I remember many different types of people into alternative health being very sober in warning me about "night shades" ( vegetables that grew underground, or under the shade of leaves and vines ), particularly tomatoes as they were "poisonous".
I can't tell anyone how many millions of pounds of "night shades" I have eaten since my teen years or how many millions of gallons of tomato sauce based foods I've had. Not to mention how much billions of people over the centuries have had.
I see soy beans as "the modern nightshade". People who like to tell stories, love to give sober warnings about eating soy beans. Even aside from protein, soy beans are an extremely cheap source of many nutrients, including calcium,iron and essential fatty acids. Soy beans also make very nice faux meat and faux dairy substitutes.
In other words they threaten one of the most well monied industries aside from oil. Given that, I don't expect to ever see an end to the anti-soy hysteria in my lifetime.
However, I found this interesting article which debunks a lot of common myths about eating soy beans that is currently making the "night shade circuit" on the internet.
Jack Norris R.D. ( Registered Dietitian ) wrote a response to the 2010 December 09 article written by Kristin Wartman of the “Civil Eats” blog entitled “Not Soy Fast”. Kristin Wartman’s blog site gives this introduction about her:
That kind of weak set of credentials I've seen often with articles making *extreme* anti-soy claims.Kristin is a food writer living in Brooklyn. She has a Masters in Literature from UC Santa Cruz and is a Certified Nutrition Educator. She is interested in the intersections of food, health, politics, and culture.
Jack Norris reviewed 130 papers over the course of 3 months in preparing his response to Wartman’s article. The editors of the “Civil Eats” blog decided not to publish it, but you can read that response here