Cinderella's Dark Side -The Dangers of Soy

by Sally Fallon & Mary G. Enig, Ph.D.

Cinderella's Dark Side

The propaganda that has created the soy sales miracle is all the more remarkable because, only a few decades ago, the soybean was considered unfit to eat - even in Asia. During the Chou Dynasty (1134-246 BC) the soybean was designated one of the five sacred grains, along with barley, wheat, millet and rice.

However, the pictograph for the soybean, which dates from earlier times, indicates that it was not first used as a food; for whereas the pictographs for the other four grains show the seed and stem structure of the plant, the pictograph for the soybean emphasizes the root structure. Agricultural literature of the period speaks frequently of the soybean and its use in crop rotation. Apparently the soy plant was initially used as a method of fixing nitrogen.13

The soybean did not serve as a food until the discovery of fermentation techniques, some time during the Chou Dynasty. The first soy foods were fermented products like tempeh, natto, miso and soy sauce.

At a later date, possibly in the 2nd century BC, Chinese scientists discovered that a purée of cooked soybeans could be precipitated with calcium sulfate or magnesium sulfate (plaster of Paris or Epsom salts) to make a smooth, pale curd - tofu or bean curd. The use of fermented and precipitated soy products soon spread to other parts of the Orient, notably Japan and Indonesia.

The Chinese did not eat unfermented soybeans as they did other legumes such as lentils because the soybean contains large quantities of natural toxins or "antinutrients". First among them are potent enzyme inhibitors that block the action of trypsin and other enzymes needed for protein digestion.

These inhibitors are large, tightly folded proteins that are not completely deactivated during ordinary cooking. They can produce serious gastric distress, reduced protein digestion and chronic deficiencies in amino acid uptake. In test animals, diets high in trypsin inhibitors cause enlargement and pathological conditions of the pancreas, including cancer.14

Soybeans also contain haemagglutinin, a clot-promoting substance that causes red blood cells to clump together.

Trypsin inhibitors and haemagglutinin are growth inhibitors. Weanling rats fed soy containing these antinutrients fail to grow normally. Growth-depressant compounds are deactivated during the process of fermentation, so once the Chinese discovered how to ferment the soybean, they began to incorporate soy foods into their diets.

In precipitated products, enzyme inhibitors concentrate in the soaking liquid rather than in the curd. Thus, in tofu and bean curd, growth depressants are reduced in quantity but not completely eliminated.

Soy also contains goitrogens - substances that depress thyroid function.
Additionally 99% a very large percentage of soy is genetically modified and it also has one of the highest percentages contamination by pesticides of any of our foods.

Soybeans are high in phytic acid, present in the bran or hulls of all seeds. It's a substance that can block the uptake of essential minerals - calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and especially zinc - in the intestinal tract.

Although not a household word, phytic acid has been extensively studied; there are literally hundreds of articles on the effects of phytic acid in the current scientific literature. Scientists are in general agreement that grain- and legume-based diets high in phytates contribute to widespread mineral deficiencies in third world countries.15

Analysis shows that calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc are present in the plant foods eaten in these areas, but the high phytate content of soy- and grain-based diets prevents their absorption.

The soybean has one of the highest phytate levels of any grain or legume that has been studied,16 and the phytates in soy are highly resistant to normal phytate-reducing techniques such as long, slow cooking.17 Only a long period of fermentation will significantly reduce the phytate content of soybeans.

When precipitated soy products like tofu are consumed with meat, the mineral-blocking effects of the phytates are reduced.18 The Japanese traditionally eat a small amount of tofu or miso as part of a mineral-rich fish broth, followed by a serving of meat or fish.

Vegetarians who consume tofu and bean curd as a substitute for meat and dairy products risk severe mineral deficiencies. The results of calcium, magnesium and iron deficiency are well known; those of zinc are less so.

Zinc is called the intelligence mineral because it is needed for optimal development and functioning of the brain and nervous system. It plays a role in protein synthesis and collagen formation; it is involved in the blood-sugar control mechanism and thus protects against diabetes; it is needed for a healthy reproductive system.

Zinc is a key component in numerous vital enzymes and plays a role in the immune system. Phytates found in soy products interfere with zinc absorption more completely than with other minerals.19 Zinc deficiency can cause a "spacey" feeling that some vegetarians may mistake for the "high" of spiritual enlightenment.

Milk drinking is given as the reason why second-generation Japanese in America grow taller than their native ancestors. Some investigators postulate that the reduced phytate content of the American diet - whatever may be its other deficiencies - is the true explanation, pointing out that both Asian and Western children who do not get enough meat and fish products to counteract the effects of a high phytate diet, frequently suffer rickets, stunting and other growth problems.20

Soy Protein Isolate: Not So Friendly
Soy processors have worked hard to get these antinutrients out of the finished product, particularly soy protein isolate (SPI) which is the key ingredient in most soy foods that imitate meat and dairy products, including baby formulas and some brands of soy milk.

SPI is not something you can make in your own kitchen. Production takes place in industrial factories where a slurry of soy beans is first mixed with an alkaline solution to remove fiber, then precipitated and separated using an acid wash and, finally, neutralized in an alkaline solution.

Acid washing in aluminum tanks leaches high levels of aluminum into the final product. The resultant curds are spray- dried at high temperatures to produce a high-protein powder. A final indignity to the original soybean is high-temperature, high-pressure extrusion processing of soy protein isolate to produce textured vegetable protein (TVP).

Much of the trypsin inhibitor content can be removed through high-temperature processing, but not all. Trypsin inhibitor content of soy protein isolate can vary as much as fivefold.21 (In rats, even low-level trypsin inhibitor SPI feeding results in reduced weight gain compared to controls.22)

But high-temperature processing has the unfortunate side-effect of so denaturing the other proteins in soy that they are rendered largely ineffective.23 That's why animals on soy feed need lysine supplements for normal growth.

Nitrites, which are potent carcinogens, are formed during spray-drying, and a toxin called lysinoalanine is formed during alkaline processing.24 Numerous artificial flavorings, particularly MSG, are added to soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein products to mask their strong "beany" taste and to impart the flavor of meat.25

In feeding experiments, the use of SPI increased requirements for vitamins E, K, D and B12 and created deficiency symptoms of calcium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, copper, iron and zinc.26 Phytic acid remaining in these soy products greatly inhibits zinc and iron absorption; test animals fed SPI develop enlarged organs, particularly the pancreas and thyroid gland, and increased deposition of fatty acids in the liver.27

Yet soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein are used extensively in school lunch programs, commercial baked goods, diet beverages and fast food products. They are heavily promoted in third world countries and form the basis of many food giveaway programs.

In spite of poor results in animal feeding trials, the soy industry has sponsored a number of studies designed to show that soy protein products can be used in human diets as a replacement for traditional foods.

An example is "Nutritional Quality of Soy Bean Protein Isolates: Studies in Children of Preschool Age", sponsored by the Ralston Purina Company.28 A group of Central American children suffering from malnutrition was first stabilized and brought into better health by feeding them native foods, including meat and dairy products. Then, for a two-week period, these traditional foods were replaced by a drink made of soy protein isolate and sugar.

All nitrogen taken in and all nitrogen excreted was measured in truly Orwellian fashion: the children were weighed naked every morning, and all excrement and vomit gathered up for analysis. The researchers found that the children retained nitrogen and that their growth was "adequate", so the experiment was declared a success.

Whether the children were actually healthy on such a diet, or could remain so over a long period, is another matter. The researchers noted that the children vomited "occasionally", usually after finishing a meal; that over half suffered from periods of moderate diarrhea; that some had upper respiratory infections; and that others suffered from rash and fever.

It should be noted that the researchers did not dare to use soy products to help the children recover from malnutrition, and were obliged to supplement the soy-sugar mixture with nutrients largely absent in soy products - notably, vitamins A, D and B12, iron, iodine and zinc.

Marketing The Perfect Food
"Just imagine you could grow the perfect food. This food not only would provide affordable nutrition, but also would be delicious and easy to prepare in a variety of ways. It would be a healthful food, with no saturated fat. In fact, you would be growing a virtual fountain of youth on your back forty."

The author is Dean Houghton, writing for The Furrow,2 a magazine published in 12 languages by John Deere. "This ideal food would help prevent, and perhaps reverse, some of the world's most dreaded diseases. You could grow this miracle crop in a variety of soils and climates. Its cultivation would build up, not deplete, the land...this miracle food already exists... It's called soy."

Just imagine. Farmers have been imagining - and planting more soy. What was once a minor crop, listed in the 1913 US Department of Agriculture (USDA) handbook not as a food but as an industrial product, now covers 72 million acres of American farmland. Much of this harvest will be used to feed chickens, turkeys, pigs, cows and salmon. Another large fraction will be squeezed to produce oil for margarine, shortenings and salad dressings.

Advances in technology make it possible to produce isolated soy protein from what was once considered a waste product - the defatted, high-protein soy chips - and then transform something that looks and smells terrible into products that can be consumed by human beings. Flavorings, preservatives, sweeteners, emulsifiers and synthetic nutrients have turned soy protein isolate, the food processors' ugly duckling, into a New Age Cinderella.

The new fairy-tale food has been marketed not so much for her beauty but for her virtues. Early on, products based on soy protein isolate were sold as extenders and meat substitutes - a strategy that failed to produce the requisite consumer demand. The industry changed its approach.

"The quickest way to gain product acceptability in the less affluent society," said an industry spokesman, "is to have the product consumed on its own merit in a more affluent society."3 So soy is now sold to the upscale consumer, not as a cheap, poverty food but as a miracle substance that will prevent heart disease and cancer, whisk away hot flushes, build strong bones and keep us forever young.

The competition - meat, milk, cheese, butter and eggs - has been duly demonised by the appropriate government bodies. Soy serves as meat and milk for a new generation of virtuous vegetarians.


Marketing Costs Money
This is especially when it needs to be bolstered with "research", but there's plenty of funds available.
All soybean producers pay a mandatory assessment of one-half to one per cent of the net market price of soybeans. The total - something like US$80 million annually4 - supports United Soybean's program to "strengthen the position of soybeans in the marketplace and maintain and expand domestic and foreign markets for uses for soybeans and soybean products".

State soybean councils from Maryland, Nebraska, Delaware, Arkansas, Virginia, North Dakota and Michigan provide another $2.5 million for "research".5 Private companies like Archer Daniels Midland also contribute their share. ADM spent $4.7 million for advertising on Meet the Press and $4.3 million on Face the Nation during the course of a year.6

Public relations firms help convert research projects into newspaper articles and advertising copy, and law firms lobby for favorable government regulations. IMF money funds soy processing plants in foreign countries, and free trade policies keep soybean abundance flowing to overseas destinations.

