vegan diets and increasing numbers of vegan nutritionists.    You might be interested in reading some articles about the multiple ways T. Colin Campbell misued science and statistics in  The China Study. You can start with  Chris Masterjohn’s  blog  on the westonaprice.org website.   In addition, do check out Denise Minger’s work.  If you google “China Study” and “Denise Minger” the articles and discussion pages should come right up.   To sum it up, Masterjohn and Minger do a convincing job of discrediting Campbell.

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is The Naughty Nutritionist™ because of her ability to outrageously and humorously debunk nutritional myths. A popular guest on radio and television, she has appeared on The Dr Oz Show, ABC’s View from the Bay, NPR’s People’s Pharmacy and numerous other shows. Her own radio show, “Naughty Nutrition with Dr. Kaayla Daniel” debuted this spring on World of Women (WOW) Radio. Dr Daniel is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food, a popular speaker at Wise Traditions and other conferences, a Board Member of the Weston A. Price Foundation and recipient of its 2005 Integrity in Science Award. Her website is www.naughtynutritionist.com and she can be reached at Kaayla@DrKaaylaDaniel.com.

The USDA’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines came out early this year, and the soy industry is thrilled that “soy made the cut.”
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 even though I am a Naughty Nutritionist™,  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.

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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,

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is The Naughty Nutritionist™ because of her ability to outrageously and humorously debunk nutritional myths. A popular guest on radio and television, she has appeared on The Dr Oz Show, ABC’s View from the Bay, NPR’s People’s Pharmacy and numerous other shows. Her own radio show, “Naughty Nutrition with Dr. Kaayla Daniel” debuted this spring on World of Women (WOW) Radio. Dr Daniel is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food, a popular speaker at Wise Traditions and other conferences, a Board Member of the Weston A. Price Foundation and recipient of its 2005 Integrity in Science Award. Her website is www.naughtynutritionist.com and she can be reached at Kaayla@DrKaaylaDaniel.com.

This holiday season Whole Foods Market is offering gift boxes and certificates brightly printed with the wish “Soy to the World.”

Whole Foods Market, of course, perceives soy foods and soy milk — particularly modern packaged and processed soy products — as a major profit center.   Soy also fits nicely within CEO John Mackey’s vegan agenda and his promotion of soy as the ticket to personal and planetary health.  Sadly, soy to the world will not bring joy to the world this holiday season or any other.

The word “soy,” however, fits Whole Foods Market very well.  As discussed in my last blog, “Talking Tofurky,” your Naughty Nutritionist™ learned something most curious last month.  Seems“soy” is urban slang for something false, of poor value or just not what it seems.   That pretty much sums up a whole lot of the phoney baloney, pseudo-organic products Whole Foods sells.   Indeed a whole lot of what this chain preaches is out of integrity with what it practices.

Greenwashing

Heard of whitewashing?  The variant found at Whole Foods is known as “greenwashing.”  The chain put green leaves on its logo,  prominently displays environmentally correct “core values,” and gives mouth service to sustainability yet engages in numerous practices that are environmentally unfriendly.

Bagging It, for example. Whole Foods encourages us to bring our own bags to save the environment and gives bag credits to local charities.   Eco consumers feel good about this, but what about all those highly processed and overly packaged foods toted home in them?   Soy good to know that not one of those pricey crackers or cookies will crack or crumble.   As for those sturdy packages, they’ll survive for years in the landfills.

Soy Local or Soy Loco

Whole Foods talks the good talk about supporting  local farmers.  It’s one of its conspicuously displayed “core values.”   But walk down the aisles and most everything comes from somewhere else.    Where were all those little soybeans milked to produce soymilk?   Where did they catch those tofurkies?   Where did those fruits and vegetables grow?   California, Mexico, Chili, India?   Not soy often in our own backyard.

How do local farmers feel about Whole Foods Market?   Many mutter “soy loco”  (“I am crazy”) under their breath whenever they give in and sell to Whole Foods.   Farmers who expect a fair wage for their hard work rarely sell there given the chain’s aim to buy dirt cheap and sell sky high.

Soy Green

More acres of the Rain Forest are destroyed for soybean crops than for beef cattle yet soy is touted as green for the environment.   Most of the Midwest has been destroyed by the monocropping of three vegan staples — corn, wheat and soy.

