Dear lemmy, someone very close to my heart is starting to fall into conspiracy theories. It’s heartbreaking. Among other things, he has now told me that soy beans are not supposed to be consumed by human beings and is convinced that despite the literal centuries of human soy bean cultivation and consumption, we shouldn’t eat it or anything derived from it for this reason (ie tofu, soy sauce, etc…evidence that soy is present in other common foods doesn’t seem to register with him).
I don’t even know where he got this information from and can’t find a single source to back it up (even disingenuously). I’ve tried explaining to him that sