S4:E4 - The Whole Soy Story with Kaayla Daniel

Please welcome to the show.

All right, what do we got here? People from all over are coming to see him.

Hello and welcome to The Wolf's Den. My name is Mark Ottobre. In today's interview, I speak to Kayla Daniels. Kayla has been on my list of people to interview and have on the podcast since 2010, since I started podcasting. Kayla wrote the book "The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side Behind America's Favorite Health Food." And that text, that book has been widely considered as the seminal text on soy, outlining all of its issues and what to do about it. So it's with absolute great pleasure that I get to sit down with her. In this interview, we talk about, obviously we talk about soy, we talk about the Weston A. Price Foundation and what happened with her. She used to be the vice president there with Sally Fallon and the fallout. And we also talk about the cold cod liver oil, the fermented cod liver oil, fiasco. With that said, let's get to the interview. You are sure to enjoy it. See you on the other side.

Alrighty, well, firstly, thank you, Kayla, for joining us today in, in weird circumstances with COVID-19 around the world affecting really every, every small business, big business, and the way we've been doing things. How has COVID affected you?

Well, I work mostly with clients by phone or by Zoom, so that hasn't changed, but people are frightened about money money and so they're putting aside a whole lot of their priorities including their own health sometimes. So postponing until we see what's going to be happening.

Yes, and what's the majority of the work that you do like on a day-to-day basis? What is the, like the lion's share? Are you just seeing, consulting with clients?

Well, it's a mix. I write books, I'm doing blogging, I see clients, private clients. Mostly working with people all over the world and mostly online, you know, with Zoom. So the lack of being able to meet people across the table in, in my office, um, that's not affecting me a lot.

I imagine that, um, a lot of your clients obviously are coming to you for nutrition and for health. They've probably got a lot of questions on like what this time, like COVID and the flu and things. What Do you—

what advice you've been giving them and when people ask you about COVID Well, I'd say what I've been recommending all along is going to help people protect themselves. Foods that are high in vitamin A, for example, foods that are protecting our immune systems, you know, good fats. So not a lot of changes that way. I generally am working with people who are already on a real food ancestral type of diet. We're usually tweaking that.

Yeah. And what tweaks are you making at the moment? Are you supplementing more? You said supplementing vitamin A, and I know one of the common go-tos for vitamin A is cod liver oil. Are you using cod liver oil?

I often do. It depends on the client. With some, I'll be using, say, Vital Proteins liver, liver capsules. And I do recommend eating liver a couple of times a week, real food. And people who don't want to do that, some people do prefer the cod liver oil solution. And that's an option. If people are doing cod liver oil, I am encouraging a natural cod liver oil that has vitamin A and vitamin D in a ratio. It's going to vary from 10:1 to 20:1 depending on where the— what type of cod we're talking about, where they're swimming. Mm-hmm. But a good cod liver oil will have both vitamin A and vitamin D.

Are you ever running labs to check in people's vitamin D, vitamin A, what their status is? And do you look at any ratios between vitamin A and vitamin D?

Yes, very typically people will, will do labs for vitamin D but not for the vitamin A. And so a lot of people are jacking up their vitamin D levels to very, very high levels, but because their vitamin A is not in an appropriate ratio, which would be more like 2.5 5 to 1 in terms of lab work, that can be a problem.

Vitamin D to 1 vitamin A?

No, the vitamin A should be higher.

All right.

And we see a lot of people that are basically on a good diet, but they're still low in vitamin A, and often they're supplementing vitamin D to artificially high levels, and that doesn't work long term.

Yes. One of my friends and mentors, Bob Gill, who is the best muscle tester I've ever come across and had the pleasure of learning from him. He was telling me that you can pretty much like vitamin D, total vitamin D is somewhat sometimes irrelevant. You need to look more at what is the ratio of vitamin A to vitamin D and you can actually boost up vitamin D quite high. But so long as vitamin A is adjoining, is synergistic to that because they're obviously synergistic nutrients. So you'd agree with that?

I would agree with that, yes.

