Avoiding soy

[Sport]

Hello everyone,

Still waiting on my enterolab results-but have been working hard avoiding gluten, dairy, eggs, and soy. I find it fairly easy to avoid the gluten, dairy and egg, but soy is kicking my butt. It's everywhere! It eliminates so many things and when I think of having to possibly avoid soy the rest of my life-well it's very discouraging and depressing. Sometimes Ifeel like just giving up.

Just venting and having pity party.

[patc73]

Sport,
I feel your pain! I can have eggs, and butter but not milk or cream, but I agree that soy is everywhere. I have an actual allergy, not just an intolerance, to soy, so I have to be careful about even GF foods. Schar breads and Van waffles, etc., seem to all contain soy. And it hides in crazy things like Vitamin E and MSG, supplements and soups, and on and on.
So if you keep to whole foods, and cook everything from scratch, you'll be safe. It takes a little more time, but it tastes great and saves a lot of suffering! You'll get used to the restricted diet after a few months, and it won't seem like you're missing anything anymore.

[maestraz]

I had a ridiculously bad reaction to edamame in the beginning of my LC journey. Since then, trying my best to avoid soy. Watch out for canned tuna. Soy lurks in the vegetable broth used in many brands. Trader Joe's Solid White Tuna in Water has been safe for me.

[JFR]

I cook just about everything from scratch, avoiding foods with ingredient lists. I cook simply, nothing elaborate, using only single ingredient foods. It's not really that hard, just take some getting used to.

Jean

[ldubois7]

It is a matter of breaking away from processed foods & cooking whole foods for yourself. It's so much more healthy & you'll feel better, too!
Take it one step at a time...you'll do fine!

[Gabes-Apg]

Compared to 4 years ago, there are way more Soy Free products (from trusted manufacturers) now.

as mentioned by the others, try to minimise products with lots of ingredients, alot of gluten free flours, cake mixes, breads etc have soy (cause it is cheap!)

This part of the forum has the essential lists;
http://www.perskyfarms.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=52

i have the soy names list printed in my wallet, (and have given copies to many health food/organic food places as the demand for soy free is growing)

Main items to avoid;
- Any lipstick/lip balm that has Vit E
- Veges are sprayed with soy oil to make them last longer in the air conditioned shops, i do a 3-5mm peel on all veges
- Eggs are sprayed with soy oil, buying trusted free range, and not having boiled eggs can minimise issues.
- tinned meats/fish (already mentioned)
- Juices, ice cream, dairy free deserts, gelato, etc (check the ingredients)
- take away / cafe food. soy based vegetable oil is used in fryers etc (again cause it is the cheapest)
- gluten/dairy free chocolate. (there is rice milk chocolate and 85% dark chocolate that is gluten/dairy/soy free)

it will take a few weeks to confirm trusted products, a bit of extra time reading ingredient panels is definately worth it...

[nerdhume]

I too have discovered that most things I used to eat had soy. At least it made sense of how much sicker I would get when I was sick and had Campbell's soup for a meal. I remember telling my friend I was going to give up, even soup made me sick. After I got the enterlab results and started reading labels it was a 'duh' moment.

[lisaw]

Hey Sport, it is definitely a tough transition to go soy free. I also recently started SF (plus DF/EF, am already GF), and am having difficulty with it. I am ok with it at home, but eat out several times a week, so am having a real problem there. I will ask for my food to be cooked in olive oil, and skip all salad dressings out, except for olive oil/vinegar. Good luck, try not to get too discouraged now, it will get easier day by day.