Soy Generous

“Soy to the World” means planeloads of soy products given to survivors of famines and natural disasters.   Seems benevolent, but there’s more to this than good PR.Disaster relief builds global business by making the world’s people dependent upon imported soy and other industrially grown, processed and packaged products.  Such “charitable” practices undermine local farmers and cottage industries and wipe out indigenous crops.

Soy Egalitarian

Equal opportunity poor health.   Yuppie vegans at one end of the spectrum pay premium prices for health-destroying soy foods.   Poor people eat donated soy from relief packages.  The results for both are malnutrition, digestive distress, thyroid disorders, reproductive problems, ADD/ADHD, allergies, even heart disease and cancer.   Soy to the world.

Meanwhile, John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods, likes to be seen as just a regular Joe.  He earns only fourteen times the salary of his average ”team member,” after all. While other corporate executives doubtless take home far bigger paychecks, Mackey’s “talking tofurky” here.  If he were an executive who “talks turkey,” he would admit to also earning millions  in stock options.    He might also be sensitive to the fact that his store is widely mocked as “Whole Paycheck Market” because its extreme markups make it soy overpriced for the average consumer.

Soy Organic

Whole Foods sells only organic soybeans, right?   That’s what they say, but it took months — and an embarrassing expose by  the Cornucopia Institute  –before just some of the Silk products made with commercial soybeans was removed from the shelves.   Similarly, Whole Foods has sold a whole lot of veggie burgers, energy bars and other “organic” products made with soy protein isolate and other ingredients processed using hexane solvents.  Cornucopia also exposed that, but you read it first in The Whole Soy Story.

Elsewhere in the store, pseudo organic reigns.   Consider factory-farmed “organic” Horizon brand milk and butter.  As for produce, the artful displays conflate organic and commercial.    And if the internet postings of disgruntled Whole Foods “team members” can be trusted, much — if not all —  of it is cleaned with non-organic cleaners.   Seems the  organic cleaners come out, when the inspectors come in.

Shoppers who aren’t careful may go home with commercial produce just like that found at the supermarket down the block but at a substantially higher price    Whole Foods Market carefully crafts the illusion it sells organic, but far more of what it sells is “natural”– whatever that means —  or even commercial.

Soyled Health Claims

Is soy the “miracle bean” that can cure everything from cancer to ingrown toe nails? Whole Foods would certainly like us to think so.    Similarly, consumers who buy baked and deli goods at Whole Foods are almost always con-oiled, though canola is increasingly replaced by soy oil, which if anything is even worse.

Hemp, chocolate, agave anyone?   Health claims for any of these are very “soy” — i.e. not what they seem.  Agave, for instance,  is tricked out high fructose corn syrup. Chocolate-covered soy nuts are surely the  “tofurky” of snacks.   Most sanctimonious of all is Whole Foods’  promotion of  vegan goods with a green smiley face and the words “I’m vegan!”

Stepford Foods

All the onions are exactly the same size.  Big,  round and heavy! All the apples, too.

Never saw anything like that in my own garden or orchard.   Yet Whole Foods gives us row after perfectly presented row of produce.   Bland but pretty-faced, immaculately clean, blemish free, perfectly made up and not one strand of hair out of place, these are the Stepford Wives of the fruit and vegetable kingdom.   Guess Whole Foods thinks Stepford goods provide a stress-free shopping experience.  No need to choose.  Perfect for the shopper in Calvin Klone jeans.

Soy Latte

The Urban Dictionary defines “soy latte” as something overpriced and pretentious, especially something that tastes good initially but leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth. Seems to me that sums up Whole Foods Market awfully well.

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is The Naughty Nutritionist™ because of her ability to outrageously and humorously debunk nutritional myths. A popular guest on radio and television, she has appeared on The Dr Oz Show, ABC’s View from the Bay, NPR’s People’s Pharmacy and numerous other shows. Her own radio show, “Naughty Nutrition with Dr. Kaayla Daniel” debuted this spring on World of Women (WOW) Radio. Dr Daniel is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food, a popular speaker at Wise Traditions and other conferences, a Board Member of the Weston A. Price Foundation and recipient of its 2005 Integrity in Science Award. Her website is www.naughtynutritionist.com and she can be reached at Kaayla@DrKaaylaDaniel.com.

