Vegan for Life (28 page)

High-fiber foods, including soyfoods, can reduce absorption of the synthetic thyroid hormones used by people with hypothyroidism. This is
why synthetic thyroid drugs should be consumed on an empty stomach. The key to balancing intake with medication is to be consistent in consumption—that is, eat roughly the same amount of soyfoods every day—which is also important for the goitrogenic vegetables.

Finally, approximately 10 percent of older people have subclinical hypothyroidism—a condition that lies somewhere between having a healthy thyroid and hypothyroidism. As a precaution, people with this condition should have their thyroid function monitored if they decide to change their intake of soyfoods because this is an area that hasn’t been well-researched.

Stories that make their way around the Internet about the negative impact on testosterone and feminizing effects of isoflavones are not supported by the research. A comprehensive analysis published in 2010 showed that neither soyfoods nor isoflavones affect testosterone levels.
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Similarly, there is no evidence that soyfoods or isoflavones, when consumed in amounts even greatly exceeding typical Japanese intake, have any effect on estrogen levels in men.
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In a study of soy intake and sperm characteristics, researchers found that sperm counts in men with higher soy intakes did not differ from those who ate no soy. Men who ate more soy had lower sperm concentrations, but this was partly due to a higher semen volume.
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In contrast, clinical studies show no effects of isoflavones on sperm or semen, even when isoflavone intakes are ten times greater than what Japanese men typically consume.
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In fact, as a result of their findings, one research team suggested that isoflavones may be a
treatment
for low sperm concentration.
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Soyfoods have been a part of Asian diets for centuries and there has never been any indication that they affect reproduction in these populations. Current research on this issue supports what history has long shown.

It’s always smart to build a diet on a foundation of whole, unprocessed foods and to include a variety of foods in every meal. Where do soyfoods fit in? We can look to traditional Asian diets for guidance, staying mindful that a couple of common beliefs about Asian soyfood consumption—that soy is consumed mostly as fermented foods and used only as a condiment—are both wrong.

Fermented foods, such as miso, were the first soyfoods consumed in Asian countries, but that in no way means that people in Asia consume mostly fermented soyfoods. Nonfermented foods like tofu have been a part of Asian diets for at least 1,000 years and continue to play a significant role in these cultures. In China, soymilk and tofu make up the bulk of the soyfoods in diets. In Japan, about half the soy intake is from the fermented foods miso and natto and the other half comes from unfermented foods like tofu.
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A number of vegan foods, including veggie burgers and other meat analogs, are made from isolated soy protein or soy protein concentrate. They have been the target of some criticism because they are highly processed, but there is actually nothing unsafe about them. In fact, most of the studies on the protein quality of soy—which looked at the ability of soy to support protein balance in humans—used isolated soy proteins.
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Surveys show that people in Japan and urban areas of China such as Shanghai typically consume around 1½ servings of soyfoods per day, although there is a wide range of intakes.
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It’s interesting to note that some of the health benefits associated with soy have been seen in people who consume the most soyfoods.

There is no requirement to include soy in your diet, but there is no reason to avoid these foods either. Since variety is an important factor in planning healthy diets, we recommend limiting soyfoods to three to four servings per day. Veggie burgers and other foods made from soy protein
can be part of an overall healthy diet, but to get the full nutritional—and culinary—benefits of soy, be sure to explore some of the more traditional foods such as tofu and tempeh. The Soyfoods Primer on pages 119–123 can help familiarize you with these foods.

M
odern farming methods force animals to live in conditions most people cannot imagine. The abuses that we describe in this chapter are not unusual in the world of today’s agricultural industry. Many are standard and routine and are depicted in the trade magazines of animal agriculture. We’ve also included observations from some of the undercover investigations that have given Americans a look at the shocking conditions—some legal, some not—under which animal foods are produced.

We think you’ll agree that the facts make a compelling case for going vegan.

