Soy’s Devastation in Brazil. Dangers of Soy. “Frankensoy”. Euro Debuts. First Electric Car.

 

For “Foodie Friday”:

“This Greenpeace documentary, based on a lengthy, intensive investigation, discusses how soy producers in Brazil are devastating the Amazon rainforest, stealing native farmers’ land and burning down their homes, and even assassinating their activists, in order to turn the land into massive soy plantations.

Three multinational companies—ADM, Bunge, and Cargill—account for 60 percent of the total financing of soy production in Brazil and the destruction of nearly three million acres of Brazilian rainforest between 2007 and 2008.

Brazil is now the second largest soybean producer in the world, second only to the U.S; but Brazil has the fastest climbing share of genetically modified soybean crops.

GE soy crops are associated with resistant super weeds and super pests, uncontrollable cross contamination, and serious health hazards, including allergies, infertility, birth defects, bizarre mutations and cancer, just to name a few.”

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/forests/in-the-name-of-progress

“A new “soy rush” has been kick- started, and large-scale farm producers from all over Brazil are flocking to the Amazon forest in hopes of striking it rich with this golden crop. Yet all this comes at a price. Communities -- most often those found in the forest -- are often violently expelled from their lands in the wake of this uncontrolled scramble to plant soy.
For Brazil, it’s all in the name of progress. Still, to ask those whom have been chased from their lands and have seen first-hand the ecological wrath which has followed in the wake of soy in the region of Santarem, this new cash crop in the Amazon has brought nothing but destruction and misery.”
For more information www.greenpeace.org

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So, Is Soy Bad For You?

“The short answer? YES! Let’s be clear on the recent history of soy. The soybean was a modest and unpopular crop until food manufacturers intent on creating cheap vegetable oils convinced the U.S. government to start subsidizing it. The soy was turned into oil, and the industry was left with an industrial waste product. Then somebody had a brilliant idea:

‘Let’s take this industrial waste product full of toxins and carcinogens — isolated soy protein — and turn it into food that people will eat!’  So Soy foods were born.   From Nina Planck’s article.”    More at: http://www.foodrenegade.com/dangers-of-soy/

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The Dangers of Soy Are Real--and Much Worse Than You Might Think

“Promoting soy foods as health foods while ignoring the dangers of soy and soy derivatives should be considered a crime against humanity. If you think this statement is too extreme, read this article to the end, and then see what you think!

The dangers of soy are thoroughly documented in the scientific literature, which makes it hard to believe that many health and fitness communities and counselors, and most health food stores, still promote soy products as ultra-healthy foods.

Hopefully this harmful misrepresentation of soy foods will begin to change as the dangers of soy become better known.

A Summary of the Dangers of Soy

• Soybeans and soy products contain high levels of phytic acid, which inhibits assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron, and zinc.
• Soaking, sprouting, and long, slow cooking do not neutralize phytic acid.
• Diets high in phytic acid have been shown to cause growth problems in children.
• Trypsin inhibitors in soy interfere with protein digestion and may cause pancreatic disorders.
• Test animals showed stunted growth when fed trypsin inhibitors from soy.
• The plant estrogens found in soy, called phytoestrogens, disrupt endocrine function, that is, the proper functioning of the glands that produce hormones, and have the potential to cause infertility as well as to promote breast cancer in adult women.
• Hypothyroidism and thyroid cancer may be caused by soy phytoestrogens.
• Infant soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease.
• Soy has been found to increase the body's need for vitamin B12 and vitamin D.
• Fragile soy proteins are exposed to high temperatures during processing in order to make soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein, making them unsuitable for human digestion.
• This same process results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine and highly carcinogenic nitrosamines. (Doesn't sound like anything anyone would want to eat, does it?)
• MSG, (also called free glutamic acid), a potent neurotoxin, is formed during soy food processing. Many soy products have extra MSG added as well. (See video on the dangers of Aspartame, MSG's chemical first cousin.)
• Soy foods contain elevated levels of toxic aluminum, which negatively effects the nervous system the kidneys and has been implicated in the onset of Alzheimer's.

