Miso is another form of fermented soybean, it is a thick paste-like substance that is brownish in color and tastes very salty and tangy. Miso is one of my favorites and I enjoy miso soup quite regularly. Miso is high in protein and very rich in minerals and vitamins and the darker the paste is in color the stronger the taste will be. Miso is made by the fermentation of soybeans and aspergillus oryzae and the most common varieties are made with soy, although miso can also be made also with rice or barley.

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Miso is readily available from many health-food shops and will keep for months in your refrigerator if stored well. Miso is very different from tempeh or natto in that there are literally countless varieties available. The colors range from almost white to black, and the flavors have been described as sweet, salty, fruity, earthy and savory.
Miso contains many different flavonoids and isoflavones, including daidzein, genistein, malonylgenistin and malonyldaidzin which are seen as bad for our health, yet many who condemn soy actually promote miso, a little strange?

In my opinion, miso is one of the best of the fermented foods for the candida patient. Microorganisms such as aspergillus that are used in the fermentation process help to pre-digest miso, which in turn allows your digestive system to easily digest and absorb the nutrition from this super nutritious food. Many forms of miso actually contain copious quantities of beneficial bacteria themselves, including various species of lactobacillus. Miso is one of the best of the fermented foods to consume daily because it powerfully supports digestive health, tastes great and is easy to obtain. Miso has many other health benefits, too numerous to mention, including cardiovascular and immune boosting properties.

Miso in theKitchen

Just like tempeh, there are many ways you can enjoy miso. Here are a few quick sug­gestions on ways how you can incorporate this delicious fermented soybean paste into your diet.

• Miso soup is very quick and easy to prepare, just warm some water to which you have added miso paste and add a few shiitake mushrooms, some organic tofu, carrots, and a little daikon radish.

• Make a salad dressing by mixing a little miso paste with fresh garlic, sesame or olive oil, fresh ginger and a few drops of lime juice.

• Enjoy a hot miso soup drink instead of a coffee or cup of tea.

• Try a miso sandwich, just spread a little miso paste onto a piece of sourdough bread and add avocado or tahini.

• Use miso as a marinade along with an oil of choice and some fresh garlic, you can use this marinade with chicken, fish or meats of many different kinds.

You’ll love miso, especially once you learn a few ways to prepare it.

I can still remember when I first experienced tempeh, I was in my twenties and tried a tempeh burger at a vegetarian restaurant and was blown away by the unique flavour. Have you ever tried tempeh? It is made from soaked and then partially cooked soy beans to which a fermentation starter containing spores of the fungus Rhizopus oligosporus have been added.

This mixture is then spread out in a thin layer and allowed to ferment for a day or so and temperatures of around 30°C (86°F). In the best tempeh of the highest quality, you will find that the beans are knitted together by a fine white mat of the fungus.

Lower temperatures may result in a darker tempeh that does not affect the quality or the taste. Tempeh originated in Indonesia, and they consider it a good food once it has fermented for several days. The best ways to describe the taste of tempeh is meaty, nutty and complex. I eat tempeh regularly and sometimes find that it tastes just like hamburger meat. This is the closest thing to meat you can get in a vegetarian sense, and if you are a devout meat eater and want to move away from animal proteins than tempeh is for you. Over the years I have seen several vegetarians who gave up eating meat entirely only after discovering tempeh.

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Tempeh is an unusual food that is non-meat yet high in protein and beneficial bacteria that can even produce vitamin B12. During the fermentation process, the phytic acid content of soy is reduced which allows your body to readily absorb more minerals. The rhizopus fungal culture helps to break the carbohydrate content down, especially the oligosaccharides that are associated with the production of bloating and gas and can even produce indigestion. I’ve noticed that those who eat tempeh once or twice a week appear to have a better digestive and bowel function than those who don’t. Can you imagine for one minute if you ate tempeh regularly, as well as kefir, sauerkraut and yogurt? Your yeast infection would find it very hard to exist indeed in such a healthy digestive environment.

Tempeh in the Kitchen

What do you do with tempeh, how do you cook with it? Treat tempeh like you would a piece of chicken or beef steak, you can fry it, roast it, cut it into pieces and stir-fry it, tenderize it a little, cook it and then make a burger with it along with all your regular favorite toppings of lettuce, grated beetroot and carrot, tomato, etc. You can use tempeh in soups, stews, casseroles, salads, and sandwiches or just cook it and eat it alone. You can use it in tacos and burritos, in chili, or any one of a thousand other ways. It freezes well and you can buy it from your local health-food store either fresh or frozen. The uses of tempeh are only limited by your imagination, but just think of it as a kind of meat and then you will probably have several idea of what to do with tempeh until you get used to this most versatile, delicious and nutritious food.

Personally, I have been eating soy products for over 30 years, have four children and can assure you, my testicles have not shrunk, I have not developed breasts, nor am I homosexual and my brain has certainly not been wrecked. Eating soy is a personal choice, and it is up to you to decide if soy products are right for you. Before you condemn soy, I’d like you to become a lot more informed and to read for and against arguments.

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Don’t just automatically assume that eating soy will make you sick or increase your risk of cancer. You were probably using a mobile phone yesterday, and that is going to be potentially more of a health risk than many foods you will ever eat, and no doubt as phone charges drop over time you will be using it more prolonged, increasing your risk even further. Everything in life carries a risk, but believe me on this one – the fear of living and of eating specific foods because of what the may potentially do to your health will be found to be considerably more damaging to your health than the very food itself.