Yeah, so I know there was some— I know you used to be part of the Weston A. Price Foundation, and there was some kind of stuff that happened with the, the cod liver, the fermented cod liver oil. Uh, can we touch on that?

We certainly can. Uh, I started to question the idea of a fermented cod liver oil. It just didn't make sense. I mean, you can't ferment oil. If you try to ferment oil, it goes rancid. If you try to ferment protein, it goes putrid. The only thing you can really ferment are carbohydrates. So there's almost no carbohydrates in, in a cod liver. And so this was not adding up. And I became concerned because I was hearing about a lot of people who were not doing well on the products and started to investigate. And in fact, the product is extremely rancid. It's not early stage rancidity, it's long-term rancidity. It's, it's the kind of oil that the Norwegians actually use to paint their houses. I mean, it is going rancid, it's actually stable. So a good cod liver oil, or actually we could be talking here about any oil, it's supposed to go rancid. It's our job to make sure it stays away from oxygen, heat, and light so it stays stable and doesn't go rancid. But it's like having a fish on your counter, you know, it's going to go bad. It's supposed to go bad. It's, it's like a Twinkie that doesn't go bad.

Yes. So when you brought this to the attention of the group, uh, like the— there was just general pushback?

There was. Uh, people get very stuck in their ideas and their recommendations. People don't like to admit they've made a mistake. And I did, um, I first brought it to their attention and they basically told me I was stupid, that I should talk to the manufacturer who would straighten me out. And, and what I did instead was I talked to the world's leading, uh, fish oil and oil experts and learned everything I could learn and had samples of it tested at the world's great marine oil laboratories. And the people told me, and I'm talking about the world's greatest fish oil experts, that it was the most rancid oil they had ever tested.

Wow.

Wow.

And the group were just very close-minded to these findings. Didn't want to accept, from what I understand.

Unfortunately, and I went forward and published a whistleblower report, but sadly the product's still on the market, is still being recommended by the Weston A. Price Foundation, and we've had hundreds of people who have been very ill from the product who've reported cause and effect. They were on the product, they were sick, they went off the product, they got better. They decided this was crazy, went back on the product, they got sick again, that kind of report, which is, you know, it's anecdotal evidence. And in the case of some naturopathic doctors who shared their finding, I've got case studies. But we've also got a number of deaths in the community, fairly young people. And it's really, really sad that there is this, this terrible link. It gives the whole real food community a bad name.

It unfortunately does. Um, and I noticed that on your blog as well, there was— you linked— I forget what the exact cancer— it took brain cancer. And usually it's like less than 1% of the population, and in the Western A Price group it's affecting around 10%, uh, that people have actually gotten this cancer. And you put it down to— or linked it at least, uh, causation to, um, the fermented cod liver.

Yeah, it's a, you know, pretty significant correlation. Uh, people always point out with brain cancer that it's of course, to cell phone usage and so forth. And absolutely, there's no doubt about that whatsoever. But we still, as you pointed out, within the Weston A. Price community, the number of people with brain cancer or who have died from some form of brain cancer is way higher than one would ever expect and one would get among people who are using cell phones.

Yes, I know, like Weston A. Price, the foundation, everyone involved, including your work when back in like 2005 to 2012 has been a big influence, you know, in the way I view nutrition. And obviously I promote, you know, Nutrition and Physical Generation as, you know, one of the go-to books that everyone should read in nutrition. Now that you've stepped back from the organization and you kind of are able to look— someone who's been in the trenches but also you're able to look, what are some nutritional things that you've seen from the organization itself that you think, well, actually this isn't the best practice, you know, from the high-fat recommendation, from the saturated fat. Have you changed your views since leaving?

There's a lot that I question, but I first want to clarify that there's a difference between the Weston A. Price Foundation and the Price-Pottinger Nutrition Foundation. Now, the Price-Pottinger Nutrition Foundation has all the archives of Price's work, also of Francis Pottinger's work and Kelvin Page and a number of other nutrition pioneers. And they've got accurate information about what Dr. Weston A. Price actually said. And about fermented cod liver oil, he never said one word. And in fact, when you look over his research studies, his letters, his books, the talk he did about cod liver oil was that he found it extremely at risk for rancidity. And his recommendations were, were very interesting and have nothing to do with what's being recommended at the Weston A. Price Foundation by Sally Fallon Morell.

