the most dangerous food for men

[FactionHeir]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean#Health_risks

Supposedly nuts are worse.

[Prince Cobra]

Supposedly nuts are worse.

If you eat them in normal quanitity, they are quite healthy.

[CountArach]

SOYlet Green?

[tibilicus]

Nothing wrong with soy foods. Tofus cheap and high in protein and soy protein powder is cheaper than whey protein powder.

Just a shame near enough all soy foods taste like garbage..

[caravel]

Personally I try to avoid most soya products due to the blatent hypocrisy involved in their production, marketing and consumption. They are mostly consumed by vegetarians - but they they are often manufactured, coloured, flavoured and texturised, to resemble meat products. I find these "textured soya protein" products quite frankly disgusting.

TSP products are supposed to be a better alternative to destroying forests to raise cattle - yet just as many, if not more, forest is destroyed to grow soya bean.

However, most soya bean doesn't go to make veggie products. The majority is used in low grade meat products such as burgers and sausages to add the texture that they would otherwise lack. Another major product is soya flour which is now found in a lot of bread and cakes among other things.

It's the concentrated and processed soya products that are doing the damage overall. Soy Sauce and Tofu have been around for over 2000 years, so it's evident that the modern processing of soya into these so called "textured proteins" and other products is the real issue here.

[Cute Wolf]

AARRRGGGHHHHHH (I eat tofu and tempe nearly everyday.........!!!!!!)

[Pannonian]

Personally I try to avoid most soya products due to the blatent hypocrisy involved in their production, marketing and consumption. They are mostly consumed by vegetarians - but they they are often manufactured, coloured, flavoured and texturised, to resemble meat products. I find these "textured soya protein" products quite frankly disgusting.

TSP products are supposed to be a better alternative to destroying forests to raise cattle - yet just as many, if not more, forest is destroyed to grow soya bean.

However, most soya bean doesn't go to make veggie products. The majority is used in low grade meat products such as burgers and sausages to add the texture that they would otherwise lack. Another major product is soya flour which is now found in a lot of bread and cakes among other things.

It's the concentrated and processed soya products that are doing the damage overall. Soy Sauce and Tofu have been around for over 2000 years, so it's evident that the modern processing of soya into these so called "textured proteins" and other products is the real issue here.

I like some soy products, but I don't touch the stuff that's been packaged to look like something else. Soy milk is nice when mixed with a dab of sugar, tofu pudding is delicious whenever I pass Chinatown, and soy beans are an occasional pulse option. Soy beans by themselves don't have much character though, so I mostly prefer other beans.

[TosaInu]

Anything that is consumed too much is bad.

[econ21]

Personally I try to avoid most soya products due to the blatent hypocrisy involved in their production, marketing and consumption.

Um, not sure I see the hypocrisy argument (but then as a pragmatist, I don't understand 99% of hypocrisy arguments). As a veggie, I think killing animals for food is bad and not killing animals is good. So if you can wean people off killing animals to eat by giving something that looks and tastes like what they are used to, that's good, not hypocrisy. Think nicotine patches for smokers, whatever pills they give junkies going cold turkey and comfort blankets for kids scared of sleeping alone for the first time etc. But I guess this is heading off into backroom territory, so I'd better cease and desist.

On a purely culinary level, soya is pretty tasteless (no rival for meat) and depends on a sauce or marinade to be worth eating. Consequently, cooking it as substitute meat is usually playing to its weakness rather than its strength. Except veggie frankfurters, which are near perfect imitations of the "real thing" (I guess because the real thing has about the same amount of soya and barely more meat ). Tofu cooked in the many Chinese or other authentic styles can be delicious. I've heard the stuff about soya and hormones before, so I would not dismiss it out of hand - but it won't stop me gobbling down tofu with black bean sauce and other delicacies.

[miotas]

Um, not sure I see the hypocrisy argument (but then as a pragmatist, I don't understand 99% of hypocrisy arguments). As a veggie, I think killing animals for food is bad and not killing animals is good. So if you can wean people off killing animals to eat by giving something that looks and tastes like what they are used to, that's good, not hypocrisy. Think nicotine patches for smokers, whatever pills they give junkies going cold turkey and comfort blankets for kids scared of sleeping alone for the first time etc. But I guess this is heading off into backroom territory, so I'd better cease and desist.

On a purely culinary level, soya is pretty tasteless (no rival for meat) and depends on a sauce or marinade to be worth eating. Consequently, cooking it as substitute meat is usually playing to its weakness rather than its strength. Except veggie frankfurters, which are near perfect imitations of the "real thing" (I guess because the real thing has about the same amount of soya and barely more meat ). Tofu cooked in the many Chinese or other authentic styles can be delicious. I've heard the stuff about soya and hormones before, so I would not dismiss it out of hand - but it won't stop me gobbling down tofu with black bean sauce and other delicacies.

Thinking in a purely practical manner carnivorous behaviour is necessary to maintain a balanced ecosystem.

And when it comes to meat substitutes the only type I like is TVP as a substitute for mince. There is nothing really that can match the satisfaction of grabbing a big juicy steak and tearing into it with your teeth(knives and forks are for sissies).

[caravel]

Um, not sure I see the hypocrisy argument (but then as a pragmatist, I don't understand 99% of hypocrisy arguments).

As for me, I don't label myself as an anything 'ist. I simply investigate the options and use my own judgement and from where I stand those that eat TSPs are really missing the point. If you like meat texture and flavour that much - eat the real thing.

As a veggie, I think killing animals for food is bad and not killing animals is good. So if you can wean people off killing animals to eat by giving something that looks and tastes like what they are used to, that's good, not hypocrisy. Think nicotine patches for smokers, whatever pills they give junkies going cold turkey and comfort blankets for kids scared of sleeping alone for the first time etc. But I guess this is heading off into backroom territory, so I'd better cease and desist.

I think we're looking at it from differing perspectives. You may regard meat eating as a bad habit akin to smoking. I however regard it as necessary to human health and survival. There is much evidence that humans came to be how they are by being predatory. Our brains did not reach this stage of evolution through eating only vegetation. Eating meat and fish is not only beneficial it is necessary. Vegetarian diets are a relatively new idea, so really we haven't seen the true medical effects as yet.

As to the good/bad argument of not killing animals, I would say that you need only look at the ecosystem and how it functions. Animals have predators to control their numbers, without these predators such animals as cattle would explode in numbers and their would not be enough grazing land to sustain them. This would lead to a famine, disease and possibly extinction of the species. Predators control their numbers to prevent this happening. This is why we have a balanced ecosystem that simply "works". It's when man messes with the balance that things start to go wrong.

Tofu cooked in the many Chinese or other authentic styles can be delicious. I've heard the stuff about soya and hormones before, so I would not dismiss it out of hand - but it won't stop me gobbling down tofu with black bean sauce and other delicacies.

Tofu is not the same thing as TSP. It's "bean curd". Black bean sauce is made from fermented black beans and not soya beans.

When I was a teenager, my parents turned vegetarian and that pretty much meant that we had to follow suit. They are still the same today and while they're now healthy enough you have to consider that they had been eating meat for most of their adult lives anyway. Nowadays there are ethical alternatives to intensively reared animals such as free range and organic. What is important is a balanced diet without too much of one thing or too less of another.