Soy food products are notorious for being a “healthy” alternative to meats and cheeses, but the truth has been slowly coming to light that these processed, and unfortunately not as healthy as we thought forms of soybeans, may actually be causing more harm than good, and more harm than eating the real thing, as long as you choose low fat versions of the real thing, and also limit your intake. 

I even used to think that soy cheese and soy based meats were healthier, and in fact went through phases where that’s all my girlfriend and I would eat for dinners and breakfasts, but the more I’m reading about the soy products, the more inclined I am to think that I just need to limit my consumption of them.  Because they are processed, they contain high amounts of compounds that produce synthetic estrogen-like components in the body - both male and female bodies, so it affects both men and women.

Because of these estrogenic effects on the body, it can cause severe hormonal imbalance, depending on how much is consumed.  So say if you are eating soy based products all day long, every day, you may find that you have a real imbalance of hormones, which can lead to many different ills unfortunately, and in men can lead to a lower sperm count because of the high estrogen activity that is going on in their bodies. 

And that’s not all, eating just a half of a serving of tofu and soy based products a day for men may actually lower their sperm count and possibly their sperm quality, so that’s not even a lot of soy or tofu that can cause that type of damage to their sperm count.  The activity that is caused in the body which elevates the estrogens (female hormones) in the body is called phytoestrogens at its origins, in the soy based products, and it is called this because phyto means plant, so it is plant based. 

Some naturopaths have been adamantly against eating soy based products because they say it is a processed form of something that is good for you, but like other processed foods, it has been perverted beyond what it was ever meant to be, which means it’s not very healthy for us to eat any more.  In other words, eating soy based substitutes for meats and dairies isn’t like eating a big handful of soybeans, it’s become it’s own food entirely, and one that can greatly affect your good hormone balance if you eat a lot of it, heck apparently even if you only eat a little of it!