Read Adding Soy to your burger can save your life in Ehab Heikal’s blog
When I was young I was indoctrinated is a concept that cheap bad burgers had “soya” added to them, and grew up thinking that 100% beef was the way to go. Now having passed 40 years, things change. Cholesterol and fat in burgers and other meats are one of the main causes of the yearly heart disease related deaths. In the USA hear related diseases cause nearly 600,000 deaths per year from a total of 2,5 million yearly deaths ( source ) , making it the number 1 killer in the USA.
Well reducing cholesterol can save many lives, and that can be done either by reducing the number of times you eat meat meat intake or by reducing the amount of meat in the meat you eat. That can be done by adding soy. Soy has a higher percentage of protein than meat and zero cholesterol.
So really those cheap burgers are not so bad after all! Well not really. See some soy products are highly processed with chemical agents that could be bad for your health. See when you are looking for cheapest which is the main reason why common supermarket sold burgers in Egypt contain soy ( sometimes labeled as plant protein among other labels to hide its reality as “soya” ), the intention is not to make it healthier but cheaper and so poor quality soy can be used.
One of the most important things that consumers have to fight for is better labeling laws. Such laws will allow you to know exactly what you are getting and make informed decisions about your health and the quality of products you buy.
One thing is for certain 100% beef does not seem to be so great now as it used to be, and soy to me is not just a way to make burgers cheaper.
Still soy is not perfect and there are reports of some bad health effects, are these reports true or just the meat industry fighting back? Soy has been used in Asia as a main food item for thousands of years and it is doubtful that in normal quantities it has any bad effect and the research that shows bad effects of soy mostly talks of over consumption of soy, not normal amounts.
Over all I feel that people in this day and age should take more time to study what they eat and push corporations and governments for much better labeling laws.
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