The push for more soy has been relentless and global in its reach. Soy protein is now found in most supermarket breads. It is being used to transform "the humble tortilla, Mexico's corn-based staple food, into a protein-fortified 'super-tortilla' that would give a nutritional boost to the nearly 20 million Mexicans who live in extreme poverty".7 Advertising for a new soy-enriched loaf from Allied Bakeries in Britain targets menopausal women seeking relief from hot flushes. Sales are running at a quarter of a million loaves per week.8

The soy industry hired Norman Robert Associates, a public relations firm, to "get more soy products onto school menus".9 The USDA responded with a proposal to scrap the 30 per cent limit for soy in school lunches. The NuMenu program would allow unlimited use of soy in student meals. With soy added to hamburgers, tacos and lasagna, dieticians can get the total fat content below 30 per cent of calories, thereby conforming to government dictates. "With the soy-enhanced food items, students are receiving better servings of nutrients and less cholesterol and fat."

Soy milk has posted the biggest gains, soaring from $2 million in 1980 to $300 million in the US last year.10 Recent advances in processing have transformed the gray, thin, bitter, beany-tasting Asian beverage into a product that Western consumers will accept - one that tastes like a milkshake, but without the guilt.

Processing miracles, good packaging, massive advertising and a marketing strategy that stresses the products' possible health benefits account for increasing sales to all age groups. For example, reports that soy helps prevent prostate cancer have made soy milk acceptable to middle-aged men. "You don't have to twist the arm of a 55- to 60-year-old guy to get him to try soy milk," says Mark Messina.

Michael Milken, former junk bond financier, has helped the industry shed its hippie image with well-publicized efforts to consume 40 grams of soy protein daily.

America today, tomorrow the world. Soy milk sales are rising in Canada, even though soy milk there costs twice as much as cow's milk. Soybean milk processing plants are sprouting up in places like Kenya.11 Even China, where soy really is a poverty food and whose people want more meat, not tofu, has opted to build Western-style soy factories rather than develop western grasslands for grazing animals.12

FDA Health Claim Challenged
On October 25, 1999 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided to allow a health claim for products "low in saturated fat and cholesterol" that contain 6.25 grams of soy protein per serving. Breakfast cereals, baked goods, convenience food, smoothie mixes and meat substitutes could now be sold with labels touting benefits to cardiovascular health, as long as these products contained one heaping teaspoon of soy protein per 100-gram serving.

The best marketing strategy for a product that is inherently unhealthy is, of course, a health claim.
"The road to FDA approval," writes a soy apologist, "was long and demanding, consisting of a detailed review of human clinical data collected from more than 40 scientific studies conducted over the last 20 years. Soy protein was found to be one of the rare foods that had sufficient scientific evidence not only to qualify for an FDA health claim proposal but to ultimately pass the rigorous approval process."29

The "long and demanding" road to FDA approval actually took a few unexpected turns. The original petition, submitted by Protein Technology International, requested a health claim for isoflavones, the estrogen-like compounds found plentifully in soybeans, based on assertions that "only soy protein that has been processed in a manner in which isoflavones are retained will result in cholesterol lowering".

In 1998, the FDA made the unprecedented move of rewriting PTI's petition, removing any reference to the phyto-estrogens and substituting a claim for soy protein - a move that was in direct contradiction to the agency's regulations. The FDA is authorized to make rulings only on substances presented by petition.

The abrupt change in direction was no doubt due to the fact that a number of researchers, including scientists employed by the US Government, submitted documents indicating that isoflavones are toxic.

The FDA had also received, early in 1998, the final British Government report on phytoestrogens, which failed to find much evidence of benefit and warned against potential adverse effects.30

Even with the change to soy protein isolate, FDA bureaucrats engaged in the "rigorous approval process" were forced to deal nimbly with concerns about mineral blocking effects, enzyme inhibitors, goitrogenicity, endocrine disruption, reproductive problems and increased allergic reactions from consumption of soy products.31

One of the strongest letters of protest came from Dr Dan Sheehan and Dr Daniel Doerge, government researchers at the National Center for Toxicological Research.32 Their pleas for warning labels were dismissed as unwarranted.

"Sufficient scientific evidence" of soy's cholesterol-lowering properties is drawn largely from a 1995 meta-analysis by Dr James Anderson, sponsored by Protein Technologies International and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.33

A meta-analysis is a review and summary of the results of many clinical studies on the same subject. Use of meta-analyses to draw general conclusions has come under sharp criticism by members of the scientific community.

"Researchers substituting meta-analysis for more rigorous trials risk making faulty assumptions and indulging in creative accounting," says Sir John Scott, President of the Royal Society of New Zealand. "Like is not being lumped with like. Little lumps and big lumps of data are being gathered together by various groups."34

There is the added temptation for researchers, particularly researchers funded by a company like Protein Technologies International, to leave out studies that would prevent the desired conclusions. Dr Anderson discarded eight studies for various reasons, leaving a remainder of twenty-nine.

The published report suggested that individuals with cholesterol levels over 250 mg/dl would experience a "significant" reduction of 7 to 20 per cent in levels of serum cholesterol if they substituted soy protein for animal protein. Cholesterol reduction was insignificant for individuals whose cholesterol was lower than 250 mg/dl.

In other words, for most of us, giving up steak and eating vegieburgers instead will not bring down blood cholesterol levels. The health claim that the FDA approved "after detailed review of human clinical data" fails to inform the consumer about these important details.

Research that ties soy to positive effects on cholesterol levels is "incredibly immature", said Ronald M. Krauss, MD, head of the Molecular Medical Research Program and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.35 He might have added that studies in which cholesterol levels were lowered through either diet or drugs have consistently resulted in a greater number of deaths in the treatment groups than in controls - deaths from stroke, cancer, intestinal disorders, accident and suicide.36

Cholesterol-lowering measures in the US have fuelled a $60 billion per year cholesterol-lowering industry, but have not saved us from the ravages of heart disease.

Soy And Cancer
The new FDA ruling does not allow any claims about cancer prevention on food packages, but that has not restrained the industry and its marketers from making them in their promotional literature.

"In addition to protecting the heart," says a vitamin company brochure, "soy has demonstrated powerful anticancer benefits...the Japanese, who eat 30 times as much soy as North Americans, have a lower incidence of cancers of the breast, uterus and prostate."37

Indeed they do. But the Japanese, and Asians in general, have much higher rates of other types of cancer, particularly cancer of the esophagus, stomach, pancreas and liver.38 Asians throughout the world also have high rates of thyroid cancer.39 The logic that links low rates of reproductive cancers to soy consumption requires attribution of high rates of thyroid and digestive cancers to the same foods, particularly as soy causes these types of cancers in laboratory rats.

Just how much soy do Asians eat? A 1998 survey found that the average daily amount of soy protein consumed in Japan was about eight grams for men and seven for women - less than two teaspoons.40 The famous Cornell China Study, conducted by Colin T. Campbell, found that legume consumption in China varied from 0 to 58 grams per day, with a mean of about twelve.41

Assuming that two-thirds of legume consumption is soy, then the maximum consumption is about 40 grams, or less than three tablespoons per day, with an average consumption of about nine grams, or less than two teaspoons. A survey conducted in the 1930s found that soy foods accounted for only 1.5 per cent of calories in the Chinese diet, compared with 65 per cent of calories from pork.42 (Asians traditionally cooked with lard, not vegetable oil!)

Traditionally fermented soy products make a delicious, natural seasoning that may supply important nutritional factors in the Asian diet. But except in times of famine, Asians consume soy products only in small amounts, as condiments, and not as a replacement for animal foods - with one exception.

Celibate monks living in monasteries and leading a vegetarian lifestyle find soy foods quite helpful because they dampen libido.

It was a 1994 meta-analysis by Mark Messina, published in Nutrition and Cancer, that fuelled speculation on soy's anticarcinogenic properties.43 Messina noted that in 26 animal studies, 65 per cent reported protective effects from soy. He conveniently neglected to include at least one study in which soy feeding caused pancreatic cancer - the 1985 study by Rackis.44 In the human studies he listed, the results were mixed.

A few showed some protective effect, but most showed no correlation at all between soy consumption and cancer rates. He concluded that "the data in this review cannot be used as a basis for claiming that soy intake decreases cancer risk". Yet in his subsequent book, The Simple Soybean and Your Health, Messina makes just such a claim, recommending one cup or 230 grams of soy products per day in his "optimal" diet as a way to prevent cancer.

Thousands of women are now consuming soy in the belief that it protects them against breast cancer. Yet, in 1996, researchers found that women consuming soy protein isolate had an increased incidence of epithelial hyperplasia, a condition that presages malignancies.45 A year later, dietary genistein was found to stimulate breast cells to enter the cell cycle - a discovery that led the study authors to conclude that women should not consume soy products to prevent breast cancer.46

Phytoestrogens: Panacea Or Poison?
The male species of tropical birds carries the drab plumage of the female at birth and 'colors up' at maturity, somewhere between nine and 24 months.

In 1991, Richard and Valerie James, bird breeders in Whangerai, New Zealand, purchased a new kind of feed for their birds - one based largely on soy protein.47 When soy-based feed was used, their birds 'colored up' after just a few months. In fact, one bird-food manufacturer claimed that this early development was an advantage imparted by the feed.

A 1992 ad for Roudybush feed formula showed a picture of the male crimson rosella, an Australian parrot that acquires beautiful red plumage at 18 to 24 months, already brightly colored at 11 weeks old.

Unfortunately, in the ensuing years, there was decreased fertility in the birds, with precocious maturation, deformed, stunted and stillborn babies, and premature deaths, especially among females, with the result that the total population in the aviaries went into steady decline.

The birds suffered beak and bone deformities, goiter, immune system disorders and pathological, aggressive behavior. Autopsy revealed digestive organs in a state of disintegration. The list of problems corresponded with many of the problems the Jameses had encountered in their two children, who had been fed soy-based infant formula.

Startled, aghast, angry, the Jameses hired toxicologist Mike Fitzpatrick. PhD, to investigate further. Dr Fitzpatrick's literature review uncovered evidence that soy consumption has been linked to numerous disorders, including infertility, increased cancer and infantile leukemia; and, in studies dating back to the 1950s,48 that genistein in soy causes endocrine disruption in animals.

