Dear lemmy, someone very close to my heart is starting to fall into conspiracy theories. It’s heartbreaking. Among other things, he has now told me that soy beans are not supposed to be consumed by human beings and is convinced that despite the literal centuries of human soy bean cultivation and consumption, we shouldn’t eat it or anything derived from it for this reason (ie tofu, soy sauce, etc…evidence that soy is present in other common foods doesn’t seem to register with him).
I don’t even know where he got this information from and can’t find a single source to back it up (even disingenuously). I’ve tried explaining to him that sure, in its original state it’s not edible, but undergoes processing (LIKE MANY OTHER FOODS) to become edible. And that this has gone on since at least the 11th century, so it’s not like Big Soy is trying to poison the little people.
He’s normally a very reasonable and intelligent person, and I don’t know how to reach him. I thought it might be helpful to show him where these myths have come from with hard data sources to prove it. He seems open to the possibility, so I don’t think he’s a lost cause yet!
Help?
“Soy boy” is commonly used by MAGAs as a derogatory term to mean a feminine man. There was some rumor about how soy could mimic estrogen in the body (not really true) and so they believe that eating soy products makes men feminine. This is obviously bullshit, but maybe it’s somehow spiraled from “real men shouldn’t eat soy” into “no one should eat soy”
There are phytoestrogens in soy. Know what has even more than tofu? Beer. Remind them that when they use the term “soy boy” and ask if they’re feminine enough to drink beer
The best part is that phytoestrogen does next to nothing to humans, you need mammalian estrogen instead. You know where you find lots of that? Cows milk
so the milk made me an art student
CURSE YOU COWS
Yup, it’s a conservative talking point. It was originally a rebellion against vegetarianism/veganism/etc and all of the meat alternatives. Lots of “they’re trying to take away our meat because they hate America and nothing is more American than eating steak and burgers” type of rhetoric. The soy-based alternatives were an easy target for conservatives to rile up their readers, because the vast majority of vegans are progressives.
Then conspiracy theorists took that and ran with it. There is a strong correlation between conspiracy theorists and conservatives. It’s not an “every conspiracy theorist is conservative” situation, but the correlation is very strong. So conspiracy theorists will tend to mirror conservative talking points, then take it a step further by injecting the conspiracy theorist side of things into it. The “they’re trying to take away our beef because they hate god” talking points quickly morphed into “they’re trying to force soy on us to make us more liberal.”
And in the conservative’s mind, when they think of liberals, they think of blue hair, crying about pronouns, and effeminate men. So naturally, that’s where the conspiracy theorists ran with it. The “they’re using soy to turn us liberal” suddenly turned into “they’re using soy to turn us effeminate.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest the commonality been conservatives and conspiracy theorists is poor critical thinking skills.
I’d wager its also got something to do with how prevalent soy is used in various Asian cuisines, so like anything even remotely tangentially related to China is also a commie plot to take over The West™ in addition to the whole “soy mimics estrogen” thing.
Just tell them how many Good White Americans™ living in flyover country make a living farming soybeans and watch their head explode.
They dont care. As far as theyre concerned, these farmers arent farming good old murican crops and deserve to fail.
Yeah it would blow his mind knowing that China is the biggest importer of pureblooded American soy beans.
Oh yes, I’m quite familiar, the first university I went to was surrounded by corn and soybean fields.
Nobody’s head is going to explode. Most conservatives are well aware that soybeans are an American croup and are even proud of the fact. They just think that the soybeans should be served to cows.
Vilifying people you don’t like is no way to establish understanding or communication.
This itself is a conspiracy theory. I’ve known a lot of right-wing people, and none of them made a connection between Soy and Asian cuisine. They don’t like tofu, in particular, because they didn’t grow up with it and see it as some weird, hippy thing.
Initially I thought this was his concern but he never mentioned anything gender specific, just that humans as a whole shouldn’t eat soy as it’s “not food”…as though it’s plastic or something. I agree that it’s probably a result of the social media telephone game, though. I just wish I could find the original source so I can prepare a good argument
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I’m a woman, but we’re not married. I don’t think he’s ever heard of Joe Rogan, but I personally have seen that name thrown around a lot (though I’ve never listened or watched him). He’s certainly somewhat paranoid, which covid has made worse, but it’s on the weirder side. Like, just today he came home and during a discussion about red velvet cake, he drops the “did you know red food coloring changes your DNA???” And I’m just like…wtf? He said a teacher (who used to be a surgical doctor) told him this, so it must be true. I asked him if the doctor could back it up, and he seemed bewildered that anyone would lie so straight-faced.
I think he takes a lot of things at face value without stopping to check if things are true because they match an internal bias. This is something I’ve been trying to work with him on because his overly trusting nature has gotten him into trouble a few times.
Plausible deniability and confirmation bias are kind of like a psychological speedball. Look into epistemology (for dialogue techniques) to help him discover any confirmation biases on his own. It can help, especially if he claims to be open to learning new things about stuff he thought he already knew.
Wait until MAGAs fund out what military burgers are made of…
Here’s my (fallible) understanding of the nugget of truth behind the soy nonsense.
Plants contain something called phytoestrogen. It has a similar shape and function in plants to estrogen in humans. Soy contains a lot of it.
However, since it is made of different chemicals to estrogen it does not act like estrogen in humans.
Still, because it has the word “estrogen” in it, a lot of idiots think it will cause you to become weak and grow tits if you eat soy. You know, like a woman. Hence the “soyboy” memes and the use of the term as an insult, mostly by woman-hating alt-right goons.
It’s possible your friend is covertly falling for the fallacy, or perhaps their concern is several times removed; i.e. they fell for someone’s lie based on a lie based on a lie based on bigotry.
Fun fact, dairy milk actually contains proper estrogen, like all the lactations of mamals.
So you really expect me to believe a lactating woman produces hormones?
Not just woman but also lactating cow, camel, goat, cat, dog, monkey… unbelievable right.
What about argonians?
Depends, what is their profession? Are they “lusty”?
Don’t know about their milk, but they surely knead some great dough.
Snitties aren’t a thing with reptiles.
This is more complicated, as is often the case. The phytoestrogen in soy does have similar effects on people as human estrogen, and the effects can be rather positive (regulation of weight and better insuline sensitivity). Source here.
The same review mentions potencial negative effects and concerns: “In adult male rats, exposure to dietary soy decreased androgen levels and prostate weight.” and “In humans, the use of soy or purified phytoestrogens in women at high risk of, or diagnosed with, breast cancer as well as in infants fed with soy-based formula are legitimate areas of concern.”
Both beneficial and adverse effects of soy seem to be understudied. For more information about soy phytoestrogens and both male and female fertility, check out this article.
use of soy or purified phytoestrogens
Which one? Soy or purified phytoestrogens?
Sentences constructed like that can easily be weaponized.
It’s a review based on a number of scientific papers that research either one or the other. I think based on the results of the studies the authors decided it was safe to write about both phytoestrogen contained in whole soy and the purified one, because the concerns connectedto both these things are similar. I think that’s legitimate.
I would take that to be “use of either soy or purified phytoestrogens”.
This is more complicated, as is often the case
Impossible, @Heavybell assured my it’s a conspiracy theory peddled by woman-hating alt-right goons
Come on, people, what’s up with the downvotes? This is a very obvious /s and I appreciate it as a response :)
Sir, we’re on the internet discussing conspiracy theories. About if a extremely common condiments and milk substitution ingredients, can turn you into a woman. There is nothing like a obvious s.
But I do admit I did also really like the response and it does fall closer to the obvious s than some other ones, but you really can’t be to sure this days.
I got told to be careful of soy milk once by a conspiracy theorist buddy. Said it’ll turn me into a woman.
Hundred percent this conspiracy theory has bigoted roots.
This was going to be my guess too. I’ve heard the “soy contains estrogen and can screw up your body if you eat too much.” nonsense.
I hate when people say stuff like that as they drink their 4th can of Coca-Cola of the day.
Mix that together with that soy often is involved in meat replacements for vegans, and the alt-right idea that eating meat is manly, preferably while mixed with beer and cigarettes.
The first time I saw headlines on the internet about this, I wasn’t sure what to think. I was hanging out with a friend and I saw him put soy milk in his coffee. I asked him if he’d seen the news about estrogen. He hadn’t. I related it as best I could, and he listened, giving me some pretty skeptical side eye.
I closed with “I dunno, if it’s something you put in your body every single day it might be worth finding out more. Before, you know…”
“IT WORKS JUST FINE,” he said, and that was the end of that conversation!
I mean, you’re not wrong. And someone else replying suggested maybe soy does have some effect. However I feel like the MtF trans community would be up in arms with joy if they could just drink soy milk instead of taking estrogen pills, plus we’d probably have heard something from asian countries where soy is consumed a lot more if it was that bad for you.
If harvested while young, soybeans can be eaten in their original state as edamane. (You can just steam the beans and eat) They have to be processed for human consumption when left to fully mature.
