Soya again

So, according to the BBC news site, a study has shown the damage that soya does to men's fertility.
And the experts say "Oh but it can't be so because men in Asia eat far more soya, and they don't have fertility problems".

Yes, but as it's often been pointed out, they don't eat the raw soya that we're fed in our soya products here. They eat fermented soya, which eliminates the female hormone effects. Doubtless those fermenting techniques were developed over thousands of years, and only those who used them survived and were able to eat soya without declining populations.

Still, I guess it's no bad thing to spread natural contraceptives round the world, if we can reduce the population that way. The trouble is it turns our men into unattractive fat women, and they live longer too, in their effeminate infertile state. This is not good news for the planet or for us it seems to me (us being females who like our men to be real men).

Milk

This is what our doorstep looks like in the morning.







In Norwich one day a week my doorstep looks like this.









Five minutes after fetching the milk in from the doorstep this is what my glass of milk on the breakfast table looks like.






From the cow to my breakfast, maybe 24 hours? Now that's what I call cold fresh milk. (I suppose it would be even better if I could go and fetch it warm from the cow).

I was thinking of taking a photo of one of my neighbour's doorsteps, with the blue recycling box piled high with plastic milk bottles: bottles which have doubtless been fetched from the supermarket by car, and will now be carried empty to some distribution place and sent back to China or somewhere for turning into more plastic things we don't want, before being shipped back here again.

Now this seems to me to be just mad. We could all have our milk delivered daily in clean glass bottles, clean milk with no contamination from the chemicals they use in plastics which leech into the contents of the containers. Of course the known ones of these (phthalates, which have been shown to cause hormone disruption, and are implicated in breast cancer etc) are now controlled and not permitted in most food packaging, but do you know what else they're putting in the plastic? When did you last think about how milk from plastic bottles always tastes of plastic? I guess people get used to it, and cease to find it disgusting.

But it seems to me highly likely that these kinds of pollution may have quite a lot to do with the increasing incidence of intolerance to milk. And asthma, and eczema. Why is it that so many children today can't drink milk? When I was young every child drank a third of a pint of milk every day at break time, from a glass bottle with a paper straw (no phthalates, no plastic chemicals) and they were healthy and happy.

No one had a milk intolerance. Is that a co-incidence?

Chocolate

Results of anti-soya chocolate investigations shows the following ranking.

First prize to Traidcraft Organic Swiss Made Chocolate. The Cappuccino variety is heavenly, despite containing some vegetable oils. Other varieties sampled so far are also delicious: the milk chocolate version has nothing but wholesome ingredients.

These chocolate bars contain no emulsifier at all.

Runners up:
Plamil Organics, non-dairy and gluten free. Contains sunflower lecithin.
Peter Rabbit Organics. Seems to be designed for children, but is sadly dairy free and made with fructose not sucrose. Contains sunflower lecithin.

Flavour not wonderful in either case, doubtless due to the lack of the yummy bits like sugar and milk.

Also ran:
Tesco value chocolate, contains lecithin from Rapeseed. The flavour is fine, but I don't really approve of rape plantations, or of Tesco.

Soya

I haven't yet explained in detail what my negative views on soya are based on. But a Guardian article from July 25th 2006 gives some sense of the nightmare. See also Annie's theories (you have to read to the end of that post to discover the bit about soya).

But now here's another thought: perhaps the soya cloud has a silver lining?

I've just noticed, on re-reading the Guardian article, that it reports that 30-40% of babies in the USA are raised on soya formula. I take it this means 30-40% of babies, not 30-40% of bottle-fed babies (though I guess the few lucky ones fed at the breast may also have their milk heavily contaminated with soya isoflavones). So, assuming the boy and girl babies are both fed on it, this should mean that approaching 40% of US males will be infertile when they grow up. So providing we can ensure monogamous partnerships, and don't allow the girls to go round until they find a fertile male, this should mean that only just over half the population can have any children next generation round. If they continue to choose soya-based milk feeds or even increase their use, the next generation will be even smaller and only half of that generation will be fertile too. So the population will decline until the US is no longer a threat to world peace and stability, because the few real men there are will have to spend all their time trying to beget children, to stave off extinction.

Good God!

Help! Chocolate mountain!

Too many chocolates have soya lecithin in them!
I have five useless boxes of chocolates here, one started and four unstarted.

Can't bring myself to give them to anyone, because I don't like to pass on rubbish. (But if anyone wants to volunteer to relieve me of one, let me know).

Even Green and Blacks organic ones have the dreaded soya-based emulsifier. I must write to them and complain. Funny how they don't mention the dreaded soya gunk when they describe how they make it.

More on what's wrong with soya in future posts. Watch this space...