Every time you drive your car the risk of serious injury and death is always a possibility. And then you say: “No soy for me, it may harm my health”. I’ve long worked out that there are as many nutritional fanatics as there are religious and medical ones, and some will defend their view almost to the point of death it seems. Maybe you would consider my own personal balanced approach, take the middle path and include in your diet a wide variety of foods I have outlined in this chapter, including vegetables, meats, eggs, chicken, fish, alkaline grains, nuts and seeds, soy products, sea vegetables as well as the fermented and cultured foods.

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How can you go wrong with this approach?

Soy has been trashed in the media for some time now, and I believe one of the prime reasons why this talk originally started is because soya milk sales compete head on with cow’s milk sales. There was a huge interest in commercial soya milk in the eighties and especially the nineties, just about the time when all the evidence came out about how soy could poison you, cause various cancers, shrink your brain and even turn your son into a homosexual by shrinking his gonads. But, notice how there was never any mention of the bad effects of any of the fermented products, just soya milk? That’s because the fermented soy products don’t compete in the market place with any other foods. Soy sales in the 1980’s in USA were 300 million dollars annually, and in 2008 they were 4.2 billion, money that is not being spent buying dairy or other competitive foods. Smear campaigns and dirty marketing work well, they helped margarine sales kill butter sales in the 50’s and 60’s, and many have woken up to this myth only recently.

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I wonder whether the biased soy studies have been funded by the National Meat Institute or the National Dairy Board, the soy research I have seen appears to be a bit like university research being funded by pharmaceutical interests. Most soy studies look at rat or mice studies for a few weeks or a month or two duration, and not actual human research of populations who have been consuming soy for over two thousand years.

The people with the longest lifespan on earth currently happen to live in Okinawa, Japan, and they consume an average of 60 to 120 grams of soy protein daily. Okinawans have up to 80 percent less cancer and heart disease than Westerners. Chinese people eat on average 30 – 50 grams of soy protein daily, and both in Japan and China, where the highest soy consumption appears to be have no fertility issues. (Wilcox et al, 2004) I think I’d rather believe a living and breathing human model when it comes to studies, and not some biased rat or mouse study, these are flawed studies based on an entirely different species with a vested interest.

Soy is bad for my thyroid you will have been told. In Asian countries where soy consumption is between 50 to 100 times higher than in the Western world, there is certainly no high occurrence of hypothyroidism, and a big reason why is because these enlightened people eat seaweed, naturally high in iodine. Women living in the Western world eat no sea vegetables and have a forty percent chance of hypothyroidism. They eat foods depleted in essential minerals and a high-stress lifestyle, they are often lacking in the thyroid essential minerals such as zinc, iodine, selenium, manganese and more. The bottom line is, if you eat soy products then be sure to also include some sea vegetables in your diet, because research has uncovered that those who do eat soy regularly eat sea vegetables as well, interesting stuff but common sense, and it just goes to show that you need to take things in context.

Based on looking at both sides of the argument for several years, I do believe that the majority of adults can enjoy the taste and nutritional benefits of a wide variety of soy based foods, including tofu, tempeh, soy sauce and natto without placing their health at risk. I’m not talking about foods containing concentrated soy isolates or GM soy products, but whole organic and natural soy foods; the way nature intended them to be and the way they have been consumed traditionally for thousands of years. There certainly is sufficient evidence when it comes to infants and soy-isolate concentrated foods, but the same applies to giving infants whey-concentrated foods when they are only a few months of age as well.

Breast-feed is always the best-feed and anything else is second best, regardless whether it is soy, cow or goat’s milk, and goat’s milk being probably the best out of the three in my experience.

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There is also sufficient evidence to suggest that soy may be a major issue for those with liver disease, major autoimmune dysfunction and intestinal inflammatory conditions such as Crohn’s disease or colitis. But there is also ample evidence to suggest that cow’s milk and many other such contentious foods are equally suspect in these individuals. I recommend that you consult with your health-care professional if you can relate to one of these conditions and want to make dietary changes.

Before I get started explaining more about this group, there is one myth I’d like to discuss. Is soy good or bad, should I avoid soy entirely because many websites tell me so? NO, you don’t have to avoid soy. Before you decide that soy is a poison like many today claim it to be, I’d like you to do your own research and read the “for and against” arguments. I’ve never been a fan of soya milk; I just don’t like the taste, but do enjoy organic tofu and the fermented soy products, namely tempeh and miso.

I find it most interesting that just about everybody who attacks soy does not seem to have a problem with the fermented soy products, even though they contain significant amount of soy isoflavones just like soy milk and tofu. Think about it logically for one moment, how can soy ferments be 100 percent devoid of isoflavones, genestein or in fact any other component that is present in soya milk or tofu?

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I just love African Grey parrots, they are highly intelligent birds and many are good talkers. These clever birds listen with great care and then copy you word for word, verbatim, without even thinking about what you have just said. The next time they see somebody, they will repeat what they heard you say, and after a while, even the person who hears the parrot speak will repeat what the parrot said to somebody else.

Many people I know are just are like parrots, they just keep on repeating what they have heard from others, word for word, without even thinking or researching for themselves if what they have been told makes any real sense. Some health-care professionals are guilty of this, and many tell their patients to avoid soy because of these kinds of reasons they have been told:

• Soy can decrease immune function

• Tofu will damage brain function

• Soy causes homosexuality

• Soy causes cancer

• High soy diet during pregnancy can cause birth defects and developmental delays

• Soy is an allergen

• Soy supplements can’t help menopause

• Soy causes kidney problems, including stones

• Soy baby formula causes behavioral issues

If you hear these rumors, stop and think twice. Are they factually based or just parroted phrases?