I'll do some more research on this, since you took the time to post. My initial reaction after doing a bit of searching on the author is that he appears to have a financial interest in promoting soy-based foods.
Not really. If every food you eat has a microgram of soy, that still wouldn't be the same as eating a pound of tofu, which wouldn't be the same as eating 3000 Calories of tofu.
I can't speak for China and Indonesia, but I've lived in Japan for a number of years. Tofu is not super common as a dish, mostly as a filler in small portions of some side dishes.
Well, yes actually. I've read enough over the years that I personally avoid soy and soy-based products. When it comes up, I explain why. It's not a great accomplishment to link to a paper that performs well in organic search.
> It's not a great accomplishment to link to a paper that performs well in organic search.
It's a cursory BS test. If the evidence is hard to find, it's generally because there's no evidence available from credible sources. Belief that the truth is out there, is not sufficient anymore.
You can read a lot to support nearly any claim, that statement is less valuable evidence than even an actual anecdote. Regardless, surely you'd be able to recall at least one reputable source to serve your "explanation." Why do all the high performing organic search results supporting your claim come from sketchy websites and paranoid blogs? I see the "soy is evil" sentiment come up on hn with some regularity, and I can't understand why because the argument never presents it as more a credible claim than alternative medicines or homeopathy.
Debunked: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19524224
"Clinical studies show no effects of soy protein or isoflavones on reproductive hormones in men: results of a meta-analysis."
Citing one study (meta analysis or not) and claiming debunked is not a serious argument, especially with respect to diet where there is data all over the place.
There was an inverse association between soy food intake and sperm concentration that remained significant after accounting for age, abstinence time, body mass index, caffeine and alcohol intake and smoking. In the multivariate-adjusted analyses, men in the highest category of soy food intake had 41 million sperm/ml less than men who did not consume soy foods.
Wrong measure. What if men had lower concentration of sperm but higher volume of the ejaculate? Soy is known to have benefits on prostate and much of the volume of sperm comes from prostate liquid.
Possibly wrong measure, and not the whole story in any case.
The implicitly suggested volume measure might not be the wrong measure either since fertility depends on quite a few variables, several we don't even know about.
These unknowns are actually a bit concerning on their own since fertility has been falling rapidly, at least in most of the western hemisphere, and the cause is unknown.
> Nevertheless, Americans as a whole still consume very little soy protein. Based on 2003 data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, per-capita soy protein consumption is less than 1 gram (g) per day in most European and North American countries, although certain subpopulations such as vegetarians, Asian immigrants, and infants fed soy-based formula consume more. The Japanese, on the other hand, consume an average 8.7 g of soy protein per day; Koreans, 6.2–9.6 g; Indonesians, 7.4 g; and the Chinese, 3.4 g.
At least it's several times bigger than European and USA consumption.
Citation required for what? The fact that they eat more soy?
Demonizing soy is just a fad. Like demonizing meat or dairy.
Most of USA and Europe eats female mammals like cows and chickens, are we going to make claims that female animal estrogen contained in that flesh makes men infertile? Seems like a much more probable cause than phytoestrogen from plants, not that I would be irresposible to make that argument without any evidence, as is the case for soy.
