Chrome

I've noticed that a lot of the page-hits on this blog are from Internet Explorer. I'm sure some of you have your reasons for using Internet Explorer, but most only do so because it comes preinstalled on all Windows computers. I recommend you download Google Chrome and use it for at least one day. If you don't like it, switch back; however, I can guarantee that Chrome will make your browsing experience faster and more secure. Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Apple's Safari are also all good, fast, secure browsers as well, Chrome just so happens to be my favorite.

Soy: A Return

Now that I've explained what soy contains and how it hurts your body, you may be wondering why it's being put into much of our food. The answer is simple: cold, hard cash. Soybeans are easily one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest commodity from which a cooking oil can be derived. When this oil is extracted from the soybean, a byproduct is produced called soy lecithin. While a lot of food contains actual soybean oil, or fermented soy products like soy sauce, many of our processed foods only contain this soy lecithin.

 LECITHINS

Lecithin is a generic term used to describe any fatty acids or substances found within plant or animal tissue. Lecithins contain a variety of chemical terms, including choline, glycolipids, and glycerol. 

Choline (no, not chlorine, I didn't make a typo) is a nutrient necessary throughout life to keep the body healthy. It is used in the construction of cell walls; which, as you can imagine, are pretty important. 

 Glycolipids simply provide energy. They often have carbohydrates attached. Carbohydrates are another energy source. 

Glycerol forms the backbone of triglycerids and can be used as a sweetener. This is why the fat is the sweetest part of a steak, it's high in glycerol.

Triglycerids have two functions; they transport fatty molecules to your cells and serve as an energy source in their own right. In fact, they contain twice as much energy as carbohydrates or proteins. 

All these substances are necessary for life, so what's the big problem?  There is no issue here, until you consider all the phytoestrogens and trypsin inhibitors present in soy to begin with. Also, as I mentioned before, soy lecithin is a byproduct of the process used to extract oil from soybeans. But exactly what is a byproduct? A byproduct is the mysterious sludge in the bottom of the tank that nobody knows what to do with; at least, until someone figured out that it helped to hold food together and bread to rise. Now it's used as an additive in everything from candy bars to muffins and much of what lies in between. Unfortunately for consumers, byproducts tend to not only contain good stuff, but bad as well. Soy lecithin is contaminated with solvents and pesticides left over from the oil extracting process. To make matters worse, soy lecithin is bleached to avoid discoloring in the foods we eat. 

So why is this bad? Well, you wouldn't down a mixture of paint thinner, Raid, and bleach, would you? Essentially the same thing, just taken at lower doses and disguised with other flavors.

Soy: Pure Protein or Pure Poison?

Soy is used as an ingredient in many packaged foods today. It's said to be healthier than dairy products; as a result soy milk, soy butter, and soy yogurt have emerged as "healthy alternatives". But is soy actually better for you? Soy advocates often point out that Asian people have been eating soy for ages and are extremely healthy. In truth, a typical Asian diet consists of a lot of rice, meat, and fresh vegetables. Soy is merely a side dish in Asian food.In fact, Asians typically consume about 10 grams (2 teaspoons) of soy a day. It just seems rather illogical to say that Asians are healthy because of such a small portion of beans; rather than because of all the fresh, unprocessed meat and vegetables. 

Soy is proclaimed as a food that can replace meat. We need to eat meat because it contains amino acids which our bodies require to produce proteins. Without proteins, our bodies grow sick and die.  Soy contains a HUGE amount of amino acids, which is why it's used as a meat 'replacement'. I'll prove that soy causes more problems than it fixes, and that these amino acids are essentially useless when consumed from a soy product.

 PHYTOESTROGEN

Soy contains phytoestrogen, which simulates the effects of the hormone estrogen. Estrogen is produced naturally by several organs; the addition of more estrogen or phytoestrogen leads something called estrogen dominance, estrogen and other hormones are completely unbalanced. Nobody disputes the fact that such an overabundance of estrogen is a cause of several health problems, including Uturine Fibroids, Breast Cancer, and Infertility. Estrogen is one of the main ingredients used in birth control pills, which you wouldn't give to young children for obvious reasons. Feeding an infant the recommended dose of soy formula is the equivalent of feeding them 4 birth control pills. Even adults don't take that many at once. 

PHYTATES

  

Phytates are found naturally in all grains, seeds, nuts, and legumes (like soybeans!). Phytates are a type of enzyme inhibitor. Now, an enzyme is a substance that speeds up chemical reactions. So in this case, enzymes in your stomach are speeding up the breakdown of food. Phytates inhibit this process; which, of course, is not a good thing. If your food is not broken down properly, your body can't absorb any minerals from the food during digestion. 

