Home › Blogs › Amy Hendel's blog ›

To Soy or Not to Soy?

in

The jury is still out on whether or not soy foods can actually provide the panacea of health benefits that some experts suggest. It is a good food to turn to as a source of protein, it’s low in saturated fat, it has fiber and it contains some phytochemicals, which are active compounds believed to promote health.

Eating edamame or fresh soybeans, tofu, soymilk and miso are your best and healthiest choices. It gets a bit more questionable when you start to include nutrition bars with “soy protein isolate,” and many of those bars and blended soy drinks have loads of added sugar.

A 3 ½ ounce of firm tofu has 6 grams of protein, 20 mgs of isoflavones. The current guidelines suggest consuming about 25 grams of soy foods daily which may help to lower your LDL or bad cholesterol modestly. If you have any health issues, check with your doctor before adding large quantities of soy foods to your daily diet.