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Soy Milk

  
 
Tamayyurt
14:41 / 15.11.05
Okay, this thread is obviously not as cool as the Marijuana thread but I need some things cleared up. A friend of mine has been trying to get me to switch to soy milk and never stops preaching the gospel of Soy. I usually just ignore the bastard, but I’ve just spent two weeks drinking soy milk (cause of the hurricane) and when I tried to switch back to regular cow milk it seemed thin and watery. So I’m willing to stick with soy milk, but I was wondering if the hype is true. Let’s start with Lactose: It’s got none. Supposedly this is good because all adult humans are a little lactose intolerant and getting rid of it is helpful. Is this even true? Calcium: The bean juice is fortified with calcium, but is it absorbed by the body as readily as the calcium in cow milk? Cholesterol: Soy milk is supposed to reduce high cholesterol, which I don’t have, but it’s good regardless… right?

Can anybody enlighten me to the wonders of soy milk?
 
 
Lysander Stark
14:59 / 15.11.05
Frankly, I just plain don't like the stuff as a milk substitute-- but then again, the milk I drink tends to be the most full-on and full-fat, if I can get my hands on it. Farm milk, on the rare occasions that I have it, is my preference.

I justify my petty grudge against Soya (although I like tofu) by taking the environmental aspects into consideration... Soya has been in the news quite a bit over the past few years, not least because the impact of its cultivation in Brazil, where it is the cause of more deforestation, apparently, than beef... At the same time, there is more and more GM Soya being cultivated here and there... The pernicious gene-hoppers have had their way.

But to tell the honest truth, while I think the above is sad and bad, my main grudge is just against the taste. It remains, to me, a mere substitute. Like Quorn.
 
 
Jack Fear
15:42 / 15.11.05
IIRC, the relative absorption of calcium in soy milk and dairy is all tied up with the phytoestrogens present in soy. Essentially, these are plant-based analogues to the female hormone estrogen. Estrogen helps the body to absorb calcium. That's why women's bones, in particular, have a tendency to get brittle as they get older—not because they're taking in less calcium, but because they're producing less estrogen and so aren't properly absorbing the calcium they ingest.

So, if you're a post-menopausal woman, soy milk is actually a better source of calcium than dairy, because the estrogen-analogues help your body to process the calcium (which might otherwise build up as kidney stones—eek!).

Given that you're not a post-menopausal woman... I dunno.

Keep in mind, too, that most commercial soy milks, especially the fortified ones, contain added salt and sweeteners (cane juice, usually) and are thickened with carrageenan (extracted from seaweed).

So, y'know, there's a reason the stuff tastes rich and hearty.
 
 
Jack Fear
15:45 / 15.11.05
Keep in mind also that I use soy milk only in my coffee: on those rare occasions when I drink a glass of milk or eat a bowl of cereal, it's dairy skim.

O/T: my grudge against Quorn has less to do with the taste, which I think is excellent, than with the fact that it makes many people violently ill—my wife among them.
 
 
Broomvondle
16:57 / 15.11.05
not least because the impact of its cultivation in Brazil, where it is the cause of more deforestation, apparently, than beef.

There is a major bit of missing information here, do you know where a lot of the soy grown in cleared rainforest goes? It is fed to cattle! Since BSE there has been a massive rise in the demand for Soy as cattle feed and its value on the market has risen dramatically. Unfortunately most of the Soy Beans grown in the US are genetically modified this means that European farmers will not use feed made from North American beans, instead importing South American beans that are often grown in areas of cleared rainforest.

In converting vegetable protein into animal protein a great deal of energy is lost, through movement, working a brain and concious mind etc. So as far as I know eating soy products is less damaging to the environment than the consumption of European beef and dairy!

If you are careful about the brands you use you can make sure that the soy beans are not sourced from cleared rainforest areas.
 
 
Elbereth
17:36 / 15.11.05
Drinking milk can also increase your levels of homocysteine which may cause heart disease. Some people have a genetic mutation that increases the amount of homocysteine their body produces so those people should probably switch to soy milk (or rice milk). Also the calcium in soy milk supposed to settle out at a higher rate so less actually gets absorbed even if you shake it up. And my friend who is a nutritionist says the jury is still out on phytoestrogens. Studies she read indicated that they caused cancer and heart disease, cured cancer and heart disease, and did nothing. She used to make her own tofu and soymilk and still drinks a lot of soymilk. So the bottom line is it depends. Drink what tastes good. (i like ricemilk personally).
 
