Nothing beats mama’s breastmilk! What about the traditional use of soy in infant feeding?

Nothing beats mama’s breastmilk!
What about the traditional use of soy in infant feeding?
Source: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2000/01/09/truth-about-soy.aspx


Ever heard the industry line that 'soy formulas must be safe because Asian infants have been eating soy for centuries'? Just another piece of false advertising, a little like the claims that 'soy formulas are better than breast milk' that many parents that have fed soy formulas testify to. And to set the record straight, soy was seldom used in infant feeding in Asia.
Ernest Tso is credited with the development of the first soymilk diet that was able to sustain an infant for the first eight months of life. Writing in the Chinese Journal of Physiology in 1928, Tso noted that soybean milk is a native food used in certain parts of the country as a morning beverage but it is little used as part of the diet for children. Its nutritive properties as a food for young infants are practically unknown.
Eight years later, Tso's comments were still valid. Writing in the 1930's, Dr RA Guy of the Department of Public Health of the Peiping Union Medical College found it 'pertinent to note that we have never found soybean milk naturally used by Peiping women to feed their children. This beverage is not made in the home in Peiping, but is sold by street vendors, as a hot, very weak solution of soybean protein and is usually drunk by old people in place of tea. The milk, as reinforced for the feeding of young infants, is rather tedious and difficult to prepare. As dispensed recently by the various health stations, it is in demand, but is just as artificial in this community as cow's milk' (Guy RA. Chinese Med J. 1936; 50:434-442).
In a later publication, Guy reported on the use of soybean milk as a food for infants. The whole purpose of this report was to comment on the possible use of soymilk to address the problem of feeding those infants without sufficient maternal milk in a country where cow's milk was not native. He again noted that although a weak soy milk or 'tofu chiang' was 'sold hot in Peking by street vendors and was taken by old people in place of tea', that 'contrary to Western notions' it was not usual to feed soy milk to infants (Guy RA and Yeh KS. Chinese Med J. 1938; 54:1-30).
It seems those same Western notions that made Asians out to be greater soy consumers than they were are still prevalent. Why is that? Asia is a huge market for the soy industry and the soy industry efforts to convince Asians that their ancestors ate much more soy than they actually did are purely profit driven. We view the attempts of the soy industry to re-write the history books with the contempt it deserves.


COMMENTS: God made soy beans without the intention to replace mother's breastmilk. Each has its own place and time of use. No conflict and no usurpation! No interchange either, I'm sure.