Dr Fitzpatrick also analyzed the bird feed and found that it contained high levels of phytoestrogens, especially genistein. When the Jameses discontinued using soy-based feed, the flock gradually returned to normal breeding habits and behavior.

The Jameses embarked on a private crusade to warn the public and government officials about toxins in soy foods, particularly the endocrine-disrupting isoflavones, genistein and diadzen. Protein Technology International received their material in 1994.

In 1991, Japanese researchers reported that consumption of as little as 30 grams or two tablespoons of soybeans per day for only one month resulted in a significant increase in thyroid-stimulating hormone.49 Diffuse goiter and hypothyroidism appeared in some of the subjects and many complained of constipation, fatigue and lethargy, even though their intake of iodine was adequate.

In 1997, researchers from the FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research made the embarrassing discovery that the goitrogenic components of soy were the very same isoflavones.50
Twenty-five grams of soy protein isolate, the minimum amount PTI claimed to have cholesterol-lowering effects, contains from 50 to 70 mg of isoflavones. It took only 45 mg of isoflavones in premenopausal women to exert significant biological effects, including a reduction in hormones needed for adequate thyroid function. These effects lingered for three months after soy consumption was discontinued.51

One hundred grams of soy protein - the maximum suggested cholesterol-lowering dose, and the amount recommended by Protein Technologies International - can contain almost 600 mg of isoflavones,52 an amount that is undeniably toxic. In 1992, the Swiss health service estimated that 100 grams of soy protein provided the estrogenic equivalent of the Pill.53

In vitro studies suggest that isoflavones inhibit synthesis of estradiol and other steroid hormones.54 Reproductive problems, infertility, thyroid disease and liver disease due to dietary intake of isoflavones have been observed for several species of animals including mice, cheetah, quail, pigs, rats, sturgeon and sheep.55

It is the isoflavones in soy that are said to have a favorable effect on postmenopausal symptoms, including hot flushes, and protection from osteoporosis. Quantification of discomfort from hot flushes is extremely subjective, and most studies show that control subjects report reduction in discomfort in amounts equal to subjects given soy.56 The claim that soy prevents osteoporosis is extraordinary, given that soy foods block calcium and cause vitamin D deficiencies.

If Asians indeed have lower rates of osteoporosis than Westerners, it is because their diet provides plenty of vitamin D from shrimp, lard and seafood, and plenty of calcium from bone broths. The reason that Westerners have such high rates of osteoporosis is because they have substituted soy oil for butter, which is a traditional source of vitamin D and other fat-soluble activators needed for calcium absorption.

Birth Control Pills For Babies
But it was the isoflavones in infant formula that gave the Jameses the most cause for concern. In 1998, investigators reported that the daily exposure of infants to isoflavones in soy infant formula is 6 to11 times higher on a body-weight basis than the dose that has hormonal effects in adults consuming soy foods. Circulating concentrations of isoflavones in infants fed soy-based formula were 13,000 to 22,000 times higher than plasma estradiol concentrations in infants on cow's milk formula.57

Approximately 25 per cent of bottle-fed children in the US receive soy-based formula - a much higher percentage than in other parts of the Western world. Fitzpatrick estimated that an infant exclusively fed soy formula receives the estrogenic equivalent (based on body weight) of at least five birth control pills per day.58 By contrast, almost no phytoestrogens have been detected in dairy-based infant formula or in human milk, even when the mother consumes soy products.

Scientists have known for years that soy-based formula can cause thyroid problems in babies. But what are the effects of soy products on the hormonal development of the infant, both male and female?

Male infants undergo a "testosterone surge" during the first few months of life, when testosterone levels may be as high as those of an adult male. During this period, the infant is programmed to express male characteristics after puberty, not only in the development of his sexual organs and other masculine physical traits, but also in setting patterns in the brain characteristic of male behavior.

In monkeys, deficiency of male hormones impairs the development of spatial perception (which, in humans, is normally more acute in men than in women), of learning ability and of visual discrimination tasks (such as would be required for reading).59 It goes without saying that future patterns of sexual orientation may also be influenced by the early hormonal environment.

Male children exposed during gestation to diethylstilbestrol (DES), a synthetic estrogen that has effects on animals similar to those of phytoestrogens from soy, had testes smaller than normal on manturation.60

Learning disabilities, especially in male children, have reached epidemic proportions. Soy infant feeding - which began in earnest in the early 1970s - cannot be ignored as a probable cause for these tragic developments.

As for girls, an alarming number are entering puberty much earlier than normal, according to a recent study reported in the journal Pediatrics.61 Investigators found that one per cent of all girls now show signs of puberty, such as breast development or pubic hair, before the age of three; by age eight, 14.7 per cent of white girls and almost 50 per cent of African-American girls have one or both of these characteristics.

New data indicate that environmental estrogens such as PCBs and DDE (a breakdown product of DDT) may cause early sexual development in girls.62 In the 1986 Puerto Rico Premature Thelarche study, the most significant dietary association with premature sexual development was not chicken - as reported in the press - but soy infant formula.63

The consequences of this truncated childhood are tragic. Young girls with mature bodies must cope with feelings and urges that most children are not well-equipped to handle. And early maturation in girls is frequently a harbinger for problems with the reproductive system later in life, including failure to menstruate, infertility and breast cancer.

Parents who have contacted the Jameses recount other problems associated with children of both sexes who were fed soy-based formula, including extreme emotional behavior, asthma, immune system problems, pituitary insufficiency, thyroid disorders and irritable bowel syndrome - the same endocrine and digestive havoc that afflicted the Jameses' parrots.

Dissension In The Ranks
Organizers of the Third International Soy Symposium would be hard-pressed to call the conference an unqualified success. On the second day of the symposium, the London-based Food Commission and the Weston A. Price Foundation of Washington, DC, held a joint press conference, in the same hotel as the symposium, to present concerns about soy infant formula.

Industry representatives sat stony-faced through the recitation of potential dangers and a plea from concerned scientists and parents to pull soy-based infant formula from the market. Under pressure from the Jameses, the New Zealand Government had issued a health warning about soy infant formula in 1998; it was time for the American government to do the same.

On the last day of the symposium, presentations on new findings related to toxicity sent a well-oxygenated chill through the giddy helium hype. Dr Lon White reported on a study of Japanese Americans living in Hawaii, that showed a significant statistical relationship between two or more servings of tofu a week and "accelerated brain aging".64

Those participants who consumed tofu in mid-life had lower cognitive function in late life and a greater incidence of Alzheimer's disease and dementia. "What's more," said Dr White, "those who ate a lot of tofu, by the time they were 75 or 80 looked five years older".65 White and his colleagues blamed the negative effects on isoflavones - a finding that supports an earlier study in which postmenopausal women with higher levels of circulating estrogen experienced greater cognitive decline.66

Scientists Daniel Sheehan and Daniel Doerge, from the National Center for Toxicological Research, ruined PTI's day by presenting findings from rat feeding studies, indicating that genistein in soy foods causes irreversible damage to enzymes that synthesise thyroid hormones.67

"The association between soybean consumption and goiter in animals and humans has a long history," wrote Dr Doerge. "Current evidence for the beneficial effects of soy requires a full understanding of potential adverse effects as well."

Dr Claude Hughes reported that rats born to mothers that were fed genistein had decreased birth weights compared to controls, and onset of puberty occurred earlier in male offspring.68 His research suggested that the effects observed in rats "...will be at least somewhat predictive of what occurs in humans.

There is no reason to assume that there will be gross malformations of fetuses but there may be subtle changes, such as neurobehavioral attributes, immune function and sex hormone levels." The results, he said, "could be nothing or could be something of great concern...if mom is eating something that can act like sex hormones, it is logical to wonder if that could change the baby's development".69

A study of babies born to vegetarian mothers, published in January 2000, indicated just what those changes in baby's development might be. Mothers who ate a vegetarian diet during pregnancy had a fivefold greater risk of delivering a boy with hypospadias, a birth defect of the penis.70 The authors of the study suggested that the cause was greater exposure to phytoestrogens in soy foods popular with vegetarians.

Problems with female offspring of vegetarian mothers are more likely to show up later in life. While soy's estrogenic effect is less than that of diethylstilbestrol (DES), the dose is likely to be higher because it's consumed as a food, not taken as a drug. Daughters of women who took DES during pregnancy suffered from infertility and cancer when they reached their twenties.

Question Marks Over GRAS Status
Lurking in the background of industry hype for soy is the nagging question of whether it's even legal to add soy protein isolate to food. All food additives not in common use prior to 1958, including casein protein from milk, must have GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status. In 1972, the Nixon administration directed a re-examination of substances believed to be GRAS, in the light of any scientific information then available.

This re-examination included casein protein that became codified as GRAS in 1978. In 1974, the FDA obtained a literature review of soy protein because, as soy protein had not been used in food until 1959 and was not even in common use in the early 1970s, it was not eligible to have its GRAS status grandfathered under the provisions of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.71

The scientific literature up to 1974 recognized many antinutrients in factory-made soy protein, including trypsin inhibitors, phytic acid and genistein. But the FDA literature review dismissed discussion of adverse impacts, with the statement that it was important for "adequate processing" to remove them.

Genistein could be removed with an alcohol wash, but it was an expensive procedure that processors avoided. Later studies determined that trypsin inhibitor content could be removed only with long periods of heat and pressure, but the FDA has imposed no requirements for manufacturers to do so.

The FDA was more concerned with toxins formed during processing, specifically nitrites and lysinoalanine.72 Even at low levels of consumption - averaging one-third of a gram per day at the time - the presence of these carcinogens was considered too great a threat to public health to allow GRAS status.

Soy protein did have approval for use as a binder in cardboard boxes, and this approval was allowed to continue, as researchers considered that migration of nitrites from the box into the food contents would be too small to constitute a cancer risk. FDA officials called for safety specifications and monitoring procedures before granting of GRAS status for food.

These were never performed. To this day, use of soy protein is codified as GRAS only for this limited industrial use as a cardboard binder. This means that soy protein must be subject to premarket approval procedures each time manufacturers intend to use it as a food or add it to a food.

Soy protein was introduced into infant formula in the early 1960s. It was a new product with no history of any use at all. As soy protein did not have GRAS status, premarket approval was required. This was not and still has not been granted. The key ingredient of soy infant formula is not recognized as safe.
The Next Asbestos?
"Against the backdrop of widespread praise...there is growing suspicion that soy - despite its undisputed benefits - may pose some health hazards," writes Marian Burros, a leading food writer for the New York Times. More than any other writer, Ms Burros's endorsement of a low-fat, largely vegetarian diet has herded Americans into supermarket aisles featuring soy foods.