Some phytates are removed from these foods simply by cooking them. Many more are removed by either soaking said foods in an acidic medium or by fermenting them in a lactic acid. 

Now, an acidic medium is not necessarily a substance that will burn through concrete. About 30 ml (two tablespoons) mixed with some warm water will do just fine. The phytates in most foods are found mostly on the outer shell, or bran. The acidic water eats through this bran and removes most of the nasty phytates. The few that remain are insignificant. 

Unfortunately, soy contains so many phytates, soaking it just doesn't solve the problem. By the time the acid has burned away enough phytates, there isn't any soy left! Fermentation is the only viable option to eating soy. 

Fermenting your phytate infested foods in lactic acid is more effective still. Instead of using acid to burn off phytates, fermentation utilizes bacteria which eat away the phytates. As these bacteria consume they phytates, they increase the acidity of the substance they're in, which kills off any harmful organisms that would normally cause the fermenting food to rot. Common examples of fermentation are yogurt and sauerkraut. 

Fermenting soy only removes the phytates, not any of the other problem substances that I have mentioned or will mention. Fermented soy products should only be consumed as a minor condiment, not a main course. 

TRYPSIN INHIBITORS 

A trypsin inhibitor is, you guessed it, any substances that inhibits trypsin. But what exactly is trypsin? Trypsin is an enzyme used in digestion; it's necessary for the absorption of protein. This enzyme is similar to the other enzymes we discussed, but is used in the intestines, rather than the stomach. A deficiency in trypsin causes digestive cramps, diarrhea, bleeding, and could lead to problems with your pancreas. Soy contains an incredible amount of trypsin inhibitors, which keep trypsin from working and give you all those problems I just described. That is, simply put, not good. 

The raw soybean contains these trypsin inhibitors, which is why raw soybeans are toxic to humans and other mammals. Cooking or fermenting soy does remove enough of the trypsin inhibitors to keep any drastic health issue from immediately occurring, as long as the soy is consumed in small enough quantities. 

Hey, wait a second... Aren't we eating soy as a source of protein? How effective is that protein if soy also contains trypsin inhibitors, which prevent the absorption of  proteins? It isn't effective at all. Most of that valuable protein is completely worthless to you, now that your trypsin is being suppressed. 

So now to reiterate a bit. Soy is not good. Soy contains high levels of phytoestrogen, phytates, and trypsin inhibitors, which are also not good. As I mentioned a couple of times, fermented soy products aren't nearly as bad as the rest, as long as they are used conservatively. For example, a small amount of soy sauce (which is fermented!) in your soup won't hurt you at all. 

Artificial Sweeteners 3

One more thing. A lot of these artificial sweeteners were discovered by some guy accidentally tasting it. In chemistry, it's a very, very bad idea to taste whatever you're working on, unless you test it first. These men are lucky they didn't accidentally invent a new chemical weapon. Also, as they weren't actively trying to make a new artificial sweetener, their discoveries probably shouldn't be used as such. Just sayin'.

Artificial Sweeteners 2

SUCRALOSE

Sucralose, more commonly known as Splenda® is the most common artificial sweetener used in baking today. It was discovered in 1976 by a researcher who was asked to test a substance he was working on. This researcher thought his supervisor told him to taste the substance; when he did so, he discovered that it tasted extremely sweet.


Splenda® is said to be safe because the FDA says it doesn't break down at all. However, the inventors of Splenda® have actually stated that about 15% of sucrolose consumed is absorbed into the body and that they can't guarantee how much of chlorine out of that 15% remains in your system. 


Sucralose is part of a chemical group known as organochlorides. Organochlorides are a group of substances that contain carbon and at least one chlorine atom. Some common organochlorides include carbon tetrachloride, trichlorethelene, and methylene chloride. Each of these substances is deadly if ingested, and each contains at least one chlorine atom. Chlorine is like mother nature's assault rifle; a truly nasty element used in chemical weapons, bleach, hydrochloric acid (the most potent acid known to man), and insecticides. What sucralose really is is a sucrose molecule forced to give up three hydroxyl (oxygen and hydrogen) groups and replace them with chlorine, as is shown with this picture: 

I suppose I should explain exactly what these diagrams mean. These diagrams are a method of mapping out the atoms within a molecule and the bonds between them. Each atom is represented by a letter; the lines show which atoms are connected to each other. The 'O's stand for oxygen, the 'H's for hydrogen, and 'Cl' stands for chlorine. These diagrams don't show this very well, but you can see that the molecules are nearly identical, if you reverse one of drawings. 


