By: Jean Johnson for Heart1Life is full of paradoxes. A current one is that even as epidemics in overweight, obesity, and Type 2 diabetes sweep the developed world – and heart disease kills more Americans that any other illness – we are maturing in our understanding of what it means to eat well.
Just seven years ago for example, Americans were still chasing after rainbows. Once the U.S. Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approved soy products for heart healthy labeling in 1999, people lined up on both sides of the manufacturing producer-consumer table eager to partake in the soy craze.
Eat Soy! Get Out of Jail Free!
The call was heard in board rooms across the nation. All food manufacturers had to do was get 6.5 grams of soy into their product and keep it low in fat and cholesterol, and they could add the following label to their goods: “Diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol that include 25 grams of soy protein a day may reduce the risk of heart disease.”
Americans from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon flocked to stores to buy the plethora of new products that flooded the market. Soy seemed as good as a Get Out of Jail Free card in a Monopoly game. Everyone wanted some.
What could be better than a soy veggie burger and French fries? Especially when followed by a quart of soy milk and a bag of animal crackers frosted in pink and white icing. Yum!
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Laurel Robertson and Carol Flinders, authors of the excellent 1976 whole grain, low-fat, vegetarian cookbook, Laurel’s Kitchen, that is still in print with Ten Speed Press, favor tempeh over tofu because the latter has a higher fat content.
Their recipe for Tempeh à la l’Orange is billed as good and “as haute as a soybean’s gonna get.”
Brown the half-inch chunks of tempeh from an eight ounce package in two tablespoons of oil, using half of the oil for the first side and then adding the other half when you turn the tempeh since it soaks up the oil quickly.
In the remaining one to two tablespoons of oil, sauté a large onion chopped coarsely along with two stalks of celery sliced once lengthwise and then cut across in half-inch slices (if the veggies start sticking, add small amounts of water to the skillet by the tablespoon). Then stir in three tablespoons of whole wheat flour followed by two cups of boiling water.
Stir continually over low to medium heat while the mixture thickens. Add a half cup of orange juice, a slightly rounded teaspoon each of salt and honey, the zest of one orange, a dash of black pepper, a quarter cup of chopped fresh parsley, and a half cup of white wine (or more juice).
Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down to simmer for five minutes. Add the tempeh chunks and simmer a few more minutes while the flavors meld. The brew serves four over a bed of brown rice, quinoa, or bulgur wheat. | |
A Single Food Can’t Cut ItSoy beans are healthy foods, but they can only do so much. To reap the benefits of soy, people have to clean up the rest of their eating act. Saturated fats and cholesterol-laden foods must be avoided.
Back in 1999, however, people weren’t interested in disciplining their eating habits. Instead they jumped on the soy bandwagon – a nomenclature that conveniently omitted mention of the fact that soy is merely a bean – with characteristic American enthusiasm. In the seven years since it was heralded as hipper than anyone had ever imagined, Americans’ consumption of soy products has more than doubled. Indeed, these days people, as well as cattle and hogs, feed heartily on soy beans.
Even back when manufacturers were jockeying to produce everything from soy milk to burgers, bars, butters, ice creams, cheeses, and yogurts, pundits warned that a person could only expect so much from a bean.
Experts Tell It Like It Is
“Soy by itself is not a magic food,” Christine Lewis, acting director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition’s Office of Nutritional Products, Labeling and Dietary Supplements, told John Henkel, who wrote a consumer review article on soy health claims for the FDA in 2000. “But rather it is an example of the different kinds of food that together in a complete diet can have a positive effect on health.”
And now, after reviewing 10 years worth of data, the American Heart Association (AHA) is chiming in as well. A panel of AHA experts, according to an ABC News report filed by Jamie Stengle in January 2006, “concluded that soy-containing foods and supplements did not significantly lower cholesterol.” The panel’s comments were also published in a 2005 issue of the journal Circulation.
“We don’t want to lull people into a false sense of security that by eating soy they can solve the problem with cholesterol,” Michael Crawford, M.D., chief of clinical cardiology at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center told Stengle (Crawford was not on the panel). “If they are radically altering their diet where they’re only eating soy in hopes that this is going to bring their cholesterol down, they’re deluding themselves.” Similarly, Jo Ann Carson, M.D., a professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas – also not a panel member – told Stengle, “Soy isn’t a magic bullet, but it can be a valuable contributor to a heart-healthy diet.”
Understanding Soy
Unlike other beans, soybeans do not soften well when cooked whole. At the same time, these round beans are the only ones nature has created that contain complete protein and have all the amino acids the body needs.
Asians have skirted the soybean dilemma for centuries by soaking, grinding, and boiling the beans in water in order to strain off a creamy milk. When a coagulant like lemon juice is added to soy milk, it separates into curds and whey just like Miss Muffet ate in the nursery rhyme. The fluffy white cloud curds are then skimmed off the pot and ladled out either warm into waiting bowls as they do in Japan, or into square forms in which the excess water is pressed out and cakes of tofu result.
Another venerable form of tofu that has enjoyed popularity in Asian for millennia is tempeh, which is a fermented soybean cake. Like tofu, tempeh is sold in stores geared to eating well and also in most health food sections of mainstream grocery stores. Like tofu, tempeh lends itself to whatever dish it ends up in, easily soaking up flavors from tomato to orange.
American ingenuity is responsible for the world of soy milk and burgers and beyond. These products have infusions of countless flavors, including significant doses of sugar in order to get a “Wow. That tastes good,” from consumers still uncertain about soy.
In conclusion, while it’s too soon to know if the FDA will change its current thinking on soy labeling once it reviews findings from the AHA panel, one thing is clear. Soy beans are not a panacea, but rather one of a number of whole, unrefined foods that when consumed in moderate and varied amounts, help keep the circulation system running clean and clear. The advantage, aside from feeling better, is extra years of life.