Yet her January 26, 2000 article, "Doubts Cloud Rosy News on Soy", contains the following alarming statement: "Not one of the 18 scientists interviewed for this column was willing to say that taking isoflavones was risk free." Ms Burros did not enumerate the risks, nor did she mention that the recommended 25 daily grams of soy protein contain enough isoflavones to cause problems in sensitive individuals, but it was evident that the industry had recognized the need to cover itself.

Because the industry is extremely exposed...contingency lawyers will soon discover that the number of potential plaintiffs can be counted in the millions and the pockets are very, very deep. Juries will hear something like the following: "The industry has known for years that soy contains many toxins.

At first they told the public that the toxins were removed by processing. When it became apparent that processing could not get rid of them, they claimed that these substances were beneficial. Your government granted a health claim to a substance that is poisonous, and the industry lied to the public to sell more soy."

The "industry" includes merchants, manufacturers, scientists, publicists, bureaucrats, former bond financiers, food writers, vitamin companies and retail stores. Farmers will probably escape because they were duped like the rest of us. But they need to find something else to grow before the soy bubble bursts and the market collapses: grass-fed livestock, designer vegetables...or hemp to make paper for thousands and thousands of legal briefs.

Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 7, Number 3 (April-May 2000)

About the Authors:
Sally Fallon is the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats (1999, 2nd edition, New Trends Publishing, tel +1 877 707 1776 or +1 219 268 2601) and President of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Washington, DC (www.WestonAPrice.org)

Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., a nutritionist widely known for her research on the nutritional aspects of fats and oils, is a consultant, clinician, and the Director of the Nutritional Sciences Division of Enig Associates, Inc., Silver Spring, Maryland.
She received her PhD in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1984, taught a graduate course in nutrient-drug interactions for the University's Graduate Program in Nutritional Sciences, and held a Faculty Research Associateship from 1984 through 1991 with the Lipids Research Group in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Dr. Enig is a Fellow of the American College of Nutrition, and a member of the American Institute of Nutrition. Her many years of experience as a "bench chemist" in the analysis of food fats and oils, provides a foundation for her active roles in food labeling and composition issues at the federal and state levels.
Dr. Enig is a Consulting Editor to the "Journal of the American College of Nutrition" and formerly served as a Contributing Editor to "Clinical Nutrition." She has published 14 scientific papers on the subject of food fats and oils, several chapters on nutrition for books, and presented over 35 scientific papers on food and nutrition topics.
She is the President of the Maryland Nutritionists Association, past President of the Coalition of Nutritionists of Maryland and was appointed by the Governor in 1986 to the Maryland State Advisory Council on Nutrition and served as the Chairman of the Health Subcommittee until the Council was disbanded in 1988.

COMMENT:
Sally Fallon and Dr. Enig are to be highly commended for this much needed soy update. Together they have compiled the most definitive document to date on why one should avoid soy. This is a MAJOR work and I am hoping to promote it for the national media attention that it deserves.
Another article on How Much Soy Asians Actually Eat
ENDNOTES:
1. Program for the Third International Symposium on the Role of Soy in Preventing and Treating Chronic Disease, Sunday, October 31, through Wednesday, November 3, 1999, Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, DC.
2. Houghton, Dean, "Healthful Harvest", The Furrow, January 2000, pp. 10-13.
3. Coleman, Richard J., "Vegetable Protein - A Delayed Birth?" Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society 52:238A, April 1975.
4. See www/unitedsoybean.org.
5. These are listed in www.soyonlineservice.co.nz.
6. Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1995.
7. Smith, James F., "Healthier tortillas could lead to healthier Mexico", Denver Post, August 22, 1999, p. 26A.
8. "Bakery says new loaf can help reduce hot flushes", Reuters, September 15, 1997.
9. "Beefing Up Burgers with Soy Products at School", Nutrition Week, Community Nutrition Institute, Washington, DC, June 5, 1998, p. 2.
10. Urquhart, John, "A Health Food Hits Big Time", Wall Street Journal, August 3, 1999, p. B1
11. "Soyabean Milk Plant in Kenya", Africa News Service, September 1998.
12. Simoons, Frederick J., Food in China: A Cultural and Historical Inquiry, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1991, p. 64.
13. Katz, Solomon H., "Food and Biocultural Evolution: A Model for the Investigation of Modern Nutritional Problems", Nutritional Anthropology, Alan R. Liss Inc., 1987, p. 50.
14. Rackis, Joseph J. et al., "The USDA trypsin inhibitor study. I. Background, objectives and procedural details", Qualification of Plant Foods in Human Nutrition, vol. 35, 1985.
15. Van Rensburg et al., "Nutritional status of African populations predisposed to esophageal cancer", Nutrition and Cancer, vol. 4, 1983, pp. 206-216; Moser, P.B. et al., "Copper, iron, zinc and selenium dietary intake and status of Nepalese lactating women and their breastfed infants", American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 47:729-734, April 1988; Harland, B.F. et al., "Nutritional status and phytate: zinc and phytate X calcium: zinc dietary molar ratios of lacto-ovovegetarian Trappist monks: 10 years later", Journal of the American Dietetic Association 88:1562-1566, December 1988.
16. El Tiney, A.H., "Proximate Composition and Mineral and Phytate Contents of Legumes Grown in Sudan", Journal of Food Composition and Analysis (1989) 2:6778.
17. Ologhobo, A.D. et al., "Distribution of phosphorus and phytate in some Nigerian varieties of legumes and some effects of processing", Journal of Food Science 49(1):199-201, January/February 1984.
18. Sandstrom, B. et al., "Effect of protein level and protein source on zinc absorption in humans", Journal of Nutrition 119(1):48-53, January 1989; Tait, Susan et al., "The availability of minerals in food, with particular reference to iron", Journal of Research in Society and Health 103(2):74-77, April 1983.
19. Phytate reduction of zinc absorption has been demonstrated in numerous studies. These results are summarised in Leviton, Richard, Tofu, Tempeh, Miso and Other Soyfoods: The 'Food of the Future' - How to Enjoy Its Spectacular Health Benefits, Keats Publishing, Inc., New Canaan, CT, USA, 1982, p. 1415.
20. Mellanby, Edward, "Experimental rickets: The effect of cereals and their interaction with other factors of diet and environment in producing rickets", Journal of the Medical Research Council 93:265, March 1925; Wills, M.R. et al., "Phytic Acid and Nutritional Rickets in Immigrants", The Lancet, April 8,1972, pp. 771-773.
21. Rackis et al., ibid.
22. Rackis et al., ibid., p. 232.
23. Wallace, G.M., "Studies on the Processing and Properties of Soymilk", Journal of Science and Food Agriculture 22:526-535, October 1971.
24. Rackis, et al., ibid., p. 22; "Evaluation of the Health Aspects of Soy Protein Isolates as Food Ingredients", prepared for FDA by Life Sciences Research Office, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20014), USA, Contract No. FDA 223-75-2004, 1979.
25. See www/truthinlabeling.org.
26. Rackis, Joseph, J., "Biological and Physiological Factors in Soybeans", Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society 51:161A-170A, January 1974.
27. Rackis, Joseph J. et al., "The USDA trypsin inhibitor study", ibid.
28. Torum, Benjamin, "Nutritional Quality of Soybean Protein Isolates: Studies in Children of Preschool Age", in Soy Protein and Human Nutrition, Harold L Wilcke et al. (eds), Academic Press, New York, 1979.
29. Zreik, Marwin, CCN, "The Great Soy Protein Awakening", Total Health 32(1), February 2000.
30. IEH Assessment on Phytoestrogens in the Human Diet, Final Report to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, UK, November 1997, p. 11.
31. Food Labeling: Health Claims: Soy Protein and Coronary Heart Disease, Food and Drug Administration 21 CFR, Part 101 (Docket No. 98P-0683).
32. Sheegan, Daniel M. and Daniel R Doerge, Letter to Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305), February 18, 1999.
33. Anderson, James W. et al., "Meta-analysis of the Effects of Soy Protein Intake on Serum Lipids", New England Journal of Medicine (1995) 333:(5):276-282.
34. Guy, Camille, "Doctors warned against magic, quackery", New Zealand Herald, September 9, 1995, section 8, p. 5.
35. Sander, Kate and Hilary Wilson, "FDA approves new health claim for soy, but litte fallout expected for dairy", Cheese Market News, October 22, 1999, p. 24.
36. Enig, Mary G. and Sally Fallon, "The Oiling of America", NEXUS Magazine, December 1998-January 1999 and February-March 1999; also available at www.WestonAPrice.org.
37. Natural Medicine News (L & H Vitamins, 32-33 47th Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101), USA, January/February 2000, p. 8.
38. Harras, Angela (ed.), Cancer Rates and Risks, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, 1996, 4th edition.
39. Searle, Charles E. (ed.), Chemical Carcinogens, ACS Monograph 173, American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, 1976.
40. Nagata, C. et al., Journal of Nutrition (1998) 128:209-213.
41. Campbell, Colin T. et al., The Cornell Project in China.
42. Chang, K.C. (ed.), Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, New Haven, 1977.
43. Messina, Mark J. et al., "Soy Intake and Cancer Risk: A Review of the In Vitro and In Vivo Data", Nutrition and Cancer (1994) 21(2):113-131.
44. Rackis et al, "The USDA trypsin inhibitor study", ibid.
45. Petrakis, N.L. et al., "Stimulatory influence of soy protein isolate on breast secretion in pre- and post-menopausal women", Cancer Epid. Bio. Prev. (1996) 5:785-794.
46. Dees, C. et al., "Dietary estrogens stimulate human breast cells to enter the cell cycle", Environmental Health Perspectives (1997) 105(Suppl. 3):633-636.
47. Woodhams, D.J., "Phytoestrogens and parrots: The anatomy of an investigation", Proceedings of the Nutrition Society of New Zealand (1995) 20:22-30.
48. Matrone, G. et al., "Effect of Genistin on Growth and Development of the Male Mouse", Journal of Nutrition (1956) 235-240.
49. Ishizuki, Y. et al., "The effects on the thyroid gland of soybeans administered experimentally in healthy subjects", Nippon Naibunpi Gakkai Zasshi (1991) 767:622-629.
50. Divi, R.L. et al., "Anti-thyroid isoflavones from the soybean", Biochemical Pharmacology (1997) 54:1087-1096.
51. Cassidy, A. et al., "Biological Effects of a Diet of Soy Protein Rich in Isoflavones on the Menstrual Cycle of Premenopausal Women", American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1994) 60:333-340.
52. Murphy, P.A., "Phytoestrogen Content of Processed Soybean Foods", Food Technology, January 1982, pp. 60-64.
53. Bulletin de L'Office Fédéral de la Santé Publique, no. 28, July 20, 1992.
54. Keung, W.M., "Dietary oestrogenic isoflavones are potent inhibitors of B-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase of P. testosteronii", Biochemical and Biophysical Research Committee (1995) 215:1137-1144; Makela, S.I. et al., "Estrogen-specific 12 B-hydroxysteroid oxidoreductase type 1 (E.C. 1.1.1.62) as a possible target for the action of phytoestrogens", PSEBM (1995) 208:51-59.
55. Setchell, K.D.R. et al., "Dietary oestrogens - a probable cause of infertility and liver disease in captive cheetahs", Gastroenterology (1987) 93:225-233; Leopald, A.S., "Phytoestrogens: Adverse effects on reproduction in California Quail," Science (1976) 191:98-100; Drane, H.M. et al., "Oestrogenic activity of soya-bean products", Food, Cosmetics and Technology (1980) 18:425-427; Kimura, S. et al., "Development of malignant goiter by defatted soybean with iodine-free diet in rats", Gann. (1976) 67:763-765; Pelissero, C. et al., "Oestrogenic effect of dietary soybean meal on vitellogenesis in cultured Siberian Sturgeon Acipenser baeri", Gen. Comp. End. (1991) 83:447-457; Braden et al., "The oestrogenic activity and metabolism of certain isoflavones in sheep", Australian J. Agricultural Research (1967) 18:335-348.
56. Ginsburg, Jean and Giordana M. Prelevic, "Is there a proven place for phytoestrogens in the menopause?", Climacteric (1999) 2:75-78.
57. Setchell, K.D. et al., "Isoflavone content of infant formulas and the metabolic fate of these early phytoestrogens in early life", American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, December 1998 Supplement, 1453S-1461S.
58. Irvine, C. et al., "The Potential Adverse Effects of Soybean Phytoestrogens in Infant Feeding", New Zealand Medical Journal May 24, 1995, p. 318.
59. Hagger, C. and J. Bachevalier, "Visual habit formation in 3-month-old monkeys (Macaca mulatta): reversal of sex difference following neonatal manipulations of androgen", Behavior and Brain Research (1991) 45:57-63.
60. Ross, R.K. et al., "Effect of in-utero exposure to diethylstilbestrol on age at onset of puberty and on post-pubertal hormone levels in boys", Canadian Medical Association Journal 128(10):1197-8, May 15, 1983.
61. Herman-Giddens, Marcia E. et al., "Secondary Sexual Characteristics and Menses in Young Girls Seen in Office Practice: A Study from the Pediatric Research in Office Settings Network", Pediatrics 99(4):505-512, April 1997.
62. Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly 263, "The Wingspread Statement", Part 1, December 11, 1991; Colborn, Theo, Dianne Dumanoski and John Peterson Myers, Our Stolen Future, Little, Brown & Company, London, 1996.
63. Freni-Titulaer, L.W., "Premature Thelarch in Puerto Rico: A search for environmental factors", American Journal of Diseases of Children 140(12):1263-1267, December 1986.
64. White, Lon, "Association of High Midlife Tofu Consumption with Accelerated Brain Aging", Plenary Session #8: Cognitive Function, The Third International Soy Symposium, November 1999, Program, p. 26.
65. Altonn, Helen, "Too much tofu induces 'brain aging', study shows", Honolulu Star-Bulletin, November 19, 1999.
66. Journal of the American Geriatric Society (1998) 46:816-21.
67. Doerge, Daniel R., "Inactivation of Thyroid Peroxidase by Genistein and Daidzein in Vitro and in Vivo; Mechanism for Anti-Thyroid Activity of Soy", presented at the November 1999 Soy Symposium in Washington, DC, National Center for Toxicological Research, Jefferson, AR 72029, USA.
68. Hughes, Claude, Center for Women's Health and Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA.
69. Soy Intake May Affect Fetus", Reuters News Service, November 5, 1999.
70. "Vegetarian diet in pregnancy linked to birth defect", BJU International 85:107-113, January 2000.
71. FDA ref 72/104, Report FDABF GRAS - 258.
72. "Evaluation of the Health Aspects of Soy Protein Isolates as Food Ingredients", prepared for FDA by Life Sciences Research Office, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) (9650 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20014, USA), Contract No, FDA 223-75-2004, 1979.

