One of Asia’s staple food products is a health risk. A commentator for the conservative US site World Net Daily has warned that “a devil food is turning our kids into homosexuals.”:

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t homosexual.” No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can’t remember a time when excess estrogen wasn’t influencing them.

A comment AP has received from a friend in Canada debunks the article:

There are a host of things wrong with this article. The assumption that being gay is bad, and should be curtailed. The anecdotal presentation of unnamed scientific studies as fact (cite them, darn it, and check literature reviews for other research). The assumption that sexual preference is connected to hormones. (If it makes penises smaller, it must make men gay!) The logical contradiction provided in his conclusion, when he says some soy is okay. The avoidance of contrary evidence - if soy is more prevalent now than in the past, and causes gayness, then one would expect population studies to show this. Where is “today’s rise in homosexuality” that he talks about? Television sitcoms? Same-sex legislation?

AP had already disregarded the validity of the article due to the use of “devil food’ in the headline. As we are of Irish ethnicity, we reject the idea that Soy milk is the devil when another beverage can make a claim that is much more solid. And this site will not speculate about what high soy content in a national diet may mean for penis size (commentors can fire away).

That said, Rutz — to his credit– does note that there is no risk from the consumption of soy sauce or other products that contain fermented soy. With that, readers can rest assured that neither natto nor stinky tofu will cause shrinkage or impotence (although the associated bad breath may limit attractiveness)..

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