 
Proinsias
18:56 / 15.11.05
It appears the Universal Tao organisation has done some serious investigation into this matter and came to the conclusion that

The serpent scientists are telling vegetarians to eat soy products - another cursed food

I trust this information will give you the confidence to make an informed decision.
 
 
nyarlathotep's shoe horn
19:26 / 15.11.05
dairy milk contains pus. soy doesn't.

milk of the Gods is Hemp Milk. Soy is the milk of the quasi-divine.

I'm wondering if the huge amounts of soy used as a primary source of protein is as foolish a behaviour as relying on wheat for all of our grainular needs (at least in North America).

too much of a good thing and all that.

ta
tenix
 
 
astrojax69
21:50 / 15.11.05
i drink my caffeinated beverages black, but i was converted to soy on my cereal after a month in a village in china a few years back where i had warm soy with chilli beef broth, or chilli garlic broth and wontons, for breakfast each day. fantastic! i enjoyed the nutty flavour and found this aspect a particularly nice addition to the roughage i eat as breakfast cereal.

i used to drink cow loads of milk as a kid (i grew up in an age when school kids got a small bottle of milk each day at morning assembly. the girls wouldn't drink theirs and the boys had races to see how many bottles you could drink in how long - i often won! i loved milk, still love fresh-from-the-cow milk, or good full cream stuff, especially heated with chocolate! but mainly only have soy in the 'fridge; 's only time i have the stuff at home is brekky.

don't rekkun i drink enough to have many health benefits/otherwise. get other calcium from cheeses and yoghurts, etc. i just like it.
 
 
ORA ORA ORA ORAAAA!!
22:30 / 15.11.05
I hate soy milk, I can't stand the taste of it. It tastes like dirt to me.

That said, even if I didn't hate it, I'd avoid it. There's been a fair amount of scare-mongering in the media here (on and off, mostly in weekend supplements, rather than the main papers) about the evils of soy products (except soy sauce and tofu, apparently[1]).

this study shows significant changes to the reproductive system of rats fed soy milk in utero/via mother's milk, and the article in the paper (which has no online link anymore, sorry) went on at great length about soy milk being partially responsible for the early incidence of puberty in our young ladies these days.

I'm not a young lady, so it's less pressing for me, but still, I don't like the taste.

[1]
Fermented soy products, apparently, lose the phytoestrogens they contained in their pre-delicious forms. Also, soy sauce is too good not to keep.
 
 
Loomis
13:06 / 16.11.05
So Red Frog Rising, you're not suspicious that all that scaremongering is encouraged by the dairy industry? A quick google throws this up:

he U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to its mission statement, is charged with "enhancing the quality of life for the American people by supporting the production of agriculture." Created by the pro-business Lincoln administration in 1862, today’s USDA has the dual responsibility of assisting dairy farmers while promoting healthy dietary choices for Americans. Not surprisingly, this creates a conflict of interest that puts at risk the objectivity of government farm policy and the health of all dairy-consuming Americans.

In December 1999, the PCRM filed suit against the USDA, claiming the department unfairly promotes the special interests of the meat and dairy industries through its official dietary guidelines and the Food Pyramid. Six of the eleven members assigned to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee were demonstrated to have financial ties to meat, dairy, and egg interests. Prior to the suit, which the PCRM won in December 2000, the USDA had refused to disclose such conflicts of interest to the general public.

Red Frog Rising: went on at great length about soy milk being partially responsible for the early incidence of puberty in our young ladies these days.

I'm extremely sceptical about this. As far as I'm aware there is far more evidence that it's caused by all the hormones pumped into the meat.

It’s worth bearing in mind that whether soy milk is good for you is a different question to whether dairy milk is bad for you. One can eschew the latter (for ethical or health reasons) without swapping it for the former. You can cut out milk products altogether, or try other options, such as rice or hemp as suggested above. I also like oat milk occasionally. It’s even creamier than soy milk, like drinking a smoothy - yum. I really like the creamy, nutty taste of soy milk, but then some brands are better than others. And I do buy the sweetened variety. I always liked (full fat) dairy milk before I went vegan though, so I couldn’t really say which one I prefer taste-wise.

