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Eating veggie burgers and tofu to lower "bad" cholesterol may not help, a new review of soy's health benefits suggests. The American Heart Association reviewed 22 randomized trials comparing soy protein and the soy component isoflavone to milk or other proteins. The majority of the trials concluded soy led to an average decrease in LDL or "bad" cholesterol levels of just three per cent. "This reduction is very small relative to the large amount of soy protein tested in these studies, averaging 50 grams, about half the usual total daily protein intake," the committee wrote in the Jan. 17 online...

When Walter Horita, a second-generation Japanese-Brazilian, staked his first claim in the raw savannah of Brazil's interior, back in 1984, there were no roads, telephones or running water in this stretch of the state of Bahia. Bandits had just murdered his neighbors and taken their land. Undeterred, the 20-year-old lived under a black plastic tarp as he cleared the first 420 acres of armadillos and anacondas for modest crops of soy and rice. Twenty years later Walter Horita's pilot is flying him in his twin-engine Beechcraft over his 74,000-acre estate, tidy homesteads and blindingly white, high quality cotton fields that...

Environmentally conscious vegetarians could soon be facing a dilemma. It just so happens that their curious culinary customs may be destroying the Amazon rainforest. According to a recent report, entire sections of the rainforest are vanishing to make room for the vegetarian’s best friend: In the past year, almost half of the total deforestation was in the state of Mato Grosso on the forest’s southern fringe, where huge areas have been flattened to grow soybeans. Last year Brazil earned about $10 billion from exporting soy products, exceeding its income from coffee and sugar, the country’s traditional export crops. Mato Grosso’s...

Vegetarians are killing the rainforest, Dramatic rise in Soy Consumption threate.. The following transcript is from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio show "The Current", and aired this morning. You can read the full article on the attached link. Soy Beans - Greenpeace It's been called the "Magic Bean" -- hailed by nutritionists as a wonderfood---it's rich in protein and apparently cuts the risks of all kinds of diseases. We're talking about the soy bean. And we’re afraid we’ve got some bad news about a food that's been called "nature's medicine". Precisely because of these many health claims, there has been...

One single cow. That’s all it took for the ultimate loss of an estimated $7 billion to the beleaguered, over-regimented by government Canadian cattle industry. There were no Sherlock Holmes-type detectives out on the hunt trying to find out how the sick cow showed up one day in land-vast Canada. A long-term, proud Canadian tradition, the once thriving cattle industry, was plunged into crisis by the discovery of a single infected cow. The clues of the Canadian Mad Cow Mystery are worth at least a serious look: In May of 2003, an Alberta Black Angus with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE),...

European traders said... Iraq's Grain Board had purchased about 300,000 tonnes of US hard red winter wheat in a tender. If confirmed, it would be one of the single largest sales of wheat to Iraq in recent years... In the 1980s and 1990s the US was a major supplier of wheat to Iraq, but since then Australia has stepped in as the primary supplier of wheat bought by Baghdad. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that Iraq will buy around 2.6 million tonnes of wheat this year. Another US source puts the figure at around 3 million tonnes.

Soy Formula May Stunt the Intestinal Growth in Your Baby   Concerns regarding the safety of soy formula were raised after two studies revealed that the amounts of soy isoflavone genistein, a chemical found in commercial soy formulas, might inhibit the intestinal growth in babies. There is a great deal of merit surrounding this concern, particularly because nearly 25 percent of formula-fed babies in the United States consume soy formula.Commercial soy formulas contain anywhere from 32 to 45 milligrams of genistein. These concentration levels exceed the amount found to affect menstrual cycles in women. Since formula is the only...

Men: Beware how much soy you consume. It could change your behavior. It's long been known that soy is beneficial to women in a number of ways, but new research from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center indicates the same is not true for men. In fact, a diet rich in soy isoflavones, especially through the use of soy supplements, can have marked influences on patterns of aggression and social behavior in men, reports HealthDayNews. Isoflavones, which are found in soy protein, are a naturally occurring plant estrogen. For women, the benefits of a diet rich in soy are numerous....

ROCHELLE, Ill. (Reuters) - Golden mountains are rising out of the fertile farmlands of the U.S. Midwest, a changing landscape formed by huge piles of corn from the most bountiful harvest in U.S. history. As farmers run out of space to store crops at home, they are bringing corn to country elevators, which are now bursting at the seams with grain. The excess is piling up on the ground in farm communities across the Midwest as this year's harvest surpasses available storage space by about 10 percent. American farmers are expected to harvest 11.7 billion bushels of corn and more...

When Eileen Haraminac, 53, of St. Clair Shores, Mich., began experiencing symptoms of menopause - intense hot flashes, as many as 15 a day, waking in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and fitful sleep - she knew she needed help. But she was also aware that there were problems with hormone therapy, the standard treatment for menopause symptoms. Studies have linked it to a higher risk of heart disease, stroke, blood clots and breast cancer. This concern, combined with Mrs. Haraminac's general philosophy about medications - avoid them if possible - persuaded her to try a more...

Tests Show U.S. Failure to Block Contamination From Gene-Altered Varieties Much of the U.S. supply of ordinary crop seeds has become contaminated with strands of engineered DNA, suggesting that current methods for segregating gene-altered seed plants from traditional varieties are failing, according to a pilot study released yesterday. More than two-thirds of 36 conventional corn, soy and canola seed batches contained traces of DNA from genetically engineered crop varieties in lab tests commissioned by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington-based advocacy group. The actual amount of foreign DNA present in U.S. seeds appears to be small, and most engineered...

A big billboard in Spokane, WA, along one of the busiest streets in town, is the latest forum for PETA to spew forth it's idiocy. There's a large cartoon drawing of Santa, with his hand pulling open the waist of his pants, and him looking down into his pants with a sad look on his face. The main caption reads "Santa's not coming this year..." The next line says that Santa's IMPOTENT because he drinks too much MILK! At the bottom is an encouragement to drink SOY MILK, followed by the PETA symbol! ARRRRGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Does their stupidity know no bounds??...

Soy's Thyroid Dangers A Look at the Dangers of Soy to the Health of Your Thyroidby Mary J. Shomon Health and nutrition magazines tout the benefits of soy as a cure-all for women's health, hormonal problems, cancer prevention, weight loss, and many other problems. The reality, however, is that promotion of soy may be more a matter of business and marketing, rather than recommendations based on sound scientific evidence.Isoflavones, the key components of soy that make them so potent as a possible substitute for hormone replacement, mean that soy products, while touted as foods and nutritional products -- often are...