When queried about “too much magnetism” a friend replies: Water is good for you; too much you drown. Oxygen is good for you; too much you’re poisoned. Sunlight is good for you; too much you burn. Magnetism is good for you; too much creates a black hole. Too much of ANYTHING is too much.

Sorry it took so long Jessica—Reply wasn’t working.
It’s best I answer you all together. Yes,the phytic acid does bind with minerals. Yes, there is xenoestrogens in soy. One of the great things about modern science is that we can know almost every chemical aspect of every single food we might ingest. The problem is that it also points out the flaw in reductionist theory in that one single thing defines the action of the whole substance. This isn’t the case with herbs or foods.

Phytic acid does reduce minerals absorbtion but it will only have a negative effect in a really unbalanced diet consisiting of mostly grains. That diet wouldn’t be good for you even without the phytic acid.
Chemicals in soy have xenoestrogenic properties(xeno meaning outside) but are actually phytoestrogens (meaning plant) which are much weaker than the ones derived from pesticides and plastics. Pesticides have the added bonus of being poisons. There is also the question of how the body handles the ones in soy as opposed to man made chemicals. A recent study from the UCLA School of Medicine shows that the same phytoestrogens turn on 113 different genes in the prostate that cause cancer cells to die. What do we do now?

All of the negative press on soy seems to come from the meat and dairy industry or health organizations who push the consumption of red meat. We all know the side effects of too much of that.I doubt if any of this new information about soy would have come out if soy milk wouldn’t have ended up in the dairy case—crowding out the milk cartons.
Before we all pull our forks out and draw battle lines let’s try to keep this in proper perspective.

Is soy totally safe? Probably not. Can it be part of a healthy diet? Sure—and so can meat. (Wow, I said that- Veggie me!) It’s all relative to the other food you consume.
Worried about phytic acid but love grains? Eat lots of organic, deep green foods and you won’t have to worry. Want a little soy? Supplement a little iodine because it raises your requirements. Like a little meat? Greens, greens and more greens to help detox, purify the blood and move it out of your colon.
I had a wonderful tofu soup at a Sushi House the other night. I ate a lot of the fresh ginger because tofu, like most vegetarian food, is very cooling to the digestive system.
The key is always moderation and it’s the whole of your diet not any one food or chemical.

It’s odd how much controversy there is about soybeans; Phytic acid is present in nuts, seeds and grains. According to Wikipedia Soyabeans have the same level as Corn but nobody seems to target Corn.

The mineral chelating effect is an argument that applies to all grains – Oatmeal has a high content of Phytic acid for example.

And the Cancer argument seems equally wide of the mark. It is demographics not eating natural diets rich in soya and oats that are dying in droves from Cancer.

Thanks, BTW for your comment on the Liver and it’s connection to the Nervous system

All The Best

Alex