If this list of the dangers of soy isn't enough to make you run out the door of your local health food store, keep reading. It gets worse.

But Don’t Oriental Cultures Eat Lots of Soy?

It seems that historically, Oriental cultures consumed mostly traditionally fermented soy products such as miso, tempeh, natto, shoyu and tamari. (Tofu is not fermented, and falls into the dangerous soy foods category.) They consumed these soy foods in small amounts, as a condiment.

• Soy foods account for only 1.5 percent of calories in the Chinese diet, researchers found. (1977 Chang KC)
• The actual soybean consumed today is not the same one used by traditional Oriental cultures.”

More at: http://www.naturalhealthstrategies.com/dangers-of-soy.html

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Suffering of Inmates

“Early in 2007, the Weston A. Price Foundation began hearing from inmates who were suffering from myriad serious health problems due to the large amounts of soy in the diet. These prisoners had found us through the Soy Alert! section of our website. http://www.westonaprice.org/soy-alert 

Complaints include chronic and painful constipation alternating with debilitating diarrhea, vomiting after eating, sharp pains in the digestive tract, especially after consuming soy, passing out, heart palpitations, rashes, acne, insomnia, panic attacks, depression and symptoms of hypothyroidism, such as low body temperature (feeling cold all the time), brain fog, fatigue, weight gain, frequent infections and enlarged thyroid gland. Since soy contains anti-fertility compounds, many young prisoners may be unable to father children after their release.

The suffering of these men is intense and medical care is palliative at best. Many have had sections of their digestive tract removed, but all requests for a soy-free diet are denied. The men are told, "If you don't like the food, don't eat it." That means that unless they can afford to purchase commissary food, they must eat the soy food or starve.”  More at: http://www.westonaprice.org/soy-alert/cruel-and-unusual-punishment-soy-diet-for-illinois-prisoners

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Food sources of soy protein

“Many fast-food restaurants commonly use soy protein in hamburger buns (soy flour) hamburger meat (soy protein) and hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) in sauces. On their respective websites, McDonald's and Burger King list soy flour as an ingredient in their hamburger buns.  U.S. Nutrition Information Multi-grain breads, doughnuts, doughnut mix and pancake mix commonly contain soy flour.

Nearly all bread products available in the US now contain soy. Soy can now be found in nearly all types of foods, from meat to ice cream, to cheese, to french fries. Many foods are contaminated with soy due to being cooked in soy oil. At the Jack in the Box fast food chain for example, everything fried is cooked in a soy oil. At Baskin Robbins, over half of all ice creams offered contain soy. Canned tuna may contain vegetable broth which contains soy protein.

Some products [for reasons having to do with national regulation of soy products] don't list soy protein or soy flour on their ingredients labels, yet they still contain soy. There are still many latent issues resolving how soy should be regulated, as well as its long term effects on human health. Unilever Holland use soy bean oil in their peanut butter among other foods, which they state on their website concerning allergies contains no soy bean. People will have allergy reactions but the reaction may be put on peanuts rather than soy oil.

Products containing soy protein include:

• edamame
• miso
• natto
• shoyu sauce
• soy (soy albumin, soy fiber, soy flour, soy grits, soy milk, soy nuts, soy sprouts)
• soybean (curd, granules)
• soybean butter
• soy protein (concentrate, isolate)
• soy milk
• soy sauce, tamari
• tempeh
• textured vegetable protein (TVP)
• hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP)
• tofu

The following food additives may contain soy protein:

• flavoring (including natural and artificial)
• prepared broths, including chicken broth, vegetable broth, and bouillon cubes.”

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On This Day:

The euro debuts, Jan 4, 1999:

“On this day in 1999, for the first time since Charlemagne's reign in the ninth century, Europe is united with a common currency when the "euro" debuts as a financial unit in corporate and investment markets. Eleven European Union (EU) nations (Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain), representing some 290 million people, launched the currency in the hopes of increasing European integration and economic growth. Closing at a robust 1.17 U.S. dollars on its first day, the euro promised to give the dollar a run for its money in the new global economy. Euro cash, decorated with architectural images, symbols of European unity and member-state motifs, went into circulation on January 1, 2002, replacing the Austrian schilling, Belgian franc, Finnish markka, French franc, German mark, Italian lira, Irish punt, Luxembourg franc, Netherlands guilder, Portugal escudo and Spanish peseta. A number of territories and non-EU nations including Monaco and Vatican City also adopted the euro.