Edamame is extremely tasty sprinkled with a little salt, or drizzled with a little sesame oil and chili powders.
And contains a lot of proteins, so much away vegans!
Edamame is delicious and not only that but extremely healthy.
Scientific illiteracy. People think phytoestrogen is the same as human estrogen.
The thing that makes me giggle is that many animal products, particularly breast milk, do have estrogen in them. Not in particularly significant quantities though but it’s hilarious.
Which is even more hilarious when you find out there are body builders out there who buy breast milk for their gains.
All milk is breast milk. You mean human breast milk.
What’s crazy to me is that people are so weirded out by the thought of a grown up consuming human breast milk all the while cow, goat, sheep, camel etc are considered nOrMaL for adult human consumption
I wouldn’t consider a cows udders to be breasts.
They are functionally the same.
I’m a trans woman and I recall this myth when I first learned abt trans stuff back in '06 or so. It was widely believed and shared in trans spaces that phytoestrogen could help marginally before getting access to human estrogen. Sites like Laura’s Playground (one of the largest online trans resources at the time) were filled with junk like this, along with a bunch of heteronormative and gender-essentialist takes that were super damaging. I’m glad resources are better and more prevalent now.
That was a long winded way of saying that I’m pretty sure a chunk of the culture war bs regarding soy (“soyboys”) came out of these pseudoscientific claims on trans forums, mixed with a dose of racism (wrt asian cultures that use soy in cooking).
As a farmer who’s family has grown probably 2M+ bushes of soybeans since they became popular in the 70s. I can truly say that the worst part is spending night after night with little needles injecting the Republican poison into the fattest beans.
/s - do I really need this here? Oh hell yeah!
Some might be from the cyberpunk genre. It’s crazy how many cyberpunk worlds are filled with soy-based everything and corporate conspiracy is a staple of the genre. Could easily put the two together so you have some soy-based conspiracies.
But Soylent Green is people…
How’s it taste?
Like unsalted oatmeal.
If it’s conspiracy theories in general, and not just the soy thing, then I think you might be taking the wrong approach. Just trying to debunk the soy thing might prove impossible because there is some underlying cause that is making him want to believe it.
Your friend might be being radicalised. By a person he trusts, a community he is a part of, or simply by the algorithm of a website he is spending his time on. In which case, getting him to let go of the conspiracies is going to be extremely difficult, because to do so would lose him those connections.
It doesn’t sound like he’s too far gone though. Maybe reasserting healthy connections will help, and if you can try breaking his media habits.
You make a good point that people who believe these conspiracies often have an underlying reason making them want to believe. Dan Olson came to the same conclusion in his video about flat earthers which I would recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.
“Flat Earthers are not otherwise-empty vessels who believe one kooky thing. They believe that thing because it suits their purposes. […] it says something they already believe about the nature of the social world. Flat Earth is a thing people want to believe because if it were true it would be irrefutable proof of everything else they believe.”
Folding Ideas, In Search of a Flat Earth ~29 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
As for the soy thing, Hbomerguy covered the topic pretty thoroughly.
I think a lot of conspiracy theorists wrestle with the fact that the world is kind of shitty and there’s not really a good reason for it to be this shitty.
Once you have that thorn in your side to deal with then you start trying to figure out why the world is so shitty.
Having a convenient enemy like the Illuminati or a conspiracy about the Earth being flat or some evil group of billionaires or leftists or whatever who have organized to make the world shittier so that their lives can be wonderful and perfect in every way is a great scapegoat for dealing with the underlying issue of “why is the world so shitty”.
And this is a pill that many people will find it impossible to swallow, but the reason why the world is so shitty is this:
We, as a group, believe the world is shitty. Therefore, we act as if we live in a shitty world. Therefore we make the world shitty.
There is no other magic sauce than that. If humanity came together and decided that they would not live in a shitty world any longer we could have the world completely and totally fixed in 12 years or less.
But we don’t do that because we believe that we live in a shitty world.
I think the problem is that no one can agree on what makes the world shitty. Some people think the rich should be taxed, some people think other people shouldn’t have equal rights. And then other people are purposely using the disagreement to get what they want. It’s a mess with no clear fix in sight.
I would like someone who isn’t afraid of being an asshole or trampling on the people who get in their way to take charge.
Someone who will move the way Trump does but who has at their core an incorruptible nobility and drive to improve every facet of life for every human on the planet.
I don’t dare hope for or expect a perfect leader but I long for a good King Richard after a lifetime of Prince Johns and sherrifs of Nottinghams.