Films and photos produced by the agricultural industry show pictures of clean facilities and animals who appear well cared for and in good health. Investigations by animal protection advocates reveal a different story: filthy conditions, birds missing feathers, and animals with sores and injuries. While it’s hard to say what the average farm is like, animal protection advocates document squalid farms on a regular basis. They also frequently find cases of wanton cruelty against farm animals despite the industry’s insistence that such incidents are rare and highly unusual.

People don’t like to think that farm or slaughterhouse employees would intentionally cause an animal to suffer. The truth is that those whose job it is to “process” thousands of animals an hour are likely to develop an insensitivity toward the “product.” In a 2008 undercover investigation of Aviagen Turkeys Inc., one of the world’s leading turkey breeding companies, PETA documented employees stomping on turkeys’ heads, punching turkeys, hitting them on the head with a can of spray paint and pliers, and striking the turkeys’ heads against metal scaffolding. Workers also shoved feces and feed into turkeys’ mouths and held turkeys’ heads under water.
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When a supervisor was questioned about the treatment, he responded: “Every once in a while, everybody gets agitated and has to kill a bird.”

While the industry might downplay the significance of certain practices, they don’t deny the use of many of the systems that we talk about in this chapter. Almost all of the methods used on different factory farms have three common elements—and all are aimed at maintaining high efficiency and low costs:

The life of an egg-laying hen begins at the hatchery. Within minutes of emerging from their shells, male chicks are separated out and killed. In 2009, Mercy For Animals (MFA) went undercover at the world’s largest hatchery for egg-laying hens, Hy-Line International, in Spencer, Iowa. They found thousands of male chicks being thrown into grinding machines, which is a routine means of chick disposal. The tiny birds are
tossed by a spinning auger before being torn apart by the high-pressure macerator. In other hatcheries, live male chicks are simply loaded into dumpsters and left to suffocate or die.

The female chicks have one-third to one-half of their beaks cut off. This keeps the chickens from pecking each other in the extremely cramped cages in which they will spend their entire adult lives. Their beaks are highly sensitive to pain and some studies show that the pain lasts for as long as five to six weeks.
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When they arrive at the warehouse, four to six (and sometimes more) chicks are placed in a cage that is the size of a typical microwave oven. They live on wire, which cuts into their feet and scrapes their feathers, and as they grow into full-sized chickens, the birds become so cramped that they can’t extend their wings.

With thousands of chickens living on a typical farm, no attention is paid to individual birds. Many die from dehydration or starvation if they become caught in the wires, if their toenails grow around the wires, or if the mechanized food or water delivery system malfunctions. Others die from inhalation of ammonia from the manure pits below the cages. Hens are bred to produce such large eggs that sometimes these eggs pull the tube they are supposed to move through right out of the hen’s body. This is called a prolapsed oviduct, and it results in hemorrhage, infection, and death.

Hens live in these conditions for one to two years or until their egg production begins to decline and they are removed from their cages and killed. If the hens have become stuck to the cages, they are ripped out, and because their bones are often brittle from high egg production and inadequate calcium, many of them suffer fractures in the process.
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Laying hens may be sent to slaughter, but they are often in such poor condition that they can’t be used by the food industry. On one farm, “spent” hens (as they are called by the industry) were tossed into a wood chipper for disposal.

Carbon dioxide gassing is the more common means of killing spent hens. Gas concentration of 30 percent or more is necessary to kill the
birds, and research has shown that at this level, birds will feel pain and distress, probably associated with suffocation.

Once the hens have been removed from the warehouses, the manure is plowed out of the buildings and new chicks are brought in to start the cycle again.

Michael Foods is one of the nation’s largest egg producers, supplying eggs to several national restaurant chains including Dunkin’ Donuts. In 2009, an investigator from Compassion Over Killing (COK) worked inside one of Michael Foods’ factory farms and documented numerous abuses:

Upon viewing the film, Dr. Ian Duncan, chair of animal welfare in the Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Guelph in Canada, said that the conditions of the carcasses suggested that some birds had been dead in their cages for well over a week. The hens may have been unable to reach food and water and died slowly from dehydration and starvation.
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