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Hyman is smart, too, to advise against geneti- daily soy protein shake made with soy milk, a veggie burger washed down
cally modified soybeans. Their risks to personal with a glass of soymilk and soy energy bar snacks and the quantities add
and planetary health are high, and described vividly up quickly. Vegans who use soy as both meat and dairy replacements are
and accurately by Jeffrey Smith in his own Huffing- clearly high risk, as are prisoners forced to eat soy at every meal. But so are
ton Post article (www.newswithviews.com/Smith/ omnivores who drink soy milk several times a day or snack on soy protein
jeffrey8.htm). bars and nosh on edamame like it’s popcorn. Given the increasing numbers
of people who react poorly to ultrapasteurized supermarket and health food
EVERYTHING IN “MODERATION” store dairy products, a whole lot of people drink soy milk several times a day.
Sadly, Hyman dismisses the idea that exces- That’s excessive consumption, and it matches the levels in numerous studies
sive soy consumption is a problem. In his words: showing the dangers of soy.
“First, you should be aware that the amount of soy Hyman mocks the anti-soy contingent with the words, “You could ap-
used in many of these studies was much higher than ply that thinking to other studies, too—like those that show that broccoli
what we normally consume—the average dose of contains natural pesticides or that celery is high in toxins. Sure, those foods
soy was equivalent to one pound of tofu or three might cause you some problems—but not in the amounts that most of us eat.
soy protein shakes a day. That’s a lot of soy! Most The same is true for soy.” Well, yes. There are risks to plant foods! I discuss
people just don’t eat like that. So when you read some of them in my article in the Spring 2010 issue “Plants Bite Back!”
negative things about soy, remember that many of About time someone noted this in the popular press. Not having the “fight or
those claims are based on poorly designed studies flight” mechanism, plants fight for their lives with phytochemical warfare, so
that don’t apply to real-world consumption.” predators will weaken, possibly die, but most importantly, lose their ability
Sounds reasonable, but given the current to reproduce.
popularity of plant-based diets and the myth of Until plant-based diets became fashionable, most people didn’t eat mas-
soy as a “health food,” the truth is many people sive amounts of vegetables. Even now, few people eat broccoli three times a
do eat a pound of tofu in a single sitting. Add in a day every day. And a good thing too, as there are risks to excess consump-

FOWL PLAy: PLUMPED AND PUMPED MEAT

Ever wonder about those plump well-endowed DD cup chickens at the supermarket? yes, chickens today are bred to
be mostly breasts, but that’s not all. Such chickens—or at least their parts—could well be examples of “re-formed meat
technology” also known as “pumped meat.” Same might be true of supermarket turkeys, hams, beef and even fish.
To create simulated “whole cuts,” food processors start with pieces of real meat, poultry or fish, then mix in—or
inject—some form of soy protein along with soy or another vegetable oil, food colorings, salt, phosphates, flavorings (in-
cluding MSG) and other additives. These are then massaged, shaped and bound into familiar meat-like shapes—such as
chicken nuggets. After fabrication, these products may be sliced, ground or dried.
Such products sell poorly in supermarkets—where ingredient labels are required—but they sell briskly at fast food
establishments where customers rarely ask nosy questions about what’s in those meaty nuggets, and nobody is required to
tell them. In 1990, Clyde Boismenue, a longtime distributor for Archer Daniels Midland, said in an interview with William
Shurtleff of the Soy Foods Center in Lafayette, California, that one of the main obstacles in the U.S. to gaining consumer
acceptance for his products was the “obnoxious meat labeling requirement.” Specifically he was upset that “if isolates are
injected into ham, it must be sold as a ‘smoked pork ham with soy protein isolate. product.’’‘ Seems the soy industry has
been hot and bothered by such labeling requirements for years. Back in 1969, Soybean Digest reviewed the regulatory
problems and complained that “new product concepts” would be canceled because of “standard of identity” problems
as well as failure to secure prompt government approvals. Pity.
So what about those plump chickens at the supermarket? If they look like chickens, they are probably not reformulated,
but they might well be plumped—meaning pumped up with a broth-like liquid containing sodium, water and other solu-
tions and then sold as “all natural chicken.” These additives can legally make up fifteen percent of “all natural” chicken, a
situation that Dr William Campbell Douglass has described as “the most clucked up nonsense I’ve ever heard!”
Dr Douglass goes on to say that such “bizarre logic” could only be found in Washington because anyone with “even
a bird-sized brain knows that broth and sodium solutions are no more a “natural” part of a chicken than a McNugget.”
Even Perdue—a major purveyor of low-quality, factory-farmed chickens—has asked the USDA to change this regulation.
Interesting that Perdue, a company whose founder claimed “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken,” has
decided to take a tough stance against the USDA and protest the unnatural ways its competitors tenderize chickens. As
for Perdue, the best thing that can be said about its operation is that its famous slogan has been hysterically mangled in
translation, leading to laughter heard around the world. Billboards in Mexico for awhile said, “It takes a hard man to make
a chicken aroused.” In other countries, the slogan was translated into “It takes a virile man to make a chicken pregnant.”
Meanwhile, Kentucky Fried Chicken has had its own translation problems. In China, the slogan “finger-lickin’ good” came
out as “eat your fingers off.” Hopefully, such advertising led people to buy local!
76 Wise Traditions FALL 2010