I didn't know that. What are the main differences? WestonAPrice.org and WestonPrice/Pottinger— there are two completely different domains, aren't they?

They are. So the official one is Price-Pottinger Nutrition Foundation, but the Weston A. Price Foundation Talks a whole lot about Wesley Price, but not all the information is accurate. There's a whole lot of opinions of Sally Fallon.

Right, right. And from a nutritional point of view, have there been— since you've stepped out of the organization, have there been things that you've changed your mind on specifically or rethought?

Well, there are a number of things I question. One of the things that might be of interest to your audience is I'm very interested in fitness and staying fit. It's not just about the food we eat, it's about our spiritual our social lives. It's about the fun we have. It's about the exercise we're getting. There are a number of things. And Dr. Price's work didn't specifically talk about exercise, but we know darn well that those people were walking every day. You know, they were, they were physically very, very active right up into old age. So the food was right, but also the lifestyle was good.

And things that— what other things have you been questioning? The saturated fat? Is that ever coming into question for you about the amount?

The amount is a very interesting question because I'm very interested in bio-individuality. And while I do think we all need some saturated fat, including some animal fat, because you're only going to get the vitamin A in the animal fats. So coconut oil may be a perfectly good oil and it's saturated and that's, that's fine, but you're not going to get any vitamin A in there. So we do need some vitamin A. But in terms of the diet for people, I recommend different diets for the different clients I work with. And this is in accord with some of the research that Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez did, and before him, Kelly's research working with cancer patients and discovering that there was not one size fits all. So we're basically looking at a number of diets with a vegan diet on the one end and a totally carnivorous diet on the other. And admittedly, very few people in either camp. So very, very few pure vegans on the one end, with most of us needing at least some animal fats and some animal protein, and usually every day. Yep. So Some people would be more high fat, more high protein than others, some more plant-based but still some animal products. And coming up with a system to determine exactly right, the right formula for each person is what's engaged me at the moment.

Any insights into that system? Because I mean, I totally agree with that notion and, you know, 100% support that. One of, one of my big influences was a guy named Charles Poliquin, who's probably a pioneer in the, in the strength community. He had what was called the bio signature and he would talk about the upper back fat and you do the upper back fat. And if it was below 8, naturally they were a carbohydrate type. If they were above 8 or around 10, or if they're, let's say, like 18— when I say naturally, as in their normal diet, or this is where they normally would sit. So they're reasonably lean, but their upper back fat is still high. That would be a high fat, high protein diet. So you'd see a lot of Samoans Torres Strait Islanders, kind of, you know, these kind of Māoris, New Zealanders. So they would present more as your high-fat type, whereas you'd have people who are kind of a bit more ectomorphic as your high-carb type. Is that how— is that a kind of way that like what else is involved in terms of your system?

Well, the system Dr. Kelly and Dr. Gonzalez were using involves a very extensive questionnaire and it's very complicated. You know, with different questions getting different weights. So the calculations are, you know, they're very time-consuming. But I think what Charles was doing, very interesting, and I spoke at one of his conferences. I had such a wonderful time there and I enjoyed talking with so many people there. One of some of the fitness questions that I would ask would be things like people who like Bikram yoga, for example, that kind of hot yoga, they would be more likely on the plant-based and people who try it and they think it's the most miserable thing— and I'm in that camp— we're more likely to be on the carnivorous end.

Would you ever look at something like, uh, HbA1c, uh, you know, as a long-term marker of glucose sensitivity, to then look at that and go, right, well, it's fairly high at the moment, you know, they should definitely be on a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet? Is there any, like, blood markers that come into play?

Well, what gets tricky is none of those markers are completely reliable.

Right.

So there's a lot of, um, looking at that in conjunction with everything else and trying to figure out what's going on exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And with elite athletes, some of those numbers are naturally going to be different. And I don't pretend I have all those secrets nailed down at the moment. Uh, the working with elite athletes is something that's, that's new in my career and Just, just curious about how that kind of activity affects things.

