Five Reasons to Avoid Soy in Your Pet’s Diet

Soy is a common ingredient in commercial pet food. Read on to find out why you should avoid it.

As you know if you regularly read my blog posts or have read Canine Nutrigenomics: The New Science of Feeding Your Dog for Optimum Health, my approach to raising healthy companion animals focuses on providing them with foods that nourish them at the cellular level. As I like to say, “If our cells aren’t healthy, then we aren’t healthy because our bodies are made up of cells.” I take this same approach when evaluating soy in commercial pet foods, and the implications are disturbing, to say the least.

Soy is a common ingredient in many mass-market commercial pet foods because it is an excellent source of protein and is therefore a much more cost-effective stand-in for expensive, animal-based proteins. But pets who eat soy day-in and day-out are exposed to many potentially serious health effects.

Here are my top reasons why you should not feed your pet foods that contain soy:

Many pets have sensitivities to soy

Soybeans and soy derivatives are amongst the leading causes of short-term food allergies and longer-term food intolerances/sensitivities in pets. Look for ingredients such as soybean meal, soybean germ meal, soy flour, soy grits, soy hulls, soy protein concentrate, soy isoflavones, isolated soy protein and textured vegetable protein (TVP).^[1]

Soy contains phytoestrogens that can disrupt endocrine function

Phytoestrogens are chemicals found in plants that act like the hormone estrogen and can either mimic or block estrogen’s effect. Health risks related to consuming too much dietary phytoestrogens include infertility, abnormal puberty (i.e., too soon or delayed), immune system abnormalities and decreased hair growth. If you think your pet’s food can’t contain such high levels of soy, think again. In 2004, researchers analyzed 24 commercial dog foods containing soy, and the results were concerning. The products contained phytoestrogens in levels comparable to those known to create biological changes in other species.^[2][3][4]

Soy affects the thyroid gland

Soy contains goitrogens, substances that suppress the thyroid gland’s ability to produce triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4), hormones that are necessary for normal thyroid function. If you think your dog might have hypothyroidism, you can read exactly how to diagnose and treat the condition in The Canine Thyroid Epidemic: Answers You Need for Your Dog.

Soy also poses other potential health problems, including:

• Can cause gastrointestinal upset.
• Contains antinutrients that inhibit trypsin (a pancreatic enzyme) and other enzymes necessary for protein digestion.
• Contains phytates that block absorption of essential minerals.^[5][6]

But even with all of the issues I just discussed, there is a potentially far more concerning aspect to soy.

Unless soy is labeled as organic, it is undoubtedly genetically engineered and laden with highly toxic herbicides and insecticides.

Soy is amongst the top three genetically engineered crops grown in the United States.

According to the World Health Organization:

Genetically modified (GM) foods are foods derived from organisms whose genetic material (DNA) has been modified in a way that does not occur naturally…. Most existing genetically modified crops have been developed to improve yield, through the introduction of resistance to plant diseases or of increased tolerance of herbicides.^[7]

In fact, soybeans are among the crops most widely sprayed with herbicides.^[8][9] So, unless you purchase pet foods that specifically state that they use organic soybeans, then not only are the soybeans genetically modified, but they have been doused with herbicides, mostly in the form of Monsanto’s Roundup. The key ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate. In March of this year, 17 experts from 11 countries met at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France to assess the cancer-causing potential of organophosphate pesticides and glyphosate.^[10] I, for one, am looking forward to reading the IARC’s findings.

For all of the reasons discussed in this article, I strongly advise steering clear of commercial pet foods containing soy. Once again, our goal is to nourish our pets with foods that create optimum health at the cellular level, and soy simply does not meet that criteria.

References

1. ^[1] Fahey, G.C. (n.d.). Soybean Use: Companion Animals. Retrieved from http://www. soymeal.org/FactSheets/domesticpets.pdf. ↩
2. ^[2] Cerundolo, R., Court, M.H., Hao, Q. & Michel, K.E. (2004). Identification and concentration of soy phytoestrogens in commercial dog foods. American Journal of Veterinary Research, 65(5), 592-596. ↩
3. ^[3] Cerundolo, R., Michel, K.E., Court, M.H., Shrestha, B., Refsal, K.R., Oliver, J.W.,… Shofer, F.S. (2009). Effects of dietary soy isoflavones on health, steroido- genesis, and thyroid gland function in dogs. American Journal of Veterinary Research, 70(3), 353-360. ↩
4. ^[4] Fort, P., Moses, N., Fasano, M., Goldberg, T. & Lifshitz, F. (1990). Breast and soy- formula feedings in early infancy and the prevalence of autoimmune thyroid disease in children. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 9(2), 164-167. ↩
5. ^[5] Fallon, S. & Enig, M.G. (2000). Cinderella’s Dark Side. Retrieved from http://www. mercola.com/article/soy/avoid_soy3.htm. ↩
6. ^[6] Yamka, R.M., Harmon, D.L., Schoenherr, W.D., Khoo, C., Gross, K.L., Davidson, S.J. & Joshi, D.K. (2006). In vivo measurement of flatulence and nutrient digest- ibility in dogs fed poultry by-product meal, conventional soybean meal and low- oligosaccharide low-phytate soybean meal. American Journal of Veterinary Research, 67, 88-94. ↩
7. ^[7] World Health Organization (WHO). (2013). Food, Genetically Modified. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/topics/food_genetically_modified/en/. ↩
8. ^[8] Ji, S. (2013, June 13). Glyphosate (Roundup) Carcinogenic in the Parts per Tril-
   lion Range [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/ breaking-glyphosate-roundup-carcinogenic-parts-trillion-range?utm_source=www. GreenMedInfo.com&utm_campaign=e624913b6e-Greenmedinfo&utm_ medium=email&utm_term=0_193c8492fb-e624913b6e-86768346. ↩
9. ^[9] Thongprakaisang, S., Thiantanawat, A., Rangkadilok, N., Suriyo, T., & Satayavivad, J. (2013). Glyphosate induces human breast cancer cells growth via estrogen receptors. Food and Chemical Toxicology, 59, 129-36. doi:pii: S0278-6915(13)00363-3. ↩
10. ^[10] Guyton, KZ, Loomis, D, Grosse, Y, Ghissassi, FE, Benbrahim-Tallaa, L, Guha, N, Scoccianti, C, Mattock, H and Straif, K (on behalf of the International Agency for Research on Cancer Monograph Working Group, IARC, Lyon, France). (2015). Carcinogenicity of tetrachlorvinphos, parathion, malathion, diazinon, and glyphosate. The Lancet, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(15)70134-8 ↩

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