Well, in American there was Bernie Sanders.
It’s a confounding thing, that so many people will vote for leaders who straight-up tell them that they will make the world a worse place for them (Reagan, Trump, Thatcher).
Good thing the Democrats shot themselves in the foot and gave us Trump, and now Biden who is in a dead tie with Trump still acording to most polling.
We could have had FDR 2.0
While I’m not entirely sure about this reasoning, it might be related to the status of soy as a meat and milk substitute. Omnivores claiming that “soy is not meant for human consumption in the same way that milk and meat are” must have eventually been shortened along the way as “soy is not meant for human consumption”.
It’s really interesting to me because you don’t really see that same kind of vitriol directed at oat milk or almond milk! I just don’t understand how they can look at hundreds of years of soybean culture and come to the conclusion of ‘yeah, we totally should not be eating that’.
Personally, I can’t stand plant-based meat alternatives simply because I prefer to just eat vegetables as vegetables…but I fucking love miso, tofu and all the different ways you can prepare it, doenjang jigae…the list goes on. I feel like omnivores who preach this don’t grasp how many different foods soy is a part of…even meat based ones!
because you don’t really see that same kind of vitriol directed at oat milk or almond milk!
Ummm, yeah, about that…
Goddamnit. I had no idea Big Dairy was a thing 🤦♀️
You should look into the dairy cartel of canada
https://hir.harvard.edu/canadas-dairy-lobby-the-shocking-power-of-big-milk/
As a Canadian, I can say that Big Dairy is 100% a thing in my country.
One story, among a bunch of others: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/merry-dairy-wholesale-milk-act-omafra-1.6538645
why do they call everything a war
Gets people riled up
Yeah I think you’re right and it’s sort of the result of a long game of telephone. Soy is a complete protein but it’s a lower quality protein. For example whey protein, which comes from milk and therefore an animal product, is much easier for your body to process and use.
Studies have shown that while both are complete proteins, whey’s amino acid profile for example is superior for muscle growth. A few of the amino acids in soy your body can’t really use that well.
This simple fact slowly becomes “soy is dangerous” as one person tells another and shares a link on Facebook and so on.
People really need to learn to just search up research articles and read a few studies. It’s not that hard to do and it’s generally the most reliable way to learn about something.
I wonder if soy taking over as farmable crop has anything to do with it. Pissed some conservative farmers off and they started rumors.
Sure, like that KFC rumor in Korea. Apparently KFC can no longer use “Chicken” in the name because they use genetically modified birds with no feathers to make processing easier.
Apparently started by Korean chicken farmers hurt by competition with commercial farming and somehow believed.by certain people
Sphinx chicken… yum…
Thats a new one.
The one I’ve always heard is that KFC using genetically engineered chickens with multiple legs and wings (and thus more breasts and thighs) to get more meat per chicken to satisfy demands.
That’s harder to believe. With the other example all you have to do is take a video of a plucked chicken and say “found one”
Never underestimate idiots who will believe anything that aligns with their preconceived notions.
Just gotta look at right wing politics and their supporters for enough proof of that.
Yes, farmers hate soybeans. And money.
Anecdotally I am intelligent and reasonable, but when I was younger around when 9/11 happened I couldn’t wrap my head around why someone would do what they did, it was to me incomprehensible, irrational, my world view couldn’t account for what happened. In that null space conspiracy theories created plausible explanations for my young and impressionable mind to latch onto.
I soon began questioning authority in general, the nationalized narratives provided were clearly propagandized, and in that wake of dissonance real conspiracies, like the war on drugs, started to add credibility to other outlandish ones. It is intelligent to question, and even entertain that which is irrational from time to time, if not just to test the waters, so to speak.
Humans have been cultivating soybeans for an estimated 9000 years. To think that a food staple in so many cultures worldwide is not healthy is completely xenophobic. Maybe don’t tell him that, but the framing of different cultures might be helpful. If it wasn’t healthy humans wouldn’t have thrived spending resources to grow it.
People have been brewing liquor for thousands of years too.
EDIT: I’m not arguing that soy beans are unhealthy, just that the reasoning is flawed.
And it’s effect on the human body is widely known. You’re not making the point you’re trying to.
I think the point was just that the argument was flawed.
Flawed in that a staple of civilizations’ diets is somehow comparable to a known intoxicant?
To say something is good merely because it has been consumed for a long period.
Very often people use a terrible argument and reach the right conclusion by chance.Precisely, the conclusion is correct but the argument was flawed.