Right. I do have a question because we're on the topic of fermented cod liver oil, and this is kind of a side topic, but I don't know if you've ever looked at any studies around protein powders and when you heat them. Have you seen anything around protein powders and like, I know people bake with them and these kind of things, and I've been doing my own research at the moment and haven't necessarily found anything that is 100% conclusive around heating protein powders and denatures protein. Proteins. But when it comes to whey protein, it's already, uh, you know, highly processed.

Yeah, I'm going to answer that a little indirectly, that first of all, I'm a big fan of real food and not doing protein powders at all. But I'm also realistic. I know there's a lot of busy people. They want their— they want their shakes, they want their bars. Um, and I will encourage real food, but sometimes that's, uh, not what people are going to do. The research I've done on protein powders was mostly connected with the book I did, The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America's Favorite Health Food. And my biggest concern, of course, would be with soy protein powders because of all the problems with soy and all the problems that go with any soybean kind of product compounded immensely by turning it into soy protein isolate, soy protein concentrate, or any of those highly fractionated, highly processed You know, heat, temperature, chemicals, the whole thing. And people who start doing that as part of their fitness programs will often start to have their, their health really tank.

Hmm.

Yeah.

But did you look at anything specifically with whey or was it just more your soy?

Uh, I didn't research whey so much except where, where some of the studies they would compare, usually they would compare casein, which is a bad product with soy, which is a bad product. And maybe the soy might come out looking better just because the casein so bad.

Yeah.

So very few of those studies would they actually use whey because whey would come out better than soy, and soy industry-sponsored study, they're not going to use whey.

100%. So yeah, I mean, yeah, sorry, with whey would be the way it's processed.

And, you know, really, I'd rather see people, say, making something like Vince Gironda would do with, you know, with raw eggs and raw milk and you know, some gelatin in there. So we're, you know, we're primarily talking about, you know, real food there.

Yeah, 100%. I totally agree with that. In the industry, obviously a lot of people do look at, you know, when they think of the word supplements, they think of protein powders, fat burners, and fat burners and pre-workouts. When, you know, you and I think of the word supplements, we're thinking vitamins, minerals, herbs, specific amino acids to really get a result. And it's anything but, you know, the fat burners and protein powders and, you know, weight loss pills. But, you know, I digress. One of the reasons, you know, I've wanted to interview you for a long time. I wanted to have a podcast with you for a very long time since I first saw and read The Whole Soy Story. And you touched on it before. And, you know, I've been— I get a lot of questions on soy all the time. And one of the things is I'm always finding myself referring to you and your book. So I thought, you know, it'd be a great, great opportunity to connect and see, you know, what was it, almost 15 years on from when you first published The Whole Soy Story. See what's new, what else you found, what changes you would make from the book and all of that. So I suppose to begin to kind of outlay the problem, I was going to— the problems with soy, the way I've seen it from, you know, looking at the issue, from my understanding, the problems with soy is the phytoestrogens. You know, naturally the soy, the soy is high in— it's an estrogenic by itself as a plant. And you've seen studies on that where they've compared compared chickpeas to— I think the Canadian researchers did like chickpeas compared to soy, and soy had 9 parts of estrogen, whereas— sorry, chickpeas had 9 and soy, the soybean, had over 100,000. You've got the, the molds from storage. You've also got it genetically modified. You've got the glyphosate that it's sprayed on. And it's also bad for the environment because, you know, it's heavily— it's a monocrop and there's a lot of resources that go into that. From that picture, What am I missing? I know there are some things with mineral absorption that comes into play as well, but I think they're the 6 main issues that I see. What, what else am I missing from that picture?