http://www.mercola.com/article/soy/avoid_soy.htm

http://www.spiritcentral.net/cinderella.pdf

Soy Protein Used in "Natural" Foods Bathed in Toxic Solvent Hexane

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

May 20 2009

Soy Protein Used in "Natural" Foods Bathed in Toxic Solvent Hexane

(NaturalNews) Virtually all "protein bars" on the market today are made with soy protein. Many infant formula products are also made with soy protein, and thousands of vegetarian products (veggie burgers, veggie cheese, "natural" food bars, etc.) are made with soy protein.

That soy protein is almost always described as safe and "natural" by the companies using it. But there's a dirty little secret the soy product industry doesn't want you to know: Much of the "natural" soy protein used in foods today is bathed in a toxic, explosive chemical solvent known as hexane.

To determine the true extent of this hexane contamination, NaturalNews joined forces with the Cornucopia Institute (http://www.cornucopia.org/) to conduct testing of hexane residues in soy meal and soy grits using FDA-approved and USDA-approved laboratories. The Cornucopia Institute performed the bulk of this effort, and NaturalNews provided funding to help cover laboratory costs.

The results proved to be worrisome: Hexane residues of 21ppm were discovered in soy meal commonly used to produce soy protein for infant formula, protein bars and vegetarian food products.These laboratory results appear to indicate that consumers who purchase common soy products might be exposing themselves (and their children) to residues of the toxic chemical HEXANE -- a neurotoxic substance produced as a byproduct of gasoline refining.

But how dangerous is hexane, exactly? Is it something that could be dangerous at a few parts per million? And which soy-based products on the market right now might be contaminated with hexane?

To answer these questions, NaturalNews looked into public documents surrounding Martek Biosciences Corporation, a company that manufactures DHA for infant formula, using hexane for extraction.

We found disturbing details about Martek, including a documented explosion in the wastewater treatment system downstream from the manufacturing plant. This explosion was caused by hexane pollution.

We also found documents revealing Martek's application for permission to pollute hexane into the environment, as well as a planned emission cap that would put the company just under the limit for being considered a "major polluter" of Hazardous Air Pollutants.

Additional documents reveal concerning information about the safety of Martek's oils used in infant formula. All this information is being released in tomorrow's feature story on NaturalNews, so be sure to check back to read that. The remainder of this story focuses on the use of hexane in soy products.

What you probably never knew about Hexane extraction

To learn more about the use of hexane in the health industry -- and in soy products in particular -- we turn to the Cornucopia Institute's recently-published report called Behind the Bean (http://www.cornucopia.org/2009/05/s)

This report contains some of the most shocking information you've probably ever read about the possible dangers of this chemical solvent used in the processing of soy. Here are some highlights of what it explains about hexane: (Quotation marks indicate exact verbiage from the Behind the Bean report.)

• Hexane is a petroleum chemical produced as a by-product of gasoline refining.

• "Hexane is used to process nearly all conventional soy protein ingredients and edible oils and is prohibited when processing organic foods."

• Soybeans are bathed in hexane as part of their processing by food manufacturers.

• "Hexane is a neurotoxic chemical that poses serious occupational hazards to workers, is an environmental air pollutant, and can contaminate food."

• Hexane has been detected as a chemical contaminant in soy-based foods.

• There is no requirement that food companies test their products for hexane residues (including soy-based infant formula).

• Soy protein isolate and texturized soy protein (TVP) are made using hexane baths.

• "The soy protein ingredients in most nonorganic foods such as vegetarian burgers and nutrition bars are processed with the use of hexane."

• Shocker: "Products such as Clif Bars with the label "made with organic oats and soybeans" are required by law to have 70% organic ingredients -- the remaining 30%, however, can legally be hexane extracted."

Soybean processing releases hexane into the environment

Perhaps one of the most shocking realizations in all this is that soybean processing facilities release huge amounts of hexane chemicals into the environment. It is an unavoidable part of the hexane extraction process, and right now tens of millions of pounds of hexane are being released into the atmosphere each year by soy processing companies like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill.

Here are more startling facts about the release of hexane chemicals by soybean processing facilities: (cited from Behind the Bean by the Cornucopia Institute)

(Quotation marks indicate a direct quotation from the Cornucopia Institute's report. Non-quotation marks indicate paraphrasing of this source.)

• Soybean processing plants release hexane into both the air and water.

• Hexane is considered by the EPA to be a hazardous air pollutant. It defines this as airborne compounds "that cause or may cause cancer or other serious health effects, such as reproductive effects or birth defects, or adverse environmental and ecological effects."

• "In 2007, the last year for which data is available from the EPA Toxics Release Inventory, grain processors were responsible for more than two-thirds of all hexane emissions in the United States, releasing 21 million pounds of this hazardous air pollutants."

• A soy processing facility owned by Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in Decatur Illinois reportedly released almost 2 million pounds of hexane into the environment in a single year! Each year in Illinois, ADM, Cargill, Bunge and other companies release nearly 5 million pounds of hexane into the environment.

• "Solae, a major supplier of soy protein ingredients found in vegetarian burgers, energy bars, and other "all-natural" foods, emitted nearly one million pounds of hexane, as a pollutant, from its factories in Ohio and Illinois. Its plant in Bellevue, Ohio, is the nation's seventh largest emitter of hexane, releasing more of this hazardous air pollutant than other major sources such as Exxon Mobil's oil refinery plant in Baytow, Texas, and Firestone's tire factory in Orange, Texas."

• "On August 29, 2003, two workers died when hexane gas in a Sioux City, Iowa, soybean processing plant ignited."

• Hexane explosions have occurred in Italy, Mexico (200 dead) and South Africa, often killing or injuring chemical plant workers.

• In 2001, a truck carrying 4,500 gallons of hexane caught fire and exploded, injuring the truck driver and setting fire to nearby homes.

• Hexane also poses a serious health danger to workers: "Workers who come in dermal (skin) contact with hexane experience immediate irritation characterized by erythema and hyperemia, and they develop blisters after several hours."

