Is Soy Milk bad?

[mommy13]

I am reading all these bad things about Soy milk now. My boys cannot have cows milk so I have been giving them soy. If you do not use soy why and could you tell me a better alternative?

[SophieAnn]

Personally I avoid soy for a couple reasons:

1) The estrogen-like effects on the body (debatable yes).

2) Approx. 80% of the soy grown in Canada is from Monsanto's Roundup-Ready soybean seeds (approx. 90% of soy grown in the US is).

Those are my reasons for avoiding soy. As an omnivore with no allergies, I drink cow's milk, but I would avoid soy milk anyway because it is a highly processed product and I am making efforts to reduce the processed foods in my house.... stick with eating real food, cooking, etc.

For a substitute? There are lots of other foods that are high in calcium if that's why you feel they need "milk" - such as broccoli, almonds, canned salmon. Technically speaking we mammals don't "need" milk beyond weaning age.

I hope that helps.

[sanguine_speed]

We also avoid cow and soy 'milk' but use almond 'milk' in recipes or on cereal.

[cristeen]

I don't do any soy anything in our diet for the same reasons mentioned above.

Nut "milk" or coconut milk will work in almost any recipe that calls for cow's milk. Coconut milk has the good fats that are crucial to a growing body - something that is missing in most milk replacements.

[mommy13]

Is coconut milk something you could drink straight?

[dogmom327]

Originally Posted by mommy13

Is coconut milk something you could drink straight?

Absolutely. It's naturally sweet and very satisfying.

[mamadelbosque]

We avoid soy because of the above two reasons too. But I don't avoid it completely - we eat tofu 1-2x a month and tamari (soy sauce) 1-2x a week on average. I just make sure that the soy we do eat is organic (and thus not GMO - basicly the only way to avoid gmo soy), and is not proccessed.

And no, I don't consider tofu (or soy milk!) processed. Tofu is literally soy cheese - you can make it on your stove, my dad used to though doesn't anymore - and unless you consider cheese processed and a no-no I don't see the hating on tofu... Incase your wondering, the basic steps to make tofu are:

1) make soymilk (cook soybeans, grind soybeans, cook some more, then strain out the beans, basicly)
2) add a co-agulant to soy milk (lots of options, I think we use(d) nigari)
3) once its seperated into curds & whey, strain out the curds & place in a mold.

let it sit for a while and ta-da! tofu! the longer it sits in the mold w/ pressure the firmer it'll be.

[WorldsBestMom]

I don't even know anymore. I heard it was healthy once up a time. I don't normally drink milk so I have never tried Soy Milk. However I do buy Cows milk for my little girl. I stick to the natural stuff.

[tanyalynn]

Legumes, in general, have a lot of phytic acid, which reduces our ability to absorb the minerals they contain. Soy beans are quite high in phytic acid, I think higher than many other commonly consumed legumes.

Since we're dairy and soy intolerant, we don't consume either. We don't use an actual milk replacement, in the sense of a glass of it, or over cereal. Rice milk isn't very nutritious so I only occasionally use it in baked goods, we use a lot of coconut milk in various ways, and if I needed a nutritious milky beverage, I may look into hempmilk.

I don't drink coconut milk straight, but it makes an amazing hot cocoa (can you tell I was craving a re-make of my childhood favorite? ).

[BedHead]

Eat Fat Lose Fat has a recipe for a coconut milk mixture that includes dolomite for calcium and is suggested instead of milk if you can't/don't drink milk. That's what I am going to start drinking when I run out of raw milk. I try to avoid soy also for all the reasons mentioned above.

[lucyem]

We avoid soy because of all the things previous people mentioned. My DS has an anaphylactic allergy to dairy. Obviously we cannot totally avoid soy but it is limited to when we are eating out kind of thing.

At home we only use rice milk or almond milk. Both my DS's beg for chocolate almond milk. Actually you would never know it was not regular cow chocolate milk if no one told you. Rice milk we use in everything as an alternative - in cooking, on cereal etc. Both rice and almond milk can come fortified with calcium.

Coconut milk is another alternative. For example made pumpkin pie using it instead of condensed milk over the holidays and my DH loved it. My DS does not like coconut so we do not use it too much except in baking.

There is a new product called mimic cream I found earlier this year. http://www.mimiccreme.com/ and I have been starting to experiment with that for cream dairy things. For example I made peppermint chocolate chip ice cream for my DS last summer with it and we all ate it. It tasted really good. Once again you would never know there was no cow milk unless someone told you.