"Hold on Eric, isn't chlorine in table salt?" Yes, table salt, sodium chloride, does contain chlorine. But salt isn't an organochloride; when sodium and chlorine combine to make salt, there is no carbon present, which means it isn't classified as an organochloride. Table salt and and sucralose are about as similar as a tree and a laptop computer. 


Our cellular metabolism, the process by which our bodies burn food for energy, is designed to use organic molecules containing carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, as well as a number of other nutritional elements. Since sucralose is an organic molecule it is the perfect system to deliver chlorine, which would normally pass through the digestive system, throughout our cells. Then chlorine acts as a preservative on your cells. This may sound like a good thing until you consider that preservatives work by killing all living cells to prevent bacterial decay; your cells will be perfectly preserved, but completely dead. 


Fortunately, our liver acts like airport security for your body. It prevents toxins like chlorine from killing our precious cells. But the liver can only handle so much, especially when your body's metabolism is already being attacked by that 15% of consumed sucralose we discussed earlier. Under great stress of this sort, the body's liver is destroyed; other internal organs follow. Under 'normal' consumption, the chlorine takes the slower route through the bloodstream. Organocarbons are extremely damaging to the brain and nervous system, exactly where a lot of your blood flows. This messes up your genetics and immune system, potentially causing cancer, immune system destruction, and birth defects. 

Artificial Sweeteners 1

Everybody knows that eating to much sugar leads to obesity and other health problems, right? Or does it? Are artificial sweeteners like Splenda® and that stuff they stick in diet pop actually better for you than regular sucrose sugar?

The answer to this question requires a bit of chemistry talk. Don't worry, I'll talk you through it! The term 'sugar' refers to any substance that has a sweet flavor, usually sucrose, lactose, and fructose. Sucrose is regular table sugar taken from a sugarcane plant, lactose is the sweet component of milk, and fructose is sugar found in fruit. Artificial sweeteners are sugars that are completely made within a laboratory, not created via a refining process like table sugar (sucrose) is.

Now for a bit of history regarding artificial sweeteners.

The first artificial sweetener is called sugar of lead. See, lead has a naturally sweet taste to it. Of course, I've never actually tasted it myself. As you might guess, sugar of lead is gained by cooking or eating food in/on lead dishes. As you also might guess, sugar of lead is just as toxic as regular lead. Don't try it. Please.

There have been a few other artificial sweeteners between the ban of sugar of lead and the use of modern sweeteners, but I won't go over them now. Most of them have been banned since they were discovered to cause cancer or other diseases.

The two biggest modern artificial sweeteners are aspartame and sucralose.

ASPARTAME

Aspartame was discovered by a chemist who was in the process of creating an anti-ulcer drug. Aspartame was a byproduct in his creation; he discovered its sweetness when he licked a finger he had unknowingly coated with aspartame. Aspartame isn't used for baking, as it breaks down and looses its sweetness when it hits about 30°C  (86°F). Instead, aspartame was recently used in cold beverages, like diet pop.

The FDA holds that aspartame is completely safe. This is true, until you consider the products from breaking down aspartame. Aspartame breaks down into aspartic acid, phenylalanine, and methanol.

Aspartic acid sounds bad, but it is just an animo acid found in our bodies and used to create other, essential animo acids. Phenylalanine is another animo that our body manufactures and uses naturally.

Methanol, on the other hand, is highly toxic in humans; as little as 10 ml (2.03 tsp) can cause permanent blindness, 30 ml (6.03 tsp) and above gradually increases the risk of fatality. In contrast, the minimum lethal dose of pure arsenic is about 70-200 ml (14.20-40.58 tsp). The FDA states that aspartame is completely safe; they are completely correct, unless it is heated to 30°C (86°F) and breaks down into toxic components. The internal human body temperature is about 37°C (98.6°F), which is well above the breakdown point of aspartame. After this breakdown occurs, toxic substances are absorbed into the bloodstream and carried straight to your brain, effectively acting like a neurotoxin. Since the FDA finally recognized the lethal effects of aspartame, they have removed it from the public eye and have mostly replaced it with sucralose.

Metric

I am going to use metric for all my posts. Even though I grew up with English and often still use it through habit, metric makes much more sense mathematically. Rather than having to memorize a series of arbitrary conversion ratios (e.g. 12 inches to the foot, 4 quarts to the gallon), I merely have to remember that there are 10 millimeters in a centimeter, 10 grams in a dekagram, etc. As for the names, I only have to memorize 13 prefixes for metric, but English requires the knowledge of at least 15 terms, plus whatever I couldn't think of off the top of my head. For all those who don't know metric, I will provide the appropriate English measurements in parentheses. 

For example, the moon is a maximum of about 406,700 km (252,712 miles) from the earth. So worry not, I won't have a post filled with terms you don't understand, at least not without explaining said terms.