Conversion to the euro wasn't without controversy. Despite the practical benefits of a common currency that would make it easier to do business and travel throughout Europe, there were concerns that the changeover process would be costly and chaotic, encourage counterfeiting, lead to inflation and cause individual nations to loose control over their economic policies. Great Britain, Sweden and Demark opted not to use the euro. Greece, after initially being excluded for failing to meet all the required conditions, adopted the euro in January 2001, becoming the 12th member of the so-called eurozone.

The euro was established by the 1992 Maastricht Treaty on European Union, which spelled out specific economic requirements, including high degree of price stability and low inflation, which countries must meet before they can begin using the new money. The euro consists of 8 coins and 7 paper bills. The Frankfurt-based European Central Bank (ECB) manages the euro and sets interest rates and other monetary policies. In 2004, 10 more countries joined the EU—-Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Several of these countries plan to start using the euro in 2007, with the rest to follow in coming years.”

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GM announces its electric car, Jan 4, 1996:

“On this day in 1996, General Motors announces at the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show it will build an electric car, dubbed the EV1, to be launched in the fall of that year.

During its years in production, from 1996 to 1999, around 2,500 EV1s were produced in total. In late 2003, the company announced it was pulling the plug on the EV1 program and wouldn't renew any leases. GM cited the high cost of producing and maintaining the vehicles as a reason for the EV1's demise. However, as The Los Angeles Times noted in 2009: "The EV1 began in the 1990s as a response to a zero-emission vehicle mandate by California's Air Resources Board....When, finally, GM and other automakers managed to get California to soften its zero-emission mandate in 2002, [GM CEO Rick] Wagoner promptly canceled the program." (During this time, other automakers introduced then discontinued their own electric vehicles, including Toyota, whose RAV4 EV was available from 1997 to 2003.)

Environmental activists protested the end of the EV1, staging a mock funeral and later holding a vigil at a Los Angeles-area GM facility that had impounded a number of EV1s that would later be destroyed.

By 2008, GM had been hit hard by a global economic crisis and slumping auto sales and needed a multi-billion-dollar bailout loan from the federal government in order to stay in business. In March 2009, company CEO Wagoner was ousted by the Obama administration and in April of that year, GM filed for bankruptcy. The company was criticized for continuing to focus on its sport-utility vehicles and small trucks despite a growing consumer demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. Wagoner was quoted as saying that pulling the plug on the EV1 and not putting more development resources toward hybrid gas-electric vehicles was a major mistake of his career.”

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Yesterday:

LilMiss arrived for her grooming appointment, and after I had finished her and she had gone home, I started looking at ways to ‘stage’ my house, as the appraiser is coming on Monday. 

It needs to have more Feng Shui to look it’s best.  I will move the kitten’s cage into the Middle Room, which would only be temporary, as I don’t really want to be heating that third of the house, which is the Grooming Room, Middle Room and Hall.  Then I need to move some furniture around in the living room and my bedroom.  My sewing machine cabinet needs to be closed up and put back against the wall, and my sewing stored somewhere.  Some items will have to be stored temporarily in Pugsy, the vintage motor home.  I hope I can round up some help.  But I think Jay is working somewhere else, and Ray just had some more shots in his back.  I don’t think I can’t do it all by myself.

It seems that on HGTV shows about selling houses, the buyers want ‘updated’ kitchens with stainless steel appliances.  We have gone through several phases of appliance colors over the years.  Aqua, harvest gold, avocado, white, black, even red, and now stainless steel.  From what I can see, the new color might be Slate or Ice White.  I am not going to change any of mine, as stainless might be outdated by then, so I’ll let the buyers worry about that.

There is a lot to do before Monday, so I am going to be very busy today.