Fears about salmonella poisoning, listeria, swine and avian flus from animal foods are boosting the market for soy and other vegan foodstuffs and supplements.   The demand is being fed by vegans, of course, but also from  increasing numbers of omnivores who’ve been convinced that plant foods are the best way to avoid food poisoning.   The safest and most sanitary foods of all, according to this line of thinking are processed and packaged goods,

Market analyst Kathie Brownlie reveals in the online newsletterNutraIngredients “the market is driven by crises – and it did not exist a decade ago.”  Another factor in this new and booming market is  the  widely perceived “healthy” image of vegan ingredients.    According to Chris Olivant of the UK’s Vegetarian Society,  the numbers of vegetarians have steadily increased over the past decade, but “tend to peak in the immediate aftermath of a animal health scare, then drop back down to prior levels afterwards.”

“If you have a complete portfolio of vegetarian ingredients, you will be prepared for any animal health-scare that breaks,” says Lukas Christian, global product manager for beta-carotene at DSM Nutritional Products.   NutraIngredients reports that DSM is launching a new synthetic beta carotene to compete against animal-derived beta carotenes.   Other companies too, including BASF and Biodar have come out with vegetarian beta-carotenes.   If you naively thought beta carotene supplements would come from carrots and other vegetables, welcome to the brave new world of supplements .   Why grow carrots, after all, when you can produce beta carotene with microorganisms? And why bother with the care and feeding of wee beasties when you can manufacture a synthetic beta carotene that can be billed as vegetarian?

Given all the vegan scare stories and the filthy reality of factory-farming operations,   it’s

hardly news that people in record numbers are avoiding meat, milk and eggs, but is it wise to go vegan for safety reasons?    Not if we patronize local farmers who raise healthy, happy, free-range and pastured animals and make it a priority to run clean operations.  And also not if  it’s diseases from listeria, e coli and salmonella that we are trying to avoid.   Most cases come from contaminated commercial vegetables, strawberries, spinach, alfalfa sprouts, peppers etc, and not animal foods at all.   As for soy, there are surprising  risks of contamination.  Packaged soy products seem aseptic, safe and sanitary, but recalls have been legion over the years, suggesting that the squeaky clean packaging might only seal in the disease.

LARGEST RECALL IN FDA HISTORY

Consider what may prove to be the largest recall in FDA history.   It occurred in March 2010 and involved salmonella-contaminated hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) produced by Basic Food Flavors Inc of Las Vegas, Nevada.   Salmonella was found on the company’s processing equipment.   HVP is used to enhance flavors of thousands of food products, extend shelf life, and otherwise increase  the food industry’s bottom line.   HVP is an ingredient in just about every processed food available in stores.   As a paste or powder, it is added to soups, sauces, chilis, stews, hot dogs, gravies, snack foods, dips and dressings.  The name hydrolyzed vegetable protein most often refers to “hydrolyzed corn protein” or “hydrolyzed soy protein” and may sometimes be labeled as such.   If  mixed with spices, it is routinely identified only as “natural smoke flavor” or “natural flavors.” This labeling practice  protects proprietary recipes of manufacturers, but  has long been a nightmare for people who are allergic to soy or corn, or who react to MSG, which is an inevitable and unavoidable byproduct of the hydrolyzing process.  Products containing this additive may even state “No MSG” on the label, though this is clearly an untruth.

This particular recall has proved embarrassing to the FDA.  Congressional investigators chided the agency for failing to oversee the production of  HVP and other additives and food ingredients that are widely perceived as safe.   In addition to HVP, these  include partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, salt, spices, artificial flavors, emulsifiers, binders, vitamins, minerals,  preservatives and other ingredients, most of which are  intended to enhance  taste, texture, nutritional content or shelf life.   In a prepared statement, FDA spokeswoman Rita Chappelle conceded that the FDA “agrees broadly” that its oversight of such ingredients “could be strengthened.”   Given the misplaced time and effort FDA has put into harassing small farmers, it’s not surprising that it  has been asleep on its real job.

Health-conscious consumers might think that this is not their issue because the companies in the news are the big names like McCormick, Pringles, National Pretzel, Herbox (boullion), Quaker, Safeway and CVS snack products.  Best Food Flavors alone has recalled nearly 800 products.  This would suggest the problem lies with the processed, packaged, fast and junk foods on the Standard American Diet (SAD).  Sadly, the truth is that many of the brands billed as “healthy” and sold in health food stores and upscale markets use the very same additives.   Follow Your Heart brand vegetarian products, for example, recalled its barbecue, kung pao, savory, peanut and curry-flavored tofus as well as  its “heart smart” veggie burgers, burritos and “chicken” pasta because of possible salmonella contamination “from one of our suppliers.”