Well, as you point out, there's multiple issues. There's the estrogen issue and also with the imbalance with testosterone being blocked and some of those issues, the mineral blockage that has to do with soy containing the phytates. So it's blocking mineral absorption. There's something called protease inhibitors. Inhibitors which make it hard to digest protein. Soy is one of the top allergens, so a whole lot of people are actually allergic to soy. The good news for them is they're avoiding it. It's, you know, they have an immediate, more immediate reaction. I would say those are the main issues. I mean, there's multiple compounds in soy and most of them are not helpful. I mean, but this is the nature of something that's plant-based that the plant plant cannot flee, it cannot fight, so the plant has to fight with chemical warfare. So plants, in order to survive, evolution provided them with things like these estrogenic compounds and so forth, so even if the plant was eaten, the plant would create health problems in the predator so the plant's relatives could survive. Right, so it's equal warfare.

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You said it was an allergenic food for a lot of people. Why is that?

Well, I mean, some people are allergic to peanuts. I mean, people are allergic to a whole lot of things. Soy is just one of the top allergens.

So in saying that, when you look at soy, do you feel that soy is one of the biggest issues in terms of nutrition today? Like, I mean, there's gluten, genetically modified food, the glyphosate issue that people talk about. But I know in 2005 you chose to pick on a topic which was obviously soy, which you wrote your book about. Now, 15 years later, do you see it as a— would you dovetail and go into a different topic if you were to rewrite the book?

I think the book was important. What, what it's done is people in the health food community are aware of soy to an extent they never were before. Now, a few of them are thinking, I eat organic soy, so all these issues with genetically modified are not an issue. But the truth is, even if it's an organic soybean, it still contains the phytoestrogens and the phytates and the protease inhibitors and all of that. So it's still a problem if it's organic. But in general, what the health food industry has done is they've shifted from soy protein to pea protein. And I'm not sure that's much better.

Yes, really. So, so what's the problems with pea protein?

Well, I don't— I haven't written a book on pea protein, and there isn't the extensive body of research that was done with the soy. And with, with pea protein, if people have it here and there, I would not think it's an issue. But if people are having pea protein shakes every day, I would, I would think that could create some of the same problems. And for some of the same reasons with, with the soy.

So does the pea protein have the estrogenic effects though?

Would have some, and certainly the other things. And you know, any way you look at it, it's, it's very highly processed.

Yes. So where does the estrogenic effects with pea protein come from?

Uh, you mean the benefits of the protein?

Uh, you said with, with pea protein you'd put it almost in the same class as the soy protein. So soy obviously has the effect of being high, as the plant is high, it's a highly estrogenic plant by itself. Pea protein, are you getting the estrogens from pea protein, or is it the other factors like the phytic acid, mineral absorption, genetically modified? What are the specific problems that, that one would, would have from the pea protein compared to, say, the soy?

Well, as I said, I haven't done a book on it, and there, there are not hundreds and hundreds of studies, say, done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other researchers, so the studies are not so available. So I'm perhaps speculating somewhat here, but the fact that it's a highly processed product would make me wonder about it to start with. And it's going to have— I mean, if we look at all of these different beans, whether it's chickpeas or soy or some of these others, there's going to be some problems. There's going to be nutritional deficiencies, and they're plants, so they're going to be involved somehow in chemical warfare. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Do you, do you worry about like with soy or even like gluten? One of the mechanisms that's often talked about gluten is that it causes leaky gut or at least causes the tight junctions to open, which then increases intestinal permeability. Now with, with soy, I mean, if you add gluten to the diet, you're getting soy, the immune system is now responding to soy because of increased permeability. Do you see the same problem, say, like with all the products that are basically— if I understand your point correctly, it's because a lot of the products are highly processed. And if someone has leaky gut or intestinal permeability, it then can create immune issues. And the immune issue is going to manifest, manifest basically based on the person's genetic, I suppose, deficiencies or the genetic weakness. Is that mechanism correct or am I missing something from the picture there?

I think that's basically correct. And of course, on a practical level, would I be recommending is the more people include variety in the diet, the less trouble they're going to get into. So an occasional pea protein shake, I wouldn't particularly worry about for most people. But if people are every single day doing this kind of shake and they're not eating real food, they're upping their chance of running into some problems.

15 years on from publishing the book, looking back, what would you add to the book now or what are some things that you're like, oh, I wish I, I wish I added the chapter on this. Is there anything that you look back or is the book a complete body of work?