I’m not really sure whether soy milk is some wonder food, but I like the taste and it enables me to continue using milk in food and drink as I had been used to doing for my whole life before turning vegan. Habits are hard to break. I do however find it hard to believe that crushed soy beans can be bad for you.

It’s not hard to find info on the net about the downsides of consuming cow’s milk, so I won’t bore you with vegan propaganda here, but if you’re concerned about your calcium intake, I don’t think it’s a good idea to rely too heavily on dairy or soy for it anyway. It is easily obtained in nuts, seeds and vegetables such as broccoli. From the Vegan Society:

Dairy products are not the best source of calcium as they cause calcium losses at the same time as providing calcium. A third of the calcium absorbed from milk and more than two thirds of the calcium absorbed from cheese is wasted in this way. In contrast, green leafy vegetables such as kale and spring greens provide plenty of well absorbed calcium while at the same time reducing calcium losses.

There is also a growing body of evidence that suggests that the calcium-deficiency problems such as osteoporosis that plague western countries are not caused by a lack of calcium intake but because diets of excessive protein cause the body to lose calcium. Therefore the best way to protect your bones is to eat less meat so that you won’t lose the calcium you have. From this PETA article:

Although American women consume tremendous amounts of calcium, their rates of osteoporosis are among the highest in the world. Conversely, Chinese women consume half the calcium (all of it from plant sources) and have scant incidence of the bone disease.(35) Medical studies indicate that rather than preventing the disease, milk may actually increase women’s risk of osteoporosis. A Harvard Nurses’ Study of more than 77,000 women aged 34 to 59 found that those who consumed two or more glasses of milk per day had higher risks of broken hips and arms than those who drank one glass or less per day.(36) T. Colin Campbell, professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University, said, “The association between the intake of animal protein and fracture rates appears to be as strong as that between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.”(37)
 
 
quixote
16:52 / 16.11.05
Before anyone gets too worried about the phytoestrogens in soy, remember that the stuff is being digested. If your liver function is good, it deals with excess estrogens, androgens, and so on. (It's the liver's gradual loss of this ability that leads to, for instance, menopausal women growing mustaches: reduced estrogen, androgen production unchanged (women produce small amounts of androgens), liver does not bring androgens into balance with remaining estrogen, and, presto, mustaches.)

The amount of phytoestrogens in soy products is well within the scope of a healthy liver to process. And the other thing to remember is that the difference between estrogen and testosterone is just 3 hydrogens and a carbon in one specific place. The liver interconverts them easily when needed. See, eg, Wikipedia:



(testosterone on the left, estradiol on the right)
 
 
quixote
16:58 / 16.11.05
(Sorry, forgot the other difference: the loss of a hydrogen from the oxygen, way down at one end.)
 
 
ORA ORA ORA ORAAAA!!
06:25 / 17.11.05
Well, like I said, I don't have access to an online copy of the article, because they don't archive for that long, and I don't have the paper copy, because, uh, I don't archive for that long, either. I was just reporting what the article said, I apologise that I don't have the references.

As for the article (or all scare mongering) being something that the USDA is doing, no, I didn't consider that, because the article I read was written by an Australian for an Australian magazine based on research he did in South America somewhere.

I am also not suggesting that everyone ignore soy and drink cow's milk. I certainly don't, and I apologise if you thought I did (though I can't see why you would have). I also don't really see the necessity of talking about meat eating causing calcium retention problems. It's not really relevant, though there was a thread here where it would be more in theme.

Aaaanyway. I was merely trying to put forward some scant evidence that soy milk may not be the greatest thing in the world, there's a lot more if people want to look for it. But my personal negative evaluation of the beverage is based entirely on not liking the taste, not scientific evidence either way.
 
 
Loomis
07:53 / 17.11.05
I wasn't trying to go too far off topic with the loss of calcium idea, but it's just that when evaluating whether to drink cow or soy milk or neither or both, many people focus on the calcium issue. I was pointing out that there are other factors that could be more important with regard to that, thus the milk decision is probably best made on grounds other than which one has more calcium.
 
  
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