• According to The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the permissible exposure level of hexane is 500 parts per million (ppm) for workers with 8-hour exposures. Exposures of 800 ppm for 15 minutes can cause respiratory tract and eye irritation, as well as symptoms of carnosis. At higher exposure levels, workers can develop symptoms of nausea, vertigo and headaches.

• "Workers who are chronically exposed to hexane levels ranging from 400 to 600 ppm, with occasional exposures of up to 2,500 ppm, have developed polyneuropathy, a neurological disorder. In these cases, distal symmetrical muscle weakness is common, and nerve biopsies show nerve damage. A recently published peer-reviewed article in Environmental Health Perspectives hypothesizes that occupational exposure to hexane may contribute to the development of Leber hereditary optic neuropathy, a disease that causes loss of vision. Chronic exposure may also lead to blurred vision, restricted visual field, and optic nerve atrophy."

(Read more details in Behind the Bean at http://www.cornucopia.org/2009/05/soy-report-and-scorecard/

• Almost no research has been done to test the toxicity of hexane residues in foods -- not on adults, nor infants.

• "According to EPA reports, small quantities of solvent (up to 0.2 percent by volume of oil) can be present in oil after extraction, even after solvent recovery by film evaporators and a distillation stripper. A Swiss team of scientists tested various oils and found hexane residues in some of the tested oils."

• Test results from the Cornucopia Institute's lab tests (funded in part by NaturalNews): <>

• "Most soy-based infant formulas contain ingredients that have been hexane extracted. In fact, nearly every major ingredient in conventional soy-based infant formula is hexane extracted."

How can you protect yourself and your children from hexane?

As these laboratory tests reveal, hexane residues may be alarmingly widespread across the "natural" foods industry. In fact, as the Cornucopia Institute reports:"...hexane-extracted soy protein is found in the vast majority of nonorganic foods with soy ingredients that appeal to health-conscious, environmentally conscious, and vegetarian consumers.

For example, Gardein™ is a Canadian company that produces meat analogs -- soy-based "chicken" and soy-based "beef" -- for brands and private labels including Yves Cuisine®, Morningstar Farms®, Trader Joe's, and It's All Good Foods®, and for grocery store prepared foods departments such as Whole Foods. While the company describe its process for making these meat analogs as "pure and simple," it does not mention that it starts with hexane-extracted soy protein."

In the United States, there is currently only one way of knowing for sure that the soy-based foods you purchase is free of hexane contaminants: Look for the green USDA Organic seal on the package:

• Beware of claims of "natural" soy -- Even hexane-extracted soy can be called "natural."

• Beware of claims of "made with organic soy" -- Such products may still contain non-organic soy-based ingredients extracted with hexane.

• Beware of "veggie" products containing texturized vegetable protein. Many of these products not only likely contain hexane chemical residues; they also are usually made with yeast extract, a flavoring ingredient that contains MSG, a neurotoxin. (Imagine the impact of these two neurotoxins in combination...)

• Don't feed your infant soy protein. Instead, opt for human breast milk (the best option), or goat's milk formulas such as Genesis Organics (http://www.genesisorganics.com/).

The bottom line - the Health Ranger's opinion

From my point of view, these highly disturbing findings about hexane residues appearing in processed soy products just confirm what we've known about these food conglomerates for a long time: Big food companies are serving up poison to infants, teens, adults and senior citizens.

Not only are these food companies bathing their soy products in a neurotoxic chemical, the FDA is once again asleep at the wheel, allowing dangerous chemicals to remain prevalent in the food supply while doing virtually nothing to warn consumers or ban the toxic chemical from soy product processing.

Thus, We the People once again find ourselves in the position of being poisoned by the food companies and betrayed by the FDA. If that sounds familiar, it's because this has happened again and again with toxic ingredients ranging from monosodium glutamate and aspartame to sodium nitrite and petrochemical food colorings.

Big Food and the FDA, in fact, almost appear to be conspiring to poison the population... which just happens to create a windfall of profits for Big Pharma -- the other corporate master of the FDA.

It's a clever scam: Poison the people with hidden chemicals in the food supply, then when their organs start to fail, drug them on monopoly-priced pharmaceuticals. Meanwhile, the FDA enforces the whole thing by outlawing real food (like raw almonds or raw organic cow's milk), thereby forcing people to eat chemically-contaminated processed food.

To put icing on the (processed) cake, the FDA allows these companies using toxic chemicals to claim their products are "natural." They even allow some health claims for companies using soy in their formulas -- even when that soy has been bathed in hexane!

Protect yourself from the toxicity of processed foodsThere is no limit to the insanity of what goes into the food supply when profits are at stake, it seems. And this use of the toxic solvent hexane to process soy that's used in infant formula, protein bars and "veggie" products is yet another example of why it's smart to avoid nearly ALL factory-made foods, regardless of their health claims.

When you grow your own food (or just buy fresh produce and food staples) and prepare it in your own kitchen, you know what goes into it. You also know what's NOT in it (such as hexane or melamine). It's the only sure way to protect yourself and your family from the dangers of processed foods made by food commodity giants that are motivated by money, not concern for your health. In fact, the attitude about chemical contaminants by many U.S. food giants mirrors the attitude about melamine in infant formula as demonstrated by China's powdered milk manufacturers: "Ah, what's a little melamine gonna hurt anyway?"But it does hurt. It hurts your health and harms your children. There are 10,000 children on dialysis machines in China who can prove it to you. And that's why, in my opinion, these companies using hexane-contaminated soy protein in their products deserve to be publicly exposed, heavily fined and perhaps even shut down and run out of business.

Why modern society looks the other way on chemical contamination of foodsWhy are companies run out of business when salmonella is found in their peanut butter (for example), but when toxic chemical solvents are found in their soy proteins, the mainstream media says nothing, the FDA does nothing, and the whole world pretends it's all just business as usual?

I'll tell you why. There is an irrational, false belief that continues to permeate society today, and it's founded in the lies of Scientism and the reductionist approach to western thinking. That false belief is that chemicals are good for you, but bacteria are bad for you.

This is the whole thinking behind the widespread use of antibiotics (which actually promote hospital superbugs) and the mass fumigation of California almonds (just to make sure they're no longer RAW). It's the reason why raw milk is outlawed, but chemically-contaminated soy milk is legal. It's the reason why the FDA views the food supply as safe only if it's sterile. It's the big lie about food safety, and virtually every mainstream newspaper, TV station and journalist buys into it.

They think salmonella is deadly dangerous, but MSG, aspartame and sodium nitrite are just fine. They believe in the lie that chemicals are safe as long as the FDA doesn't say anything against them!

But it's hogwash. A sterile food supply is a dead food supply. And dead foods don't keep people alive for very long. Hence the slow, torturous death of our aging population. Our people are not living longer; they're dying longer!

I say this: We are headed for a disastrous collapse of public health stemming from the mass chemical contamination of the food supply and the genetic alteration of the human population. I've covered this in a video report called Genopocalypse which you can watch for free as a promo to TheBestDayEver.com.

Check it out here: http://www.thebestdayever.com/healthranger/

In the mean time, avoid all soy products that are not labeled USDA Organic, and don't feed yourself or your babies processed soy protein bathed in toxic hexane.Looking for a good soy product? Try Eden Foods' soy products. Other trusted soy products are named in the Cornucopia Institute's report here:

http://www.cornucopia.org/2009/05/soy-report-and-scorecard/

http://www.naturalnews.com/026303.html

Red Bull Drink = Slow Death?

From Helmi
10-12-9

France & Denmark have banned it from the country...

RED BULL - slow death ...

Do NOT drink this drink anymore!

Pay attention... read everything .

As a public health safety, please pass on this email to all the contacts in your address book especially those with teenage children.

This drink is SOLD in all the supermarkets IN OUR country and our children ARE CONSUMING IT ON A TRIAL BASIS. IT can be FATAL.

RED BULL was created to stimulate the brains in people who are subjected to great physical force and in stress coma and never to be consumed like an innocent drink or soda pop.

RED BULL IS the energizer DRINK that is commercialized world-wide with its slogan: "It increases endurance, awakens the concentration capacity and the speed of reaction, offers more energy and improves the mood. All this can be found in a can of RED BULL, the power drink of the millennium."

RED BULL has managed to arrive in almost 100 countries worldwide. The RED BULL logo is targeted at young people and sportsmen, two attractive segments that have been captivated by the stimulus that the drink provides.

It was created by Dietrich Mateschitz, an industrialist of Austrian origin who discovered the drink by chance. It happened during a business trip to Hong Kong , when he was working at a factory that manufactured toothbrushes.

The liquid, based on a formula that contained caffeine and taurine, caused a rage in that country. Imagine the grand success of this drink in Europe where the product still did not exist, besides it was a superb opportunity to become an entrepreneur.

BUT THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS DRINK IS ANOTHER THING

FRANCE and DENMARK have just prohibited it as a cocktail of death, due to its vitamin components mixed with GLUCURONOLACTONE ' - a highly-dangerous chemical, which was developed by the United States Department of Defense during the sixties to stimulate the moral of the troops based in VIETNAM, which acted like a hallucinogenic drug that calmed the stress of the war.

But their effects in the organism were so devastating, that it was discontinued, because of the high index of cases of migraines, cerebral tumors and diseases of the liver that was evident in the soldiers who consumed it.

And in spite of it, in the can of RED BULL you can still find as one of its components: GLUCURONOLACTONE, categorized medically as a stimulant. But what it does not say on the can of RED BULL are the consequences of its consumption, and that has forced a series of WARNINGS...

1. It is dangerous to take it if you do not engage in physical exercise afterwards, since its energizing function accelerates the heart rate and can cause a sudden attack.

2. You run the risk of undergoing a cerebral hemorrhage, because RED BULL contains components that dilute the blood so that the heart utilizes less energy to pump the blood, and thus be able to deliver physical force with less effort being exerted.

3. It is prohibited to mix RED BULL with alcohol, because the mixture turns the drink into a " Deadly Bomb " that attacks the liver directly, causing the affected area never to regenerate anymore.

4. One of the main components of RED BULL is the B12 vitamin, used in medicine to recover patients who are in a coma ; from here the hypertension and the state of excitement which is experienced after taking it, as if you were in a drunken state.

5. The regular consumption of RED BULL triggers off symptoms in the form of a series of irreversible nervous and neuronal diseases.