Well, a year or so ago we had a book come out in German, so I had a little chance to update. And the main thing that needed updating was where things stand with the FDA and the health claim, the health claims made for soy. There's been surprisingly little research being done in the last few years. It's like it was done before. So there wasn't a lot of updating in terms of the research. Main thing, just an update on the health claim. And that has been, that is going out. Just about everybody's recognized at this point that there is not a consensus, that it's not a health food. Now a lot of people think it's not harmful, but at least they're recognizing that it's not going to prevent heart disease.

And what initially made you— what prompted you initially to rip open soy and kind of do an exposé on it?

Well, I sensed that something was off. I was reading all these headlines that had phrases like the joy of soy and the soy of cooking, and they were proposing that soy could cure everything from cancer to ingrown toenails. And the claims just seemed too much they didn't seem believable. And then I started looking around and I discovered soy is considered a medicine more in Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine. They only recommend soy for Pitta types who can digest something that's basically pretty indigestible. I started finding that cancer clinics get wonderful results such as Dr. Gonzalez's work or the Gerson Clinic. That they said soy was on their do not eat list. And I kept thinking, okay, if soy is so wonderful, why are these doctors saying do not eat it? And so I started looking at the research and initially I thought, okay, you know, there'll be some research. I can wrap this up in about 6 months. And instead it was more like 5 years.

Right, right. One of the things I want to touch on is my father has passed away. He passed away from prostate cancer.

Cancer.

And I remember going to a guy, Professor Naveen Sahli, who in Australia— he paid for a consult with him, which was quite expensive. He founded the National Institute of Integrative Medicine. And in the consult, he told my dad to eat soy, and I almost fell off the table. And I was like, shit, I've paid all this money to go see this guy and he's telling my dad to eat soy. Like, I thought this guy was like— he got the vitamin D right, that was good. But yeah, the soy comment. And I said to him, and I go, But 99% of the world's soy supply is genetically modified. Oh, we'll get organic. But the plant is estrogenic. Why do you recommend estrogenic when prostate cancer is a problem of estrogen? And, you know, it's not, not too much testosterone that stops producing testosterone. So why are you giving more estrogen? And he didn't really give me a good answer, which indicated to me that there wasn't— he just said, oh, well, the research says— what do you respond when, you know, people, doctors, whoever are saying, you know, you've got breast cancer or you've got prostate cancer, and their actual recommendation is the phytoestrogens in soy are going to actually help the cancer, where the research points out it's actually phytoestrogens that have actually caused the cancer.

Yeah, it's, it's a very challenging question. There seems to be this assumption that the soybean, it has intelligence, that it can go in the body and it can estrogenize when we need estrogen and it can block it when we don't need it. But it doesn't quite work that way. With some people it may have a greater blocking effect, with some people it can have a greater estrogenizing effect. There's a possibility, I would say, that a pharmaceutical drug where the dosage could be more controlled and you administer it only to those people that could actually benefit from it. But I'm talking about not, not as a food at this point, I'm talking about as a drug. And you've got somebody, you know, who is getting it based on some serious lab work, an intelligent doctor, and where the dose is really controlled. So instead we have patients being told to eat a lot of soy and, you know, okay, so how much, you know, what kind of dose are they getting? You know, it's going to be different from tofu to soy shakes to miso soup. It's, you know, it's just a crapshoot as to how much they're getting.

Yeah, so that's where the myth comes from. It does have estrogen blocking effects, but only in very individual people and very specific. And in a lot of cases, it just boosts all around estrogen, which is actually counterproductive to what you're actually wanting to do. Is that correct?

Yeah, it's the kind of thing where it might have one effect, say, on a baby because of that stage of the life cycle, and that would be a very negative effect, but it could have more positive effects, say, a woman coming into menopause. But it's really going to vary from person to person. There's going to be genetic factors, just many things to think about. It's, it's not so simple as, you know, have more soy every day.

