Soy vs Cows milk?
 

Anybody have opinions on Soy vs Cow's milk? I did a little googling, but mostly came up with websites that were soy related. I'd like to find an impartial website that has an opinion on which one is better for you, if one even is. But in the meantime, anybody have strong opinions either way?

I like soy milk, unsweetened. Mostly because it is higher protein.

Milk does have benefits but for my dairy, I highly prefer yogurt or cottage cheese.

I prefer the soy milk - my brand has slightly more calcium than regular milk, and I use a light vanilla variety with less calories per cup, so it works well with my calorie-counting.

After hearing all the negative things about soy, I gave up my Eighth Continent Chocolate soy milk. I've gone to the 1% cows milk now.

Maybe some nutritionists/dieticians on here can help advise.

The things I heard about soy scared me. Many women who have had or have a higher chance of breast cancer are advised to avoid soy.

It's too bad for me. I love edamame (soy beans), soy sauce and a lot of Asian food. I've had to start restricting it because of the soy.

It is overwhelming. The amount of information out there contradicts much of what we're trying to learn about our bodies and our health. I thought soy was good for us. Look at the Asians! They are usually heart healthy until they start eating too much of our western diet. However, if we change to their type of diet, we run other risks.

argh!

Soy will bind with thyroid hormones and make them unusable to the cells. For this reason, I avoid all forms of soy, except fermented soy as in soy sauce and miso. I have researched soy extensively, and I too am scared by what I have found. My husband used soy protein, and complained daily of horrible heartburn. When I switched him to whey protein, it cleared up. In my personal experience, soy is not the health food it is touted to be.

1% is as low as I will go. I didn't realize those things about soy. Intersting.

Frankly, I can't stand either. A little cheese or yogurt is it for my dairy. I'll probably be 2 foot tall by 60, LOL. I would think prudence in either one would be smart. Maybe a combo of both. There are scary things about dairy and soy out there. It is hard to comb through it all.

I've read so many bad things about what Americans do to process our soy that I tend to stay away from all soy products if I can. When I stick to my raw food plan, I barely eat any soy (otherwise, soy is hard to avoid because they stick it in so many processess foods).

I avoid it also because of the warnings to women about how soy mimics estrogen and causes problems. Millions upon millions eat soy in Asia, but the problems I read about here appear to be related to how we process soy in our factories, and the fact that we consume waaaay more soy than people in other countries do. We tend to think, "if a little is good, a lot must be better" so soy is added to all sorts of foods and touted as nutritional.

-Allison

I second the almond milk suggestion! I'm obviously a little biased against cow's milk, but all of the soy I consume in a day was concerning me so I switched to almond milk. It's pretty tasty. The brand I get has less protein, but it also has something like 40% less calories than soy milk so it's a good trade.

I use both unsweetened organic soy milk and 0% cow's milk, but lately I've gone back to making my own nut milks (and creams) too. Just zuzz an ounce or so of blanched almonds (or cashews) in a pint of water, and you get a nice base for smoothies and the like. I use it as is, but you can always strain it if you prefer. It's way cheaper to make your own than buying the branded stuff, and it takes mere seconds to prepare.

WOW, I did not know about the cons of using soy!

I tend to go about 50-50: I LOOVE my coffee drinks with soy instead of cow's milk, and I often get tofu with my stir-fry meals. I drink regular 1% milk in my coffee as creamer, and on cereals and such.

I've never tried making my own nut milk before! That sounds good. Besides smoothies, how do you use nut milk?

We have a friend with really bad lactose intolerance,and he uses almond milk anywhere you'd use cow/soy milk. I tried it on cereal when we were visiting, and it was very tasty. :)

I can't really drink too much milk, so tend to have soy milk since it's quite high in protein. I can drink the sweetened stuff plain, but the unsweetened is :barf: by itself - ok in protien shakes though!

There is so much contradictory press out there on both soy and cow's milk, I figure if you find 1) something you like the taste of and 2) doesn't have you running to the loo every 3 minutes and 3) doesn't produce any other nasty side effects in you personally then go for whatever you feel!

I used to use the almond milk too but for some reason have gotten away from it. I love the vanilla flavored... hmmmmm I need to go get some and try it in my coffee.