photo credit: samswitzer

Room, Board and a Toxic Soy Stew

This is typical of a number of criticisms of the Weston A. Price Foundation’s lawsuit on behalf of the Illinois prisoners who are suing to end their high soy rations:

“Sorry, I cannot support this. Our prisoners, many who have committed horrific crimes against fellow man, get much better care than my average neighbor. They get hip surgeries, and cancer treatments that my aunt who led an honest life couldn’t get. They get free room and board with amenities, and food when my neighbor who is not raping and harming children is homeless, and hungry. You are going to sue a system that puts food on my table. Wouldn’t it be more constructive to spend your time and money on the government that subsidizes the soy industry? That I would support.”

The President of WAPF felt it was important to address the concerns that have been expressed.

Here is Sally Fallon Morell’s response:

“Yes it is true that many prisoners have committed horrific crimes against fellow man; but by many estimates, one-third of all prisoners are innocent and another third are in for far longer than they should be.  Consider the 16-year-old kid in prison for possession of marijuana.  He might get a ten-year sentence and have to eat soy during the later years of his adolescence.  It is neither just nor merciful to condemn this young man to chemical castration from soy; nor to condemn any prisoner to irreversible damage to the digestive tract.”

“What many people don’t understand is that there is a profit motive for putting people in prison.  The prisons are built by private companies and these companies get paid when the beds are filled.  More prisons are being built and the industry will do its best to see that they are filled.  Lots of people are set up for crimes they didn’t commit to fill the prisons, and the way things are going, many could be sent to prison for political crimes.  We are all targets for filling those prisons. And I can tell you, there are no amenities in most of them. Cells built for two hold three or four, they are not air conditioned and often not heated.  Medical care is minimal to non existent; basic sanitation is often ignored. Retaliation can be severe for those who complain.”

“But setting these arguments aside, consider the cost to society.  These men are so sick from the soy, many will never be useful members of society when they are released.  They will need costly medical care, both in prison and after release. And if the prisons can get away with this, other institutions will be next, starting with schools.”

“This case is a huge opportunity for us to get the word out about the dangers of soy-thanks to the efforts of Kimberly and others, it is already doing this.  If we win, soy will become the next asbestos, the personal injury lawyers will have a field day. And just as asbestos is no longer used as a building material, modern soy products will no longer be served in institutions nor sold in stores. There is really a lot riding on this case and we will persist.”

Sally Fallon Morell

Sally Fallon Morell is a nutrition researcher, and President of Weston A. Price Foundation a nutrition education non-profit with 11,000 members, and 400 local chapters, 3 of which are in Illinois, where this case was filed. The WAPF International Conference, Wise Tradtions 2009:  Honoring the Sacred Foods, will be held in  Chicago, Illinois, this November. She is the author of the bestselling cookbook, Nourishing Traditions and Publisher of Wise Traditions, Journal in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts.

Note from Kimberly:

As some of you may be aware, as publicist for the Foundation, I have received a number of inquiries from moms and even a grandmom about their children’s high soy diet. We answered their questions in this post, Recovery from Soy, by Kaayla Daniel, PhD., on this blog. So Sally is right, the prison soy case is one way that everyday people are getting the news that soy can actually have adverse health effects.  They certainly are not getting that impression from the soy food advertising and marketing campaigns!

Here is a letter in support of the prison soy lawsuit, that I received by email yesterday:

“I would love to talk to you about what happened to me when my doctor put me on soy! My heart goes out to the men in the prison that are being fed that poison, yes I said poison. It has been a long road to regain my health and get back to normal. In fact this December will mark the end of the third year. Yes, I said three years to recover, and that is with the help of a natural health doctor. These men in prison will not have the care they need to recover. Yes, they are in there for a reason, and need to do the time for what they did. However, feeding them something that will cause such intense physical pain in the body and make them deathly ill should not be part of it.

As for feeding kids at school the same poison, this just can’t happen. Someone needs to put a stop to it before these poor kids end up like I did. I do think it could kill them. As for help from doctors, forget it!

They don’t have a clue.

If you are interested in talking to me, please feel free to e-mail me and let me know. I would love to get my story out there to help people.”

Since WAPF is first and foremost, an education non-profit, taking on this case makes a lot of sense. A legal win in this case will send up a caution red flag to soy consumers as well as the soy industry. It will educate all concerned that soy is a leading allergen, and that modern soy processing may not be sufficient to take care of the anti-nutritional aspects of this increasingly popular food.

If you have questions about soy foods or comments about the case, we’d love to hear from you in the comments, below.