Yeah. One of the things I wanted to touch on was genetically modified, genetically— the issue of genetically modified issues. I followed Jeffrey Smith and the responsibletechnology.org. What have you found with— I mean, my understanding genetically modified food is obviously soy is one of them, it was originally founded by Monsanto dumping agriculture, dumping the Roundup. And then there was an algae that was growing that was resistant to this Roundup. They extracted the gene, they then spliced that gene into the soy plant, into a number of different things. So then it could be resistant to the Roundup and the pesticide. Now you're spraying loads and loads of glyphosate, Roundup, glyphosate being water soluble as well. So it gets into the waterways. Ways, easy to consume. The other thing with genetically modified food that I've heard, and I don't know if this is true, but this is what Jeffrey's been saying, is once it's sliced into the soy plant, that gene can interact with your microbiome, which then what happens in the microbiome is the gut now produces pesticides inside the gut. And this is why you see so many gastrointestinal issues now, because people are eating genetically modified food. Thoughts verified? Like, do you agree with those sentiments? What are your opinions on?

Yeah, Jeffrey, I admire him greatly. I've had the honor of talking with him at a number of conferences, and what amazing work he's doing. What a good cause. Well, that really comes down to why I say that if people want to eat soy, I say be sure that it's organic, because everything that's wrong with any soybean is, you know, compounded, compounded if genetically modified. Modification gets into the picture.

So you would— would you think there is any space in one's diet for soy? Because I know one of the references that people give out, I think falsely, is Japanese, or Japan rather, uh, how, you know, Japan, they have a high soy diet. But really, I think, I think you quoted in the book, there was— their diet's around 3 to 5 grams they would have a day, and they use it as a condiment to bring out flavor in things like soup, whereas Westerners will use 25 to 35 grams of soy in alternatives like tofu, soy milk, and the dose is what makes it toxic. And also they're not— they're having fermented soy, whereas Westerners are having unfermented soy, which is a whole host of issues. And also I think it was written that in Japan, if a woman suspected her husband of basically cheating on her or whatever it was, she would feed him soy because it was— it's the opposite of aphrodisiac. It's the anti- dysiac, or if you pronounce that word, is these things like, what are your thoughts on all that?

Yeah, um, the places in Japan where they eat the most soy are the monasteries because they noticed that when the tofu consumption went up, the naughty behavior went down, right? So it's an aid to celibacy, which comes to that whole story about Japanese wives, um, giving it to unfaithful husbands.

Yeah.

Um, so in, in in Asia, and of course Asia is a huge continent, many different countries, many, many different dietary customs. Soy consumption obviously varies in all these different countries and from household to household, but on average it's a smaller amount, say, every day in Asia, where in the U.S. people are either getting very little or if they're on health food kicks or something, they might actually be getting a lot. So there's, you know, a difference there.

Yes. Where did you first discover the Buddhist monastery? Like, that was a link. That's why they actually did it. How did you stumble across that?

I'm not sure. It was quite a while ago, but it's quite a story.

It really is. It really is. I also read some studies on— they gave it to cheetahs, soy feed, and I think they stopped reproducing completely.

And I mean, but think about it, you know, the big carnivorous cats put on a soy diet. I mean, Dreadful.

So someone—

Pandas, these little soy wafers at the zoos, and the pandas are notoriously difficult to breed.

Right, and they're giving them soy.

Yeah, what a surprise.

All right, so you know, there's the— it's almost comical in a lot of ways because you've got the person who's health-conscious, they buy the fitness magazine, and inside the fitness magazine is a diet that is promoting soy.

Soy.

You know, where— I mean, I imagine you still get clients this day who've either seen your work and they look at soy, and you get people who are constantly on the calories in versus calories out rant. What is your response to these people?

Well, in general, I will attract people who are either recovering from soy and been seriously harmed by it and they find me, or maybe their children were on soy infant formula and they find me. So they come to me with the understanding already that they've damaged their health with soy and they want me to help them recover. So those are some of the clients that I, that I reach. I tend to not attract people who are just on a standard American diet and talking calories in, calories out. I'm more likely to attract people who are already health conscious, but something's not working. They're struggling and they want to go to the next level.