CONCLUSION: It is a drink that should be prohibited in the entire world as when it is mixed with alcohol it creates a TIME BOMB for the human body, mainly between innocent adolescents and adults with little experience. Forward this mail to Everyone and Let them know about this

Helmi@Coolfishermann

http://www.rense.com/general88/bull.htm

For Your Health, Froot Loops

By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: September 4, 2009

For Your Health, Froot Loops

A new food-labeling campaign called Smart Choices, backed by most of the nation’s largest food manufacturers, is “designed to help shoppers easily identify smarter food and beverage choices.”

The green checkmark label that is starting to show up on store shelves will appear on hundreds of packages, including — to the surprise of many nutritionists — sugar-laden cereals like Cocoa Krispies and Froot Loops.

“These are horrible choices,” said Walter C. Willett, chairman of the nutrition department of the Harvard School of Public Health.

He said the criteria used by the Smart Choices Program were seriously flawed, allowing less healthy products, like sweet cereals and heavily salted packaged meals, to win its seal of approval. “It’s a blatant failure of this system and it makes it, I’m afraid, not credible,” Mr. Willett said.

The Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture have also weighed in, sending the program’s managers a letter on Aug. 19 saying they intended to monitor its effect on the food choices of consumers.

The letter said the agencies would be concerned if the Smart Choices label “had the effect of encouraging consumers to choose highly processed foods and refined grains instead of fruits, vegetables and whole grains.”

The government is interested in improving nutrition labeling on packages in part because of the nation’s obesity epidemic, which experts say is tied to a diet heavy in processed foods loaded with calories, fats and sugar.

The prominently displayed label debuts as many in the food industry and government are debating how to provide information on the front of packages that includes important elements from the familiar nutrition facts box that usually appears on the back of products.

Eileen T. Kennedy, president of the Smart Choices board and the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, said the program’s criteria were based on government dietary guidelines and widely accepted nutritional standards.

She said the program was also influenced by research into consumer behavior. That research showed that, while shoppers wanted more information, they did not want to hear negative messages or feel their choices were being dictated to them.

“The checkmark means the food item is a ‘better for you’ product, as opposed to having an x on it saying ‘Don’t eat this,’ ” Dr. Kennedy said. “Consumers are smart enough to deduce that if it doesn’t have the checkmark, by implication it’s not a ‘better for you’ product. They want to have a choice. They don’t want to be told ‘You must do this.’ ”

Dr. Kennedy, who is not paid for her work on the program, defended the products endorsed by the program, including sweet cereals. She said Froot Loops was better than other things parents could choose for their children.

“You’re rushing around, you’re trying to think about healthy eating for your kids and you have a choice between a doughnut and a cereal,” Dr. Kennedy said, evoking a hypothetical parent in the supermarket. “So Froot Loops is a better choice.”

Froot Loops qualifies for the label because it meets standards set by the Smart Choices Program for fiber and Vitamins A and C, and because it does not exceed limits on fat, sodium and sugar. It contains the maximum amount of sugar allowed under the program for cereals, 12 grams per serving, which in the case of Froot Loops is 41 percent of the product, measured by weight. That is more sugar than in many popular brands of cookies.

“Froot Loops is an excellent source of many essential vitamins and minerals and it is also a good source of fiber with only 12 grams of sugar,” said Celeste A. Clark, senior vice president of global nutrition for Kellogg’s, which makes Froot Loops. “You cannot judge the nutritional merits of a food product based on one ingredient.”

Dr. Clark, who is a member of the Smart Choices board, said that the program’s standard for sugar in cereals was consistent with federal dietary guidelines that say that “small amounts of sugar” added to nutrient-dense foods like breakfast cereals can make them taste better. That, in theory, will encourage people to eat more of them, which would increase the nutrients in their diet.

Ten companies have signed up for the Smart Choices program so far, including Kellogg’s, Kraft Foods, ConAgra Foods, Unilever, General Mills, PepsiCo and Tyson Foods. Companies that participate pay up to $100,000 a year to the program, with the fee based on total sales of its products that bear the seal.

The Smart Choices checkmark is meant to take the place of similar nutritional labels that individual manufacturers began plastering on their packages several years ago, like PepsiCo’s Smart Choices Made Easy and Sensible Solution from Kraft.

In joining Smart Choices, the companies agreed to discontinue their own labeling systems, Ms. Kennedy said.

Michael R. Taylor, a senior F.D.A. adviser, said the agency was concerned that sugar-laden cereals and high-fat foods would bear a label that tells consumers they were nutritionally superior.

“What we don’t want to do is have front-of-package information that in any way is based on cherry-picking the good and not disclosing adequately the components of a product that may be less good,” Mr. Taylor said.

He said the agency would consider the possibility of creating a standardized nutrition label for the front of packages.

“We’re taking a hard look at these programs and we want to independently look at what would be the sound criteria and the best way to present this information,” Mr. Taylor said.

Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, was part of a panel that helped devise the Smart Choices nutritional criteria, until he quit last September. He said the panel was dominated by members of the food industry, which skewed its decisions.

“It was paid for by industry and when industry put down its foot and said this is what we’re doing, that was it, end of story,” he said. Dr. Kennedy and Dr. Clark, who were both on the panel, said industry members had not controlled the results.

Mr. Jacobson objected to some of the panel’s nutritional decisions. The criteria allow foods to carry the Smart Choices seal if they contain added nutrients, which he said could mask shortcomings in the food.

Despite federal guidelines favoring whole grains, the criteria allow breads made with no whole grains to get the seal if they have added nutrients.

“You could start out with some sawdust, add calcium or Vitamin A and meet the criteria,” Mr. Jacobson said.

Nutritionists questioned other foods given the Smart Choices label. The program gives the seal to both regular and light mayonnaise, which could lead consumers to think they are both equally healthy. It also allows frozen meals and packaged sandwiches to have up to 600 milligrams of sodium, a quarter of the recommended daily maximum intake.

“The object of this is to make highly processed foods appear as healthful as unprocessed foods, which they are not,” said Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/business/05smart.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&em

Experts Say Industry Food Labels Deceptive

By Randall Pinkston
NEW YORK, Sept. 6, 2009

Experts Say Industry Food Labels Deceptive

Manufacturers Add "Smart Choices" Labels to Packages, Mimicking Government Nutrition Labels; Bid to Push Processed Foods?

(CBS) It's a controversy that's as close as your local supermarket shelf - those familiar government nutrition labels. Now some big food manufacturers are adding labels of their own, as CBS News correspondent Randall Pinkston reports.

Since the mid 1990s, if Americans wanted to know what was in their food, they had to look at government-approved nutrition facts on the side of the box.

Now, some packaged foods are getting new front-of-the-box labels.

"The purpose is to help people make choices about healthier food and to make different selections than they are making now," said Mike Hughes, chairman of the Smart Choices program.

Smart choices is a system designed by and paid for by the nation's major food manufacturers and managed by the American Society of Nutrition.

But critics say the program has a very different objective.

"The point of the program is to make processed foods look healthy when you really want people eating foods that have been as minimally processed as possible," said Dr. Marian Nestle, a professor of nutritional studies at New York University.

Nestle was astounded by some of the products that rate the Smart Choice designation.

"This is the first product that I've seen with this logo on it," she said, holding a box of Fruit Loops cereal. "And I was kind of amazed because this is a sugary cereal."

Food manufacturers say just because a product contains sugar doesn't make it bad.

"We believe that the smart choices program, taken in its totality, will encourage people to eat in line with U.S. dietary guidelines for Americans," Hughes said.

So far, 10 large food manufacturers, like Kellogg's and Kraft, are part of the Smart Choices program. With approximately 500 products, including Fruit Loops, Kid Cuisine cheeseburgers, Teddy Grahams and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, carrying the Smart Choices label.

The green mark does not mean government approval, but critics say there's a danger some consumers won't know that.

Shopper Laurie Adams told us that she believed the green check mark meant that the product was a healthy choice.

The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates food labeling, is keeping close watch on the Smart Choices program. The major concern is that the labels may mislead consumers and encourage them to buy highly processed foods instead of fruits and vegetables.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/06/eveningnews/main5291352.shtml

Kellogg's® Froot Loops® cereal

Kellogg's® Froot Loops® cereal

Sweetened multi-grain cereal. Now provides fiber.

Sizes

11 oz, 15 oz, 3/4 oz bowl, 1.5 oz cup, 43.6 oz dual pkg, 15 oz, 3/4 oz bowl, 22 oz, 25 oz, 19.7 oz, 11 oz, 25 oz, 0.95 oz indv, 0.95 oz indv, 8.7 oz, 12.2 oz, 17 oz, 21.7 oz, 8.7 oz, 12.2 oz, 17 oz, 21.7 oz, 8.7 oz, 12.2 oz, 21.7 oz savings, 17 oz, 0.95 oz indv

Ingredients

SUGAR; WHOLE GRAIN CORN FLOUR; WHEAT FLOUR; WHOLE GRAIN OAT FLOUR; OAT FIBER; SOLUBLE CORN FIBER; PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL (ONE OR MORE OF: COCONUT, SOYBEAN AND/OR COTTONSEED OILS)†; SALT; SODIUM ASCORBATE AND ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C); NIACINAMIDE; REDUCED IRON; NATURAL ORANGE, LEMON, CHERRY, RASPBERRY, BLUEBERRY, LIME AND OTHER NATURAL FLAVORS; RED #40; BLUE #2; TURMERIC COLOR; YELLOW #6; ZINC OXIDE; ANNATTO COLOR; BLUE #1; PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6); RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2); THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1); VITAMIN A PALMITATE; BHT (PRESERVATIVE); FOLIC ACID; VITAMIN D; VITAMIN B12.
† LESS THAN 0.5g TRANS FAT PER SERVING.

Allergen Information

CONTAINS WHEAT INGREDIENTS. CORN USED IN THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS TRACES OF SOYBEANS.

Dietary Exchange Per Serving

1 1/2 Carbohydrates

Kosher Status

Kosher/Parve

Country of Origin

Distributed in USA

http://www2.kelloggs.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?product=566

Smart Choices" food label is marketing fraud

by Mike Adams
September 22 2009


Smart Choices" food label is marketing fraud; Tufts University involvement questioned (opinion)

NaturalNews) The big food companies have dreamed up yet another clever con to sell processed junk foods to parents and children: A "Smart Choices" label that implies the food product is a smart choice for health and nutrition. The problem is that the standards for qualifying for this designation were set by the food companies themselves, and processed junk foods like Froot Loops (a sugary breakfast cereal) qualify.

