Now Playing: What could be a more eco-righteous symbol ?
Topic: Health & Science
[Excerpts] from Spilling the Beans on Soy , globeandmail.com
Heidi Sopinka, 10/26/07
What could be a more eco-righteous symbol of the hippie vegetarian movement than a block of tofu?
As it turns out, the gentle bean has become somewhat of a blood crop in South America. A recent article in The Daily Telegraph uncovered that land-rights activists are risking death, while vast swaths of rainforest are being felled to provide land for the booming soy industry in Brazil (now surpassing the United States as the top soy exporter in the world).
With the added issues of widespread genetically modified and pesticide-laden crops, along with the documented dangers of eating too much unfermented soy, just how green is the soy bean?
... From fast food to pet food, soy is wall-to-wall in our edible products.
And while organic fermented soy can be good in moderation, eating a tofu burger and washing it down with a glass of soy milk on a daily basis could prove hazardous to your health. Although the lauded Asian diet has incorporated soy for centuries, it has never included the large amounts of unfermented and heavily processed soy products consumed in North America that have toxicologists worried.
When seeking out soy, look for products that are labelled "organic soy," which means they are genetically unaltered and pesticide-free. Fermented soy products, including miso, tempeh and tamari sauce, are healthy choices (the fermentation process removes the phytates, trypsin inhibitors and hemagglutinins, which can cause clots).
