Real Food (28 page)

HEALTH BENEFITS OF FERMENTED SOY

• More digestible

• Less phytic acid (thus more minerals)

• Fewer protease inhibitors (thus more available protein)

• True vitamin B
₁₂

• More isoflavones
²¹

How much soy is beneficial? No one knows— or, rather, the experts don't agree. They can't even settle on how much soy was
traditionally eaten in Asia or is eaten today. Proponents say daily consumption in Asia ranges from 40 to 100 grams of soy
protein, but skeptics counter that Japanese and Chinese eat only 10 grams. Even allowing for differences in actual consumption
within and between Asian countries, this wide range is probably due to selective reporting from the pro- or antisoy camps
or both.

Fermentation is another factor. Critics argue that most soy in traditional diets was fermented, and for centuries it probably
was, but unfermented soy is more common now. If fermented soy is better, any health benefits Asians enjoy may disappear as
they begin to eat more industrial soy. Unfortunately, the following figures for actual, recommended, and maximum safe consumption
don't distinguish between traditional and industrial soy. The best I can say for these wildly different numbers is this: they
present an accurate— if frustrating— picture of the conflicting views about soy.

HOW MUCH SOY PROTEIN PER DAY? HARD TO SAY

Grams Per Day

Estimate of the typical American diet 4

Estimate (by soy critic) of Japanese and Chinese diets 10

HOW MUCH SOY PROTEIN IS IN A SERVING?

The following foods have about 30 grams of protein and just under 30 milligrams of isoflavones.

8 oz extra-firm tofu 12 oz firm tofu

16 oz soft tofu

4 oz soy "cheese"

24 oz soy "milk"

32 oz soy "yogurt"

30 g soy protein powder

Upper limits for safe consumption are important, because it is possible to eat too much soy. Excess genistein is toxic to
the thyroid, which regulates appetite, metabolism, mood, and libido. In 1999, as the FDA was considering the claim that soy
can prevent heart disease, two FDA specialists told the agency their concerns about hypothyroidism. They wrote, "There is
abundant evidence that some of the isoflavones found in soy . . . demonstrate toxicity in estrogen-sensitive tissues and in
the thyroid. Our conclusions are that no dose is without risk."
²²
Japanese researchers found that 30 grams of roasted, pickled soybeans daily suppressed thyroid function in healthy people.
²³
They called the dose "excessive." Yet proponents recommend 40 to 50 grams of soy protein daily.

One group is particularly vulnerable to soy: babies. Many studies confirm that soy causes hypothyroidism and goiter in babies.
Soy formula may stunt growth and disrupt hormones, sexual development, and immunity. The dose of isoflavones in soy-based
formula is huge: one thousand times greater than in breast milk.
²⁴
New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, and Britain advise caution in feeding soy to babies. One of the FDA soy experts
cited above called soy formula "a large, uncontrolled, and basically unmonitored human infant experiment."
²⁵

Soy is a complex food, and there are no easy answers. I certainly would not feed soy to babies or children, and would advise
caution for adolescents, whose sexual development is incomplete. Vegetarians might consider what kind of soy foods they eat
and how much, and women with breast cancer should consult a specialist familiar with the latest research. For me, industrial
soy "milk" and other imitation foods flunk the real food test. This unique vegetable is more digestible, nutritious, and tasty
when prepared in the traditional way. If you appreciate soy, do as Asian cultures have for two thousand years: eat traditional
soy foods.

I Explain the Difference Between Good Salt and Bad

FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, salt has been central to human life. Greek slave traders traded salt for slaves, giving us the expression
"not worth his salt," and Roman legionnaires were paid in salt;
salarium
is the Latin root of
salary.
In Sanskrit,
lavanya,
suggesting grace, beauty, and charm, comes from
lavana
for salt. Many wars have been fought over salt supplies, and many political battles over salt taxes. Like fish, salt was prized
by landlocked people, who burned salty marsh grass and added the ash to food.