Except it’s not chance dude. Soy is one of the richest and cheapest sources of protein.
I agree with you, but we should not compromise logic just to confirm what we believe.
I tried to point out that the fact that societies have consumed it for a long amount of time doesn’t inherently imply it’s healthy.
I made a single point, that soy conspiracies are racist and dismiss the civilizations that were raised on them. You latched onto one bit in a dismissive (or ignorant) attempt to debate bro with me. Which is especially jarring if you agree with me when you could have just added a point.
Alcoholic drinks, for a good part of history, were safer to drink than water because its production includes a boiling step that kills bacteria. We know now that you have to boil or treat water before drinking but for most of history alcohol was safer.
dude people back then knew how to sanitize water, this just isn’t true.
The only time you might prefer alcohol over water because it’s safer is in some sort of disaster or emergency.
Or because it provided both hydration and calories to people doing manual labor, like field work. It was the Gatorade of the time.
huh yeah i never thought about that but it would be a nice benefit.
i’d expand on that with that you could have also used something like a very dilute gruel except that would go nasty in the heat, which alcohol doesn’t do because it’s already nasty (but perfectly drinkable).
They did not know to sanitize water pre germ theory, during cholera outbreaks they would just keep drinking the untreated contaminated water and infecting themselves.
Because it wasn’t obvious that there had been contact with sewer water, if people go out of their way to get water from a pump that tastes “sweet” then they obviously do not understand that there’s sewage in it, as humans universally agree that drinking sewage is disgusting.
It doesn’t take germ theory to figure out that funky water tends to make you sick, and ever since we invented fire and had access to waterproof vessels people would have realized that boiling water made it safe. People just don’t tend to bother with such things when they get comfortable, much like how we now very much know about bacteria and yet people don’t bother washing their hands after taking a dump.
They didn’t know it had anything to do with the water at all, they thought it was evil smells.
Because it wasn’t obvious that there had been contact with sewer water, if people go out of their way to get water from a pump that tastes “sweet” then they obviously do not understand that there’s sewage in it, as humans universally agree that drinking sewage is disgusting.
It doesn’t take germ theory to figure out that funky water tends to make you sick,
The problem is that water is very often contaminated without seeming contaminated. If you drink water out of a random stream in the woods that looks and tastes totally clean you will still very likely get sick, for example. Would people in the past have understood that it was the water from the stream that made them sick? I think they normally would not have made the connection. It’s normal even now when people get ecoli or something from salad, to end up believing the cause was something else before it gets officially tracked down, because what actually happened didn’t match their expectations, they weren’t thinking about salad as a possibility. Our natural disgust for the most obvious signs of disease is woefully inadequate and does not at all translate directly into an accurate understanding of how disease works and why it happens.
And it has shaped human culture like perhaps no other food item has.
This is a conspiracy theory, not unlike the theories you will hear on the right. I’ve never heard anyone on the right equate soy with Asian or other cultures.
Which is a hole in thier own logic, my point entirely.
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for clarity they contain (sp as this is off the top of my head) phytoestrogen. Which is as similar to estrogen as carbon dioxide is to hydrogen peroxide.
I think the “soyboy” comes from antagonism vs vegans/vegetarians.
Crazy conspiracies have to start somewhere, he just hasn’t published his findings yet.
Soy makes a good target for a conspiracy theory, because it’s in everything.
This ubiquity heightens its danger: your kids are eating it, you’re eating it, the ink on your cereal box is soy, the glue in your shoes is soy… it’s all around us, man!
Secondly, being everywhere gives the appearance of an elaborate, omnipresent plot. Like Bill Gates and his microchips, the cabal wants to get their soy into you one way or another!
They eat this kind of shit up.
The fact that hippies are associated with soy milk strikes the right notes for hating soy.
The belief that soy acts like estrogen in the body and will feminize men - that hits all the right notes for hating soy.
Americans don’t give a shit that Asians have been eating and even living on soy for centuries, because they denigrate those cultures, seeing them as hive minds without individuality. That makes soy even more hatable.
So if you’re going to fall down a rabbit hole at all, this seems like a deep one.
The only possible saving grace for soy is that there are a hell of a lot of soy farmers in America. And we know conspiracy nuts live down-home regular folk like farmers. Long as they ain’t organic or nuthin.
Plus it is highly desired by Asian countries like China, they import huge amounts from Brazil, so any China paranoia gets tossed into the mix.
Not sure about soy beans specifically, but has your friend started listening to Joe Rogan recently?
Alex Jones is the one who really made it popular imo
