|
There's a lot of controversy around soy. In the health world, the stereotype is good (nutrition etc...), but in the bodybuilding world, the stereotype is bad. Lots of it revolves around the fact that soy has phytestrogens, which are, to my understanding, a plant form of estrogen that isn't as strong as regular estrogen found in humans.
Because building muscle is closely linked with androgens (specifically testosterone), it is questionable for some whether or not consuming soy is a good idea. If you want to build muscle, do you want to be putting extra estrogen in your body? Of course, I've also heard the opposite argument. Your body makes less estrogen because of the phytoestrogens and at least breaks even (with what the normal level of estrogen would be anyway), and some claim that it actually increases the testosterone:estrogen ratio because the phytoestrogens are weaker. From all this data, it's kind of hard to make a conclusive decision.
Me? I consume a little bit of soy in my diet in the form of fat free soy milk, mostly, but I make sure to get a variety of sources. I'd say don't consume all of your protein from soy, but isn't that kind of an idiosyncrasy of food? I'd also say don't get all your protein from milk, or chicken, or seitan, or etc... Eating all chicken would also have it's nutritional drawbacks, for example. Anyway -- hope this helps!
Tim
|
Linear Mode
