Estrogen and animal products (long)

A San Francisco CBS affiliate did a positive review of paleo eating/living recently (a few video clips, and likely more to come):

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/201...an-diet-trend/

Soy is so not the health food it's been touted as. Read here to see why you should stay away from products containing soy as much as possible: http://www.foodrenegade.com/dangers-of-soy/

It's hard though because soy is now in everything, even things we'd never expect it to be in like soda pop and chocolate and bagged tea. Soy can seriously mess with women's hormones, yet the vegan/vegetarian community embraces it like it's a miracle food.

As for grass-fed meat, eggs and dairy, they might contain minimal amounts of estrogen once it gets to your plate, but at least it will be naturally occurring estrogen and not fake estrogen pumped into factory animals. I have no data to back it up but it's my feeling that the naturally occurring hormones would be synthesized by our body better than the fake.

Edited to add: bke, yes, grass-fed products should always be labeled as grass-fed and/or pastured, or grain-free. If it just says 'organic' without also saying grass-fed, it just means they were fed organic grain (which is still bad - cows should not eat grain, period!). Ideally it would read 'organic, grass-fed' which would mean the farmer doesn't treat his grass pastures with any kind of pesticides.

If looking to get into raw dairy, first check the laws in your state to see if it's legal. This site can show you what laws are in which states, also has a list of local farms in your area to find where to buy. http://www.realmilk.com/
If you buy direct from a farmer, get to know him/her and ask how they raise their animals. Raw milk is only healthy and not dangerous if it's from 1)grass-fed cows, and 2)the farmer adheres to strict sanitary practices in handling the milk.

In your efforts to avoid excess hormones, also consider the effects of BPA from plastics. Bottled water, plastic packaging, microwavable plastic containers - we're inundated with plastic so much in our daily lives it's incredible. Many products are beginning to use BPA-free plastics - read lables carefully.

Another thing to consider about cafo and industrial meat and dairy products is the increase in portion size in general and number of meat meals per week for the average consumer.
As things got cheaper [excluding the taxpayer costs of subsidies, environmental degradation etc] people simply ate much more than before and way more than required to meet protein and fat health requirements.
Range and pastured animals and fowl, along with dairy products and eggs may cost more but the actual portion size required for health and taste fulfillment is really much less than we have been acustomed to in recent years. They are actually cost effective/affordable when viewed on a portion basis as well as being more healthy.

My observation is that people are eating less animal protein, by far, than they did in the fifties. Back then, people ate a wider variety too, including organ meats. If someone had served my grandfather a giant muffin on a plate for breakfast, he would have been astounded.

Quote:

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yet the vegan/vegetarian community embraces it like it's a miracle food.

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Even in my year as a vegan and several years as a vegetarian I seldom touched soy (except soy sauce as a flavoring in stir fries of course). I think I probably ate much less soy than the average meat eating processed food eater!

Sure I ate legumes and plenty of them (pintos, black beans, garbanzos, lentils, split peas), I just didn't trust tofu nor the fake meat stuff having never grown up eating it (of course I did grow up eating other legumes ocassionally - so I just ate more bean tacos, more pea soups and so on as a vegetarian). Really I wanted to eat NORMAL food, only vegetarian, not "weird stuff" like tofus. :laff:

i was vegan for a decade, and as catherine says, the real key is finding diverse cuisines and educating yourself and your palate to it.

i am now paleo -- for health reasons among many others -- and i still eat a lot of vegan foods, and even have vegan days, because these are some of my favorite foods!

i particularly like to make vegan soups, and there are many excellent recipes out there. in a given week, i'll make: pumpkin soup, fennel soup, butternut squash soup, broccoli (creamy, but no dairy) soup, cauliflower - mushroom (creamy) soup, kumara (sweet-potato) leek, and whatever else i have with leek, and tomato soup, and what else? oh, beet soup, and carrot soup, and several others.

i love vegetable soups.

i used to make my own veggie stock, but now I use my bone broths (i like to use as much of the animal as possible, and i buy local, pasture raised, etc).

and then meat is the garnish to the dish. seriously, i eat mostly soups and salads -- no grains or beans -- and then a bit of meat with it.

one meal a day is vegetarian (eggs), and the other meal a day is omnivorous because I have some kind of meat. :)

but, i don't agree with mcdougall's take on estrogen and never have. :) but that's a whole other deal. :D