The truth behind SOYBEANS & my story!

We've all heard the slogan Let Food Be Thy Medicine and Medicine Thy Food! Right?

It might seem kind of odd unless you look at food as more than just protein, fat and carbohydrates.

Have you heard that certain roots can help you with digestion?

Have you heard that certain herbs and spices and help with gums and teeth?

Plant foods have special properties like micronutrients, enzymes, hormones and minerals and vitamins that are CRUCIAL to optimal health and feeling/looking your best. 

That's why when you're eating a diet full of processed foods and or lots of meat and dairy, you are not going to feel or look your best. Processed foods lack all these special properties and what was ONCE maybe a healing beautifying food has become damaging. Yes, there might be the right ratio of fat, carbs and protein in that food bar you had for lunch. But what about the rest of the stuff? And this too is probably why you can't seem to keep the weight off.

Each calorie you consume should be abundant in these phyto- and micro-nutrients, minerals, vitamins and enzymes or they become negative calories {calories consumed for energy but that add nothing more than just a calorie in place of what could have been a highly nutrient dense one}. 

We need raw plant foods to keep our skin soft and hydrated, nails hard, hair shiney and healthy, cellulite to a minimum, muscles strong and lean, brain less foggy, and so on.

Some plants are so powerful in fact that we need to be careful when eating them in mass quantities. Wheat, soy, corn and a few other plants are being consumed in excess amounts because they are often processed into flours and concetrated sweeteners.

Concentrated sweeteners include ANYTHING that is not in a fruit or vegetable state. NATURAL or not, agave is one of them {fructose on crack}, honey {done by the bees and my favorite sweetener or choice}, white sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, and maple syrup {sap from the tree}. As we all know, we should never overconsume these foods because too much sugar can put our systems into severe overload and cause us to store unwanted fat {yep} in our cells. Plus, it can deplete our bones and tissues of stored nutrients and our systems will eventually not deal with sugar very well and diabetes can result.

Think about flours used in breads, cereals, breakfast bars, pop tarts, crackers, muffins, cookies, pasta, pies, etc. And how often we eat these and how often our CHILDREN eat these. WE aren't eating corn on the cob, wheat strands, soy beans, but instead we are grinding them and concentrating them into flour. This can cause a similar reaction in the body as sugar, especially when any other nutrient is gone. Our bodies often react to the high quantities of gluten and we end up with severe allergies {stomach mucus and IBS, leaky gut, lack of minerals in bones, flakey dry skin, eczema, etc.}.

Soy is especially damaging to the system because it contains estrogenic activity. Estrogenic activity has been detected in over 300 plants but soy is the ONLY one in the food supply. 

This particular issue is very personal for me. I experienced the ill effects of over processed soy when I was about 22 or 23. I had been a vegetarian for 10 years and decided I would eat more protein, less carbohydrates and work out more as well. Not reading all the labels carefully I realized I drinking eating {isolated} soy protein shakes, soy meat for dinner, soy sausages for lunch, bars with soy protein for snacks and the list goes on. I put on a ton of water weight {I had never been puffy or overweight in my life} and gained at least a dress size or two. So, I worked out more and ate a little less. Still didn't work. 

This might be a little too much information, but it's important. I also suddenly got my period out of nowhere and I hadn't had it since I was 18. I felt more "womanly" than ever and thought I was going through puberty for a second time. 

This is not joke by the way. It was a year or so before starting my Kookie Karma company, which uses no soy {minus a touch of soy lecithin in our chocolate chips that are not by choice}. 

I finally figured out what was going on, due to a strange hunch {nobody was yet talking about estrogen in soy products yet} because my mom was using a soy estrogen supplement for menopause. I thought, "wow, seems so odd that I eat soy everyday and my mom ingests it to help her create estrogen?" 

Immediately after stopping soy I lost many pounds of water weight. I forever had my period back {thankful for that, I THINK} without having to go on the "pill" as doctors were urging me to do and I kept refusing. 

My point being, food is powerful. And we are supposed to be eating it in it's natural state. Soy, when fermented or eaten as a whole bean, can have health benefits. 

Soy wasn't necesarily a bad food until America made it famous and it became an overly processed staple. It's in almost everything nowadays, the same way sugar and wheat are. Especially most vegetarian products, which is another reason I hype the whole no soy thing in our vegan products. Back in 2005 you couldn't find high protein, organic, healthy vegan snacks without soy. 

This whole soy & heart health bandwagon should not be jumped on. 

I also hope this answers all the soy questions you guys {readers} have asked me in the past. I do have some tofu from time to time. And definitely miso, tempeh and nato. But that is about it. I stay away from the soy milks, soy flours, isolated soy proteins {for sure!!!!}. 

If you would like to read more about this and the science behind it, please download {for $4} this Well Being Journal article. There are actually two of them. If you do not already have a subscription to the Well Being Journal and stuff like this interests or fascinates you, I suggest you get one. It's full of amazing studies that you won't hear in the mainstream media. Plus top notch health updates and tips.