Soy Products - Portfolio

I was shocked and amazed to find out that soy is not actually that good for us. I always thought it was a trendy thing that folks did who were trying to be healthy, give me milk any day but what about edamame? Should I give this delicious snack up? Are there truly no health benefits to soy? Were we never meant to eat soy like cows were not designed to eat corn? According to Raj Patel's book Stuffed and Starved "nearly three-quarters of products on supermarket shelves" contain soy. Soy is like corn, it's everywhere, nearly impossible to escape it. Soy does have it's benefits but it must be processed, it's hard to get the nutritional benefits when it's raw (Patel 167). I also really enjoy tofu, but this is processed and therefore is better for you than edamame. Soy is over produced which is why it is found in everything, just like corn! There are many similarities. Interesting fact from Raj Patel's book the oil from soy "is the worlds most widely consumed vegetable oil, responsible for over a quarter of the worlds vegetable oil market, and 70 per cent of oils and fats produced and consumed in the US." (Patel 168).

Raj Patel gives a nice bacfkground on when we first had a surplus of soy and what America did with this surplus. "In the First World War, the cutting of traditional supply lines for vegetable oil from Europe to America necessitated the import of 336 million pounds of low-grade soy oil from Manchuria, North-east China. Yet with the end of the war, and the restoration of European supplies of crops, US agriculture faced a glut...Once the Europeans were back in the agriculture export business, US farms found themselves with too much soy and too few markets." (Patel 169).

Another interesting tidbit of information the seventh day adventists were formed when a woman named Ellen G. White decided to give up meat and milk products. The seventh day adventists became a major proponent of soy.

Ann posted a lengthy article about soy and the benefits or lack of benefits from soy. Here is the article. http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/ploy.html What I gather from the chapter in Patel's book and also this article is that soy is safe when it has been processed or fermented but is best to stay away from raw soy or to rely on soy for protein because according to the article "soy protein is incomplete.. Soy should never be considered as a substitute for animal products like meat or milk." My roommate drinks soy in her coffee because milk upsets her stomach, so is soy in coffee okay? Is there something else that can be used instead of soy? The article warns that soy milk is "new to the diet and pose a number of serious problems." I passed this article along to my roommate and for whatever reason does not believe this is the case and is still a good milk substitute as well as a good source of protein. So what is the truth?