The possibility of salmonella poisoning also drove recalls of those old hippie staples soy grits and flour.  The recalled items came  from Thumb Oilseed Producers’ Cooperative of Ubly, Michigan, sold under the brand names Soy Beginnings and Nexsoy.

NOT HVP ALONE

Other contamination problems have also beset soy-food  manufacturers.  Lifesoy Inc., a San Diego-based manufacturer of ready-to-eat soy products, was forced to stop manufacturing and distributing its sweetened and unsweetened soy milk, fried tofu, fresh tofu, soybean pudding, and other products because it did not hold and store foods under refrigerated conditions cold enough to prevent the growth of microorganisms.  Interesting enough when the FDA first discovered Lifesoy’s unsanitary practices in 2007 it did not harass the company (as it does small farmers and cottage industries) but actively tried to help it comply with Good Manufacturing Practices and stay in business.   The company’s failure to do so led to its shut down.

The LifeSoy case indicates why most tofu products coming out of large manufacturing facilities are pasteurized today.  In the good old days, there were also cases of contamination, of course, with most occurring at Asian groceries or old-fashioned small health food stores where fresh blocks of tofu were displayed in water in produce sections.   The tofu was  non refrigerated and open to airborne contamination as well as bugs from customers reaching into the water with tongs.

Think  soy milk is safe?   Bonsoy soy drink was whisked out of markets in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, Singapore and Hong Kong this last spring because of dangerously high iodine levels derived from kombu, a seaweed ingredient.  That manufacturing error sank at least 38 people’s thyroids.   Ironically, the kombu was put in there to begin with because of soy’s adverse effects on the thyroid, a risk highest among  consumers who are iodine deficient. Recently a reformulated version was approved for sale by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ).  Meanwhile other products containing seaweed are being investigated.

FORMULA FOR DISASTER

One of the most frequently recalled products is infant formula.   Between 1982 and 1994 there were 22 significant recalls of infant formula in the United States due to health and safety problems.  Seven of these recalls were classified by the FDA as “Class I” or potentially life threatening.   And things haven’t improved much since then.   Recent recalls were made by Nestle (Carnation), Abbott, Mead Johnson, Wyeth, and Nutricia, among other companies, and for for widely sold products under the brand names of Alsoy, GoodStart, Isomil, Nutramigen, Nursoy,  and Soylac.    Both dairy and soy formulas have been recalled for everything from contamination by Salmonella or  Klebsiella Pneumoniae to bits of glass.  Yes, glass, as in the shards found in more than 102,000 Mead-Johnson jars.

Manufacturing errors are an especially big problem with soy formula. Failure to add supplemental  B1, B12 Vitamin K,  chloride and other needed supplements has led to deaths and hospitalizations of babies.    When such omissions happen with dairy formula, the deficiency is less likely to be a life-threatening matter.  Cow’s milk, after all, contains what a mammal needs to grow.  Although obviously not at the ideal levels for a human baby as opposed to a calf, vital components don’t go missing.     In 2003 three babies in Israeli on soy formula died from an extreme deficiency of vitamin  B1,  and another eight babies were hospitalized, of which four suffered permanent brain damage.    The formula manufacturers had left out B1 on the false assumption that soybeans contain plenty of B1.

Hard to believe?  Want to check out future recalls?  Get industry news from a free online subscription to NutraIngredients and by visiting the FDA’s  own website.   Then put your energy into buying both animal and plant foods directly from small, local farmers you know, visit  and trust.

Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN, is The Naughty Nutritionist™ because of her ability to outrageously and humorously debunk nutritional myths. A popular guest on radio and television, she has appeared on The Dr Oz Show, ABC’s View from the Bay, NPR’s People’s Pharmacy and numerous other shows. Her own radio show, “Naughty Nutrition with Dr. Kaayla Daniel” debuted this spring on World of Women (WOW) Radio. Dr Daniel is the author of The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Health Food, a popular speaker at Wise Traditions and other conferences, a Board Member of the Weston A. Price Foundation and recipient of its 2005 Integrity in Science Award. Her website is www.naughtynutritionist.com and she can be reached at Kaayla@DrKaaylaDaniel.com.