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What's The Deal With Soy?

What's The Deal With Soy?

Soy, which comes from the soybean, was first discovered in Asia.

The soybean made its way to the U.S. in the early 1900s due to its popularity and versatility. It was originally used for commercial crops (crops sold on agricultural markets). We didn't start eating the soybean until World War II, when fat and oil imports were blocked. Thanks to the depression in the late 1930s. 

In 1999, the FDA approved a health claim that soy protein reduces the risk of heart disease by 25 grams. As you could imagine, soybean crops started to take over. 

To this day, soybeans are the second-largest harvested crop, with an average of one billion bushels produced yearly. 

Making America the world's largest soybean producer and exporter. Soybeans currently account for an astonishing 10 percent of Americans' total calories. Mostly due to processed and fried foods.

This is important to note because what was once a simple bean is now one of the top additives you find in processed foods, artificial flavoring, and bad oils. 

How could that happen? Well, as the crops continued to expand, the farmers had too many soybeans. So they needed other ways to monetize the bean. They reached out to food scientists and the rest is history. 

But what's the big deal? The big deal is that we're eating over-produced, overly-processed, often engineered organisms. According to nutritionist Isabel Smith, MS, RD, CDN, registered dietitian and founder of Isabel Smith Nutrition. 94 percent of soybeans in the US are genetically engineered, according to the Center for Food Safety. 

As a result, it is now the most widely cultivated crop in the world. The problem is that every genetically modified soybean is designed to be Roundup-ready. Roundup-ready crops are genetically modified to resist the herbicide Roundup.

So they are designed to withstand heavy doses of herbicides that kill any and all unwanted vegetation without killing the soybean plant itself. 

Research published in Food Chemistry shows that genetically engineered soybeans accumulate and absorb high levels of glyphosate (up to 8.8 mg/kg) upon being sprayed during their growing season, as well as having inferior nutrition profiles to organic soybeans. 

Meaning the pesticides and herbicides that are sprayed onto the bean never leave…so when you eat them you’re essentially eating pesticide or herbicide. 

Planet Based Foods is 100% soy-free. Always has been. Always will be.