Lecithin in her Vitamins
Dear Kaayla, I am now avoiding soy. Do I need to avoid soy lecithin? The vitamins I take contain soy lecithin in vegetable glaze. The company says the amount of soy lecithin is so tiny that the amount is not required to be listed. Do I need to avoid this vitamin? Do I need to find a soy lecithin-free vitamin. Thank you for this website and your book! – Doris
Dear Doris, Are you allergic to soy? If so, I’d take the precaution of finding a soy-free vitamin. But if you are avoiding it because you are at risk for — or already suffer from — thyroid, reproductive problems, breast cancer or other health reasons, I’d put my energy into avoiding soy protein or soy oil. As for lecithin, it’s difficult to avoid if you like processed and packaged foods. Lecithin, as you’ve already found out, is also present in many supplements. For most people the occasional product with lecithin won’t be a problem, but please focus on eating real foods.
Although The Soy Connection, an industry newsletter, has stated that highly refined oils and lecithin “are safe for the soy-allergic consumer,” many allergic persons who put their trust in such reassurances have ended up in the hospital. If soy lecithin were 100 percent free of soy protein, it would not provoke allergic symptoms. However, the variable manufacturing conditions, quality controls and processing methods used by the vegetable oil industry make the presence of at least trace amounts of soy protein possible – and even likely – in soy oil or soy lecithin. Likewise, highly susceptible people cannot use supplements containing soy-derived Vitamin E, phosphatidyl choline (PC) , glycerylphosphorylcholine (GPC) or phosphatidyl serine (PS) safely.