The Dangers of Soy Proteins in Energy Bars

Soy has been regarded in recent years as a health food due to claims that it is a good source of protein, lowers cholesterol, protects against cancer and heart disease, relieves menopause symptoms and prevents osteoporosis, among other health benefits.

If this is the case, then the use of soy proteins in food products, like in your favorite energy bar, should be a good thing, right?

Wrong. Numerous studies have exposed that soy isn’t the health food that many people think it is and has been blamed for:

• Increasing the risk of breast cancer in women, brain damage in both men and women, and abnormalities in infants
• Contributing to thyroid disorders, especially in women
• Promoting kidney stones
• Weakening the immune system
• Causing severe, potentially fatal food allergies

Soy also contains phytoestrogens, which mimic the effects of the female hormone estrogen, causing various adverse effects on human tissues. The phytoestrogens in soy milk can alter a woman’s menstrual cycle, and it is estimated that babies who are exclusively fed soy infant formula receive five birth control pills worth of estrogen daily!

But what makes soy protein even more dangerous is the fact that most of the “natural” soy proteins used in foods today are contaminated with a neurotoxic, highly-flammable industrial chemical known as hexane.

Hexane is a byproduct of gasoline classified as a major air pollutant by the Environmental Protection Agency. And yet, food manufacturers use hexane to separate whole soybeans into soy oil, soy protein and fiber.

Being highly explosive, hexane has caused deaths of workers in soybean processing plants, including an incident in 2003 in Sioux City, Iowa. As a neurotoxin, contact to hexane causes blisters, eye and upper respiratory tract irritation, headache, vertigo, nausea, muscle weakness and nerve damage.

Unfortunately, the FDA has not set a maximum residue level in soy foods for hexane and does not require food manufacturers to test for hexane residue in their products, which is why energy bars, such as Clif Bar and Power Bar, still use non-organic and hexane-extracted soy ingredients.

Dr. Mercola’s Cocoa Cassava Bar is a natural health bar and does not use unhealthy ingredients like soy protein. Cocoa cassava bars are powered by Proserum® Whey Protein, the highest quality source of biologically active protein which provides you with energy, enhances your immune system, promotes healthy blood sugar, and helps build and retain muscles and regenerate old or injured cells.

A real energy bar is a health bar. Avoid energy bars and other “health” products that contain non-organic and processed soy products. The Cornucopia Institute’s special report, Behind the Bean, will provide you with more information about the dangers of soy products.

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