Soy No Mas

Why is it that soy has earned such a healthy reputation when I hear so many bad things about it? Time and time again, I keep reading about studies that show plant estrogens in soy clearly cause a strong estrogenic effect in the body. This in turn can affect fertility; Not only in women who are trying to conceive, but also in the fertility and sex characteristics of unborn babies and developing children. It can have permanent effects on development long-term. It's pretty scary to read what soy can do to unborn babies and developing children. 

Please take a minute to read this ARTICLE!!! There are hundreds of peer reviewed studies out there confirming the points made here as well. It discusses how soy can affect various types of women: those trying to conceive, those already pregnant, and those breastfeeding.  Even if you don't fall into any of those categories, increased risk for breast cancer caused by soy can absolutely affect you.

I don't even want to know how much "old estrogen" I had lingering in my cells before I started taking Standard Process supplements to clear all that garbage out. Old estrogens and xenoestrogens lingering in your body are NOT what you want as a woman. I was pumping my body full of things that caused estrogenic effects for quite a long time:

-I was on birth control pills for about 10 years straight before finally discontinuing them in December 2008. Want to teach your body how NOT to make hormones on it's own? Take BCP's for a decade. That should do the trick.

-I lived out of plastic containers my entire life: heated food in them,  drank out of plastic bottles, the whole nine. My mother sold tupperware growing up, and everything we used to store food and drinks in was plastic. Very bad!

-I consumed an obscenely large amount of sports nutrition supplements (protein shakes/bars containing soy protein) and edamame. Is edamame or an occasional protein bar going to make you infertile? Eh, probably not, but on top of everything else I had going on, pumping soy estrogens into my body on a daily basis probably wasn't helping teach my body how to make hormones on it's own. It already had it's fill of estrogen, so why make any?

Not to mention, soybeans are in at least 75% of the foods on the shelves at the supermarket. This is my own guesstimate, but it's pretty astonishing how many things contain soy....things you've never even suspect, like crackers, cereals, condiments. Read labels in the snack isle at the grocery store sometime. It's in EVERYTHING, and the worst part is that the soy used in most products is also genetically modified, which brings it's own list of ill side effects, many of them fertility related as well. The last thing I need is more hormonal imbalances or an increased risk for cancer, so no soy for me thank you very much. I've gone completely glass in my kitchen and have cut out soy entirely. No mas! The more I keep reading articles like this, the more I'm thankful I have.

What about you? Do you try to limit your exposure to estrogens in food or the environment? Any thoughts or opinions on the article or soy in general?