Froot Loops is 41 percent processed white sugar. It also contains processed flour and partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil. But that's not all you'll find in the box: Froot Loops is also made with synthetic coloring chemicals, including Red #40, Blue #2, Yellow #6 and Blue #1. The No. 1 ingredient of Froot Loops is sugar, and each serving contains 12 grams of sugar.

So how, exactly, did Froot Loops qualify for the "Smart Choices" label?

I'll tell you how: Because the Smart Choices label is a marketing fraud. It's a manipulative, dishonest food package labeling system that is intentionally designed by the processed food companies to mislead and misinform consumers into buying processed food products, in my view.

You'd have to be deeply misinformed about nutritional basics to think that a processed breakfast cereal made of 41% sugar, partially-hydrogenated oils and artificial coloring chemicals is a "smart choice" for any child. A more appropriate label might be "Diabetes Choices" or "Obesity Choices", but certainly not "Smart Choices."

In my opinion, this marketing fraud is little more than a marketing gimmick. It makes you wonder who, exactly, came up with it.


Did Tufts University sell out to the food giants?
The president of the Smart Choices board is Eileen T. Kennedy, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. (http://nutrition.tufts.edu/1174562918741/Nutrition-Page-nl2w_1177941613339.html )

Eileen Kennedy and other Tufts University faculty members have established ties with the Kellogg's company, having participated in a "Children's Health" forum that was co-sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

That event, held in June of this year, was entitled: 'Children's Health: The Future of Food & Nutrition Policy'. It claimed to offer in-depth discussions on topics like "childhood obesity, nutrition standards, global child nutrition and school food."

(http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS211273+27-May-2009+PRN20090527 )

(Did their discussions ever mention that perhaps children shouldn't eat breakfast cereals made with 41% processed sugar?)

In promoting the event, Eileen Kennedy was quoted in a joint press release, admitting how closely her university works with food companies:

"Working with our colleagues across academia, the food and nutrition industry, government agencies and nonprofit organizations, we will influence and change the
nutritional landscape for our children."

She certainly accomplished that. Now, products made with 41% refined white sugar are fraudulently marketed as "Smart Choices."

Guess who else was invited to speak at the event? Dr. Cathy Woteki from Mars, Inc., makers of candy bars and other sugar processed foods that are aggressively marketed to children.


Tufts University: Sugar for kids?
It all makes you wonder: With all these corporate junk food giants being so heavily involved in this event presented by Tufts University, what exactly does this university really stand for in regards to healthy food for children? Does Tufts University itself stand behind the promotion of sugary junk foods for children? Does it endorse products like Froot Loops being labeled as "Smart Choices" for kids?

Here are the ingredients of Froot Loops:

SUGAR; WHOLE GRAIN CORN FLOUR; WHEAT FLOUR; WHOLE GRAIN OAT FLOUR; OAT FIBER; SOLUBLE CORN FIBER; PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL (ONE OR MORE OF: COCONUT, SOYBEAN AND/OR COTTONSEED OILS)†; SALT; SODIUM ASCORBATE AND ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C); NIACINAMIDE; REDUCED IRON; NATURAL ORANGE, LEMON, CHERRY, RASPBERRY, BLUEBERRY, LIME AND OTHER NATURAL FLAVORS; RED #40; BLUE #2; TURMERIC COLOR; YELLOW #6; ZINC OXIDE; ANNATTO COLOR; BLUE #1; PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6); RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2); THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1); VITAMIN A PALMITATE; BHT (PRESERVATIVE); FOLIC ACID; VITAMIN D; VITAMIN B12.

Is Eileen T. Kennedy, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, really going to tell us -- with a straight face -- that this cereal is good for kids?

Really?


Aiming low
She might answer, of course, that "it meets U.S. government nutritional guidelines." Those are the same guidelines that have already made the United States of America a nation grappling with a pandemic of obese children and adults.

Clearly, U.S. government nutritional guidelines are a public health disaster. If we hope to improve the health of our children, it only stands to reason that we must improve the nutritional guidelines being followed to feed our kids. And you can't improve nutritional guidelines if you're in bed with the very same corporate food giants who are making and peddling their sugary, chemically-enriched breakfast cereals that promote diabetes and obesity in the first place.

You also can't improve kids' health if you're nutritionally ill-informed and yet you've somehow found your way into a position of influence over nutritional policy... as seems to be the case with Dr. Eileen Kennedy. Here's her gosh-darned explanation of why Froot Loops deserves the "Smart Choices" label, in her own words: "You're rushing around, you're trying to think about healthy eating for your kids and you have a choice between a doughnut and a cereal. So Froot Loops is a better choice."


Better than a donut?
Huh? Is she serious? Froot Loops gets a Smart Choices label because it's better than a donut? Is this the limit of the nutritional awareness of the dean of a nationally-recognized school that's part of the Tufts University system?

This all really reminds me of the movie Idiocracy, where the whole nation is run by complete idiots and water fountains have been replaced with sugary sports drinks because everybody knows that "water is only for toilets."

In terms of really idiotic thinking, check out this quote published in the New York Times: "Dr. Clark, who is a member of the Smart Choices board, said that the program's standard for sugar in cereals was consistent with federal dietary guidelines that say that 'small amounts of sugar' added to nutrient-dense foods like breakfast cereals can make them taste better. That, in theory, will encourage people to eat more of them, which would increase the nutrients in their diet."

Are they serious? Break down this logic for a moment: Sugar is GOOD because it encourages children to eat MORE processed breakfast cereals!

How on earth could this be a legitimate answer in a nation where kids are eating too much sugar and too much processed food in the first place?

The utter abandonment of basic common sense by the people in this program is truly awe-inspiring. It really makes me wonder how we can ever turn around the health problems of this nation when we have such nutritionally illiterate people being quoted in the New York Times as nutritional experts. (Or perhaps the NY Times was just trying to point out how nutritionally ignorant these people are, and on that point it succeeded wildly...)


Someone please educate Dr. Kennedy about nutrition
Tufts University is an outstanding academic institution. It's done a lot of good work and produced many important studies on nutrition and health. But this pro-sugary-cereals stance by its nutrition school dean is, well, just flat out embarrassing. It makes Tufts University look like the best little corporate nutrition whorehouse in Boston. They might as well just remove the word "science" from the name of the school: Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.

That name should probably be replaced with this one, which is more accurate: Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Corporate Ass Kissers. I'm pretty sure the Friedmans wouldn't appreciate that name, but neither would they likely appreciate a deeply misinformed dean potentially compromising the reputation of their school by seemingly selling out to the very companies whose products undeniably contribute to our kids becoming obese and diabetic in the first place.

Don't let 'em get away with this sell out. Contact the School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and tell 'em what you think about their dean endorsing Froot Loops for children (among other processed junk foods) under the "Smart Choices" label. This is inexcusable! Their contact page is right here: http://nutrition.tufts.edu/1174562918741/Nutrition-Page-nl2w_1177953853481.html

Not all top university nutritionists are hopelessly ignorant when it comes to nutrition, by the way. The chair of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, Walter Willett, told the New York Times that many products carrying the "Smart Choices" label "are horrible choices." In fact, quite a number of influential nutrition leaders have spoken out publicly against Dr. Kennedy.


Smart Choices companies aren't so smart choices
In case you're curious, here's the list of the companies participating in this "Smart Choices" label program:

Kellogg's
Kraft Foods
ConAgra Foods
Unilever
General Mills
PepsiCo
Tyson Foods

... it reads like a who's who of processed food and junk food giants. In terms of making truly smart choices at the grocery store, by the way, the smartest choice would be to avoid any product made by any of these companies, in my view.


What integrity really means
Michael Jacobson, the public health watchdog from CSPI, participated as a panel member in the early days of the Smart Choices program, but he soon quit, explaining "It was paid for by industry and when industry put down its foot and said this is what we're doing, that was it, end of story." In other words, Jacobson rightly refused to sell out his conscience to a group of corporate junk food promoters. That's a rare display of genuine integrity in our world.

I applaud Jacobson for quitting the Smart Choices program, which is obviously just a fraudulent marketing gimmick devised by these companies to intentionally mislead consumers. It's too bad the dean of Tufts University's nutrition school couldn't find the backbone to adhere to similar principles. In a nation suffering from runaway health care costs, widespread nutritional deficiencies and an epidemic of childhood obesity, it's truly disheartening to see an influential nutrition leader from one of the nation's top universities blatantly promoting processed junk foods for children.

I'm appalled, saddened and somewhat surprised to see this in 2009. While the nutritional advice of Eileen T. Kennedy might have passed muster in the 1970's era of bleached white Wonder Bread and chemically-enhanced TV dinners, today we know a lot more about the links between the dietary intake of sugars and childhood obesity, diabetes, heart disease and behavioral disorders. We know that feeding a nation of children sugared-up breakfast cereals and soft drinks is a sure recipe for raising a generation of obese, diabetic children and teens.

As the dean of the school of nutrition at Tufts University, how is it possible that Mrs. Kennedy could have missed this? Has she been in an aspartame-induced coma since 1975? ... and now she suddenly awakens from her decades-long slumber to slap on a pair of polyester pants and champion Froot Loops for children as a prominent dean at Tufts University?

Is this some bizarre rejected screenplay from a "B" movie script? Will her head now spin around as she spouts devilish verse from a demonic spirit that has occupied her body and filled her head with thoughts of sugary cereals?

The whole thing just defies reason. It's difficult to believe this is happening today, in America, in a top-rated university. So read the sources below. Check it out for yourself as you confirm the truth of what I'm reporting here through articles in the NY Times, CBS News and Reuters. See for yourself just how corrupt and / or ignorant the top nutrition leaders in our nation's universities can be on this crucial issue of the diet of children. And when you see this clearly, you'll finally understand why America has more fat, diabetic children than any other nation in the world.

Our adults have sold out our children. It's that simple. In my opinion, corporate money has bought off key influencers who set public nutrition policy, and they have conspired to feed our kids more sugar, more processed foods, more junk and more lies about nutrition even while their selfish actions may very well bankrupt our entire nation through runaway health care costs.

One final truth comes out in all this: The USA's national nutrition policies precisely mirror its national food supply -- they're both processed, bleached, adulterated and wholly devoid of any useful substance.

Sources for this story include:

The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/business/05smart.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&em

LA Times
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/09/smart-choices-sugary-cereal.html

CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/06/eveningnews/main5291352.shtml

Froot Loops ingredients:
http://www2.kelloggs.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?product=566

Tufts University School of Nutrition Science and Policy:
http://nutrition.tufts.edu/

http://www.naturalnews.com/027077_nutrition_food_Tufts_University.html