The Nutritional Benefits of Soy

Walking into a super market you can not help but notice all the soy products that line the aisles. In the last decade soy products have boomed making it easier for people will allergies or a vegan lifestyle to enjoy foods that were previously baned from them. However, you may be wondering if soy products are safe and if they offer the same nutritional benefits of their competitors.

The answer is that soy products provide many nutritional benefits. One of the benefits of soy beans is that a soy bean is a complete protein. This means that the soy bean does not need to be eaten with another food to make up a complete protein. Soy beans also offer many other nutrient benefits such as high doses of vitamins and minerals, including folate and potassium.

Another great benefit of soy beans is that they are hearth healthy. In a study performed in 1999 by the Food and Drug Administration determined that eating 25 grms of soy beans a day can lower your risk of heart disease. Soy beans are low in saturated and trans fat which makes them a heart healthy alternative to comparable products.

In addition to being heart healthy and a good source of protein, soy products are also an excellent source of calcium. One serving of tofu has 40 percent of your daily calicum value!

On top of all the nutritional benefits of soy beans, soy beans are also linked to reduce your risk for certain types of cancers and are used to treat the effects of menopause. Woman who ate a 1-1/2 ounce serving of soy protein a day had their menopause symptoms reduced by 40 percent! If that is not cause to eat soy products, I don’t know what is! Soy beans are more than a great protein. They are packed with nutriants, vitamins, minerals, and offer many health benefits.

Real Men Eat Raw Eggs

A fried egg, sunny side up.
Image via Wikipedia
There are very few foods in the world as wholesome, and yet as simple, as the egg. Whether it be from a chicken, a quail, or something as elusive as the ostrich egg (impossible to flip with a normal spatula), eggs are a self-encased, wholesome source of protein and one of the few foods on earth that carries natural vitamin D. Scrambled, poached, sunny-side up, even hard-boiled–there are as many ways to enjoy the egg as there are delicious meals that include them as an ingredient.
But there are some who would say that cooking an egg is the worse possible thing one can do. It would be heresy, they would state, to ruin something widely consider to be a literal “super food.” Placing heat on the egg divests the egg of its base nutritional superpower, and thereby can actually be made bad for human consumption. This argument is based on the way human beings consume protein, of which eggs have a plentitude. Scientific research has supported the notion, to a certain extent, that humans digest meat and animal products (e.g. eggs) more efficiently in their natural raw state. Cooking, as it were, changes the literal chemistry of the egg and can produce mutations in its molecular structure, as well as unwelcome protein links that have been linked to a number of health related disturbances. Translation–cooking an egg destroys its “perfect food” reputation and creates a toxic mess compared to the perfectly pure source of protein, vitamins, and minerals found in a raw egg.
Yet raw eggs, as any raw meat or animal products, do carry a risk of spreading salmonella bacterium, which can have extremely adverse effects on humans. Diarrhea, extreme abdominal pain, and nausea are but a few of the symptoms this bacterium causes. However, research has shown that salmonella has little to no effect on healthy people, made healthier, perhaps, by eating raw eggs. Which begs the question, which came first?

There are very few foods in the world as wholesome, and yet as simple, as the egg. Whether it be from a chicken, a quail, or something as elusive as the ostrich egg (impossible to flip with a normal spatula), eggs are a self-encased, wholesome source of protein and one of the few foods on earth that carries natural vitamin D. Scrambled, poached, sunny-side up, even hard-boiled–there are as many ways to enjoy the egg as there are delicious meals that include them as an ingredient. But there are some who would say that cooking an egg is the worse possible thing one can do. It would be heresy, they would state, to ruin something widely consider to be a literal “super food.” Placing heat on the egg divests the egg of its base nutritional superpower, and thereby can actually be made bad for human consumption. This argument is based on the way human beings consume protein, of which eggs have a plentitude. Scientific research has supported the notion, to a certain extent, that humans digest meat and animal products (e.g. eggs) more efficiently in their natural raw state. Cooking, as it were, changes the literal chemistry of the egg and can produce mutations in its molecular structure, as well as unwelcome protein links that have been linked to a number of health related disturbances. Translation–cooking an egg destroys its “perfect food” reputation and creates a toxic mess compared to the perfectly pure source of protein, vitamins, and minerals found in a raw egg. Yet raw eggs, as any raw meat or animal products, do carry a risk of spreading salmonella bacterium, which can have extremely adverse effects on humans. Diarrhea, extreme abdominal pain, and nausea are but a few of the symptoms this bacterium causes. However, research has shown that salmonella has little to no effect on healthy people, made healthier, perhaps, by eating raw eggs. Which begs the question, which came first?

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