Amazing, amazing. Well, uh, final thoughts?

Um, with soy, I would recommend to practice safe soy.

And that means abstain completely, or is there a little bit of soy that one can have in their diet?

Well, people are always surprised when I say that I do enjoy miso soup, and occasionally maybe I'll have a little tofu in a vegetarian dish. Vegetarian potluck, but that's occasional. It's, you know, in the context of a varied diet, right?

And, and in terms of people who have had soy for a long time and they've damaged their health, what are some steps back from, you know, soy?

Well, I do the usual, you know, some lab work and so forth. They may be extremely low in vitamin A, maybe also vitamin D. Um, less likely, maybe they've been supplementing with that, but almost certainly their vitamin A is really They may have a lot of the wrong kind of copper. They may be lacking bioavailable copper, but they've got toxic loads from a plant-based diet.

Yeah, they have low copper. You said low copper.

Imagine their zinc would be low bioavailable, but they may have a kind of copper they can't use, so we need to get rid of that. They may have toxic metal overload with aluminum and mercury and who knows. With some people, they were sick to begin with and they went on soy thinking they would get healthy. So I'm looking at not only the damage from soy, but the damage that, you know, they started out with.

Is it true with soy, is it true they, to ferment Western soy, they put a high dose of manganese or something about they put in manganese vats and it has a high amount of manganese and it becomes neurotoxic.

Is that a verified thing It's toxic for babies, so it's a soy formula issue. For, for grown-ups, we can handle the manganese. It's not a problem. But one of the problems with soy infant formula, one of many problems, is the toxic manganese level.

Yes, I know one of the Swiss bulletins went out on the record saying that there is soy infant formula is the equivalent of giving giving 5 contraceptive pills to your infant. When I read it, I thought that's pretty dramatic statement that obviously catches headlines. Maybe, I don't know, too dramatic, or do you think it's fair?

It's dramatic. I think it was 3 to 5, if I remember. I'd have to look that up to be sure at this point. But yes, it's a significant load of estrogen for a developing child, and if it's a girl baby, she's be way over-estrogenized, and that has been linked to premature puberty, you know, breast development at very early ages, thyroid problems. And with the little boy babies, a big problem too, because what a lot of people don't realize is a boy baby in the first days of its life actually has a testosterone surge. Now, you wouldn't expect that, but it's a testosterone surge that's the same as as a grown man. And during that early vulnerable period, the little baby boy is being programmed to become a man. And if there's a whole lot of soy estrogens in the system, that's not going to happen properly.

Well, this has been an amazing conversation. I could talk to you all day, but I know you've got places to be and things to do. Your wealth of knowledge, I really want to thank it. Thank you for your time. You've been really generous with your time and contribution contribution to the world of nutrition with your book, The Whole Soy Story. So I thank you on behalf of the whole nutrition community for doing that, because I know how hard it is to put together something that's so succinct on one topic. Finally, if you had a billboard and you could put it, you know, a big message out and the whole world would see, what would be your message for people?

Oh, well, maybe practice safe soy.

Love it, love it. And where can people learn more about they want to get in contact, do a consult, all those things?

Sure. My website is drkayladaniel.com.

Awesome. And that's the best place to reach out and get in contact?

Absolutely. I do respond when people email me and I like to hear from people.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Well, thank you for your time and have a great day.

Thank you, Mark.

Hey, hey folks, we're back. I hope you enjoyed that one with Kayla Daniel. Daniels. If you like that podcast, make sure you subscribe to us on YouTube. If you're listening to this on iTunes, do subscribe and leave us a review. These podcasts really do, we really do appreciate every review. It really helps us get on those YouTube charts and share this message with more and more people. And as always, if you do enjoy it, share it with your friends and let people know where the podcast is at. How to get in contact with us. You can check us out on Instagram. It's @enterprisefitnessmelbourne. Melbourne. If you want to check me out, it's @MarkOttobre. That's M-A-R-K-O-T-O-B-R-E. Uh, seek us on the web. And as always, folks, train hard, eat well, and supplement smart.

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