We seek salt for good reasons. Salt stimulates the gastric juices, and it's necessary to emulsify, or digest, fats. Hydrochloric
acid in the stomach (for digesting meat) is made with salt. Unrefined salt contains the electrolytes sodium, potassium, and
chloride, which are essential for every cell function, including blood pressure, nerve signals, and muscle action. Chronic
salt deprivation causes weight loss, inertia, nausea, and muscle cramps. In the kitchen, meanwhile, salt is indispensable.
It enhances flavor, even making sweet things sweeter. Salt is a preservative, aids fermentation, and improves the texture
of bread and cured meat.

Today, however, salt has a bad reputation. The psychology professor Paul Rozin has found that many Americans regard salt (and
fat) as a toxin and believe even a trace amount is unhealthy. "This belief establishes a goal that is both extremely unhealthy,
and unattainable," he says. Early studies
did
correlate salt intake and high blood pressure, but more recent research has been kinder to salt. In 1983, studies in the United
States and Japan found that dietary salt didn't affect blood pressure in most people significantly.
²⁶
In the 1990s, several U.S. and British studies concluded that salt itself is not the cause of poor health.
²⁷

In 2006, data from the prestigious NHANES II study showed that death from heart disease and from all causes
rose
with lower sodium consumption
²⁸
"Evidence linking sodium intake to mortality outcomes is scant and inconsistent," said the researchers. Yet doctors still
routinely prescribe low-sodium diets for patients with hypertension and heart disease. According to Dr. Kilmer McCully, only
a few people— about 20 percent— are "salt-sensitive." For most of us dietary sodium doesn't seem to affect blood pressure
or heart disease risk. Meanwhile, many other factors raise blood pressure: too little potassium, stress, smoking, being overweight,
and lack of exercise.

Three million years ago, Stone Age humans got all the salt they needed from eating meat and blood, fish, and sea vegetables;
perhaps they occasionally dipped foods into seawater for salt. Later— probably around the time they began to eat more grain
and other starches— humans became salt farmers, mining ancient seabeds for salt from the earth or gathering it from seawater.
Archaeological evidence suggests that about four thousand years ago, humans produced salt in central China. Consumption of
unrefined salt predates industrial diseases.

My friend Daniel Gevaert, who worked on our farm as a teenager many summers ago, taught me to appreciate real salt. Back home
in France, he became an organic farmer, manufactured fermented soy foods, and bought a sea salt factory.
Factory
is not quite the right word, in that nothing much industrial happens there. From June to September, Atlantic sea salt is harvested
manually with clay pans and allowed to dry naturally in the wind and sun. The factory is a simple shed, empty but for a chute.
The salt dries gently as it flows along the chute, through screens that sort it into fine or coarse grains. The salt is never
washed, heated, or refined in any way, and nothing is added.

A few years ago, Daniel and his wife, Valerie, sold Danival, the company they founded, to a large French concern. That made
me a little sad, but it will be several years before I finish the salt from my last visit to the factory near Bordeaux. Daniel's
salt is a soft gray and slightly moist. It is rich in minerals and trace elements, with an exquisite briny flavor. (Danival
and other unrefined sea salts are sold in the United States under the brand Celtic.)

Typical commercial salt, by contrast, is an industrial leftover. First the chemical industry removes the valuable trace elements
and heats it to twelve hundred degrees Fahrenheit. We get what's left: 100 percent sodium chloride, plus industrial additives,
including aluminum, anticaking agents to keep the salt pouring smoothly, and dextrose, which stains it purple. Salt is then
bleached. Consuming pure sodium chloride strains the body, upsetting fluid balance and dehydrating cells.

Unrefined sea salt is 82 to 84 percent sodium chloride, and the rest is other good stuff: calcium, magnesium (about 14 percent),
and more than eighty trace elements including iodine, potassium, and selenium. These nutrients have vital functions, among
them maintaining a healthy fluid balance and replenishing electrolytes lost in sweat. We need trace elements in tiny amounts,
but a deficiency is serious. The landlocked American Midwest, for example, was known as the "goiter belt" for lack of iodine-rich
seafoods. Today commercial salt contains added iodine to prevent thyroid disease, but the body absorbs natural iodine in unrefined
salt more easily.

How much salt do you need? That depends on many things, including your size and genes and how much you sweat. As with fat
(and carbohydrates and the rest), I don't count sodium milligrams, and I have no idea how much potassium a head of lettuce
contains, but I know that eating a lot of fruits and vegetables is a good thing. I also know when I've eaten too much salt,
just as sure as I know when I've put too much olive oil on the salad. The main clue? I'm thirsty.

The body needs a balance of the two main electrolytes, sodium and potassium. Whole foods contain little sodium and plenty
of potassium, but the typical industrial diet is the opposite: it contains too much sodium and too little potassium. Do avoid
sodium-rich industrial foods, including prepared meals, savory snacks, bouillon cubes, and commercial chicken stock. According
to the National Academy of Sciences, processed food— not the salt cellar— accounts for 80 percent of the salt in the typical
diet. When I do buy canned goods such as tomatoes and chickpeas, I look for unsalted versions, or I rinse the beans and add
real salt to taste during cooking.

If you avoid industrial foods, exercise, eat fresh fruits and vegetables daily, and drink plenty of water, there is no need
to fear traditional salt. In the kitchen and at the table, I'm liberal with unrefined salt. But remember: if you want the
benefits of all the vital trace elements of the sea, the label should say
unrefined.
Salt sold simply as "sea salt" is refined in some way, no matter how charming and rustic the packaging. And yes, unrefined
sea salt is more expensive than the rest. It's worth more.

Chocolate: The Darker the Better

EVERY WINTER, AROUND FEBRUARY 14, the food and health pages run amusing pieces on why women crave chocolate, or how it came
to be associated with love and romance— and might even get you some. I used to find these reruns tedious, especially when
they used the term
chocoholic,
but I have new respect for chocolate, which I consider one of the great food-drugs, along with wine and cayenne peppers. Now
I skip the sexy quotes and scan the articles for hard facts on the dark, complex bean of the cacao tree, a native of lush
jungles around the equator, from Hawaii to Venezuela to Nigeria. The tree and bean are called
cacao
— rhymes with
cow.
The liquor, powder, and drink are
cocoa.

Everyone has his poison (or ought to), and I'd probably eat chocolate no matter what, but for chocolate lovers seeking nutri1
tional validation, here is a sneak preview at the good news: the saturated and monounsaturated fats in cocoa butter are good
for cholesterol; cocoa powder is rich in antioxidants and contains mild antidepressants.

Twelve hundred years before Christ, the Olmec of modern Mexico grew cacao trees and made the beans into a drink laced with
chilies, herbs, and honey. The Mayans and Aztecs believed the God of Agriculture brought the cacao tree from paradise. At
weddings, they served a cocoa drink called
xocalatl
(warm or bitter liquid), admired for its ability to enhance energy, passion, and sexual performance. In 1527, Hernan Cortes
found the cocoa bean in Montezuma's court and took it home to Spain, where it was doctored with sugar and vanilla.

Soon chocolate spread pleasure across Europe, and in 1753 the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus renamed the cacao tree
Theobroma cacao,
Greek for "elixir of the gods." But chocolate lovers were not content to leave the divine bean alone; they wanted to perfect
it. In 1879, chocolate was rendered smooth and creamy by conching, a trick devised by Rodolphe Lindt of Berne, Switzerland,
one of many chocolate inventor-industrialists. A small producer in Sicily called Bonajuto sells the grainy, unconched kind
made with the nineteenth-century method. It didn't knock me out when I tried it. I'm all for traditional methods of production,
but to me, Lindt was a genius; with chocolate, I think, the smoother, the better.