Susan-Marie on Soy

Some food for thought. You may have seen it elsewhere, but it serves as a nice example of the health benefits of soy. When you're done reading, why not check out some of our soyfood recipes?

To the Editors:

I'm writing to correct some of the misinformation that appeared in Michel Duhaime's anti-soy tirade in the last issue of the Word.

Full disclosure here. I'm in the soy business. With my Japanese husband I've been making traditional, organic miso on Denman Island for the last 26 years. We are an extremely small, family-run business and in no way part of any big soy-industry conspiracy (which I sincerely doubt exists outside of Monsanto Corporation).

I'd like to keep this letter as brief as possible, so I'll simply correct one of the many factual errors in Michel's article. When talking about soy in the Japanese diet, Michel's information is completely out to lunch.

Michel implies that soy is not a mainstay in the Japanese diet and that fish was and is the main source of protein. This is completely and absolutely incorrect. My husband Yoshi was born and raised in Japan on a farm in the traditional Japanese peasant way of life. When he was a child his family (and, no doubt everyone else in the village) almost never ate meat. They ate fish occasionally, but tofu was a food they had almost everyday. This was before the era of refrigeration. Early most mornings the tofu vendor from the nearest town would arrive on his bicycle selling a variety of freshly made tofu and other soy products.

Yoshi has now been in Canada for 34 years. All this time we have continued to eat a mainly simple, plant based diet. There hasn't been a time during our 34 year long relationship when we didn't eat tofu. We have raised two healthy sons. Both are intellectually and physically well-endowed. Our elder son is now a scientist and the younger is a university student in Montreal. I got my BA in Pacific and Asian Studies from UVic in 2003. Tofu obviously doesn't rot your brain. And I've got a lot to say about how tofu can help with menopause but I want to keep this letter as short as possible, so I won't.

Over the past 30 years I've taken many trips to Japan and stayed there for extended periods. I've lived with families, studied miso making, Japanese culture and the language. I've shopped in the supermarkets and in corner stores. Even the 7-11 sells tofu. I've eaten in fancy places, temples, bars, and "greasy chopstick" cafes. No matter what the season or location, tofu is extremely common and soyfoods are almost always on the menu in some form.

The Japanese have a number of expressions involving soyfoods. The absolutely most sinister one involving tofu is the one you use when you want to tell someone to "go take a hike." It runs "go bang your head on the corner of a cake of tofu until you drop dead."

Rather than spread ridiculous rumours about soy, please get the facts from reliable sources!

Susan-Marie Yoshihara
Denman Island, B.C.