Is soy good or bad for digestion?
Is soy healthy?
The natural soy bean, sometimes known as edamame, has been used to treat menopause and hormonal imbalance for thousands of years in Eastern medicine. The soy bean, like any natural plant edible to humans, is healthy as part of a diverse diet. Just like the natural cane stalk is a healthy plant when eaten in its natural unprocessed form.
Yet you undoubtedly know that white sugar, beet sugar and corn syrup are all highly detrimental to your health. Yet raw, organic, corn on the cob is a very healthful addition to the diet, and so are beets. (Conventional corn is almost always GMO, and cooked corn is hard for most people to digest.)
While poppy seeds are often added to bread and quite healthful, the juice of the poppy flower can be refined into heroin, an addictive and dangerous substance.
Soy, like cane stalks, poppy seeds, corn cobs, and beets, is a perfectly viable food source. Unlike kidney beans, which are toxic when consumed raw, the soy bean can be eaten raw and fresh. One might even call that an indicator that soy is a safer food than kidney beans.
Yet nobody makes "kidney bean burgers" or "kidney bean protein extract" or "kidney bean tofu". The refined versions of soy are refined. There is nothing wrong with soy. There is something very wrong with the refinement process.
Beans are hard to digest
As an aside to that, all beans are quite hard to digest because of their complex mix of protein, starchy carbohydrates, a bit of fat, and enzyme inhibitors (sometimes known as "anti nutrients"). The enzyme inhibitors are released through soaking and rinsing the beans thoroughly prior to cooking. To make beans even more digestable, sprout them slightly before consuming them raw or cooked.
While all foods have some fat, some carbs and some protein, most foods do not also have so much starch as beans, and starch and protein are hard to digest together because they require enzymes with opposing pH levels which neutralize each other in the stomach, causing beans to take 6+ hours to digest for most Americans. With a compromised digestive system (acid reflux is one symptom of a compromised digestive system), digestion of beans can be downright hazardous, as I know from personal experience.
If you suffer from any digestive problems (colon cancer, constipation, acid reflux, upset stomach, heart burn, irritable bowl, etc), then I don't recommend beans in general. For more information on this topic, read "The Shocking Truth About Beans".
Instead, eat more raw leafy greens, celery, cucumber, bell peppers, broccoli and cauliflower as raw as possible and as often as possible, and chew thoroughly.
If you don't suffer from any digestive problems, then enjoy organic soy products in balanced proportion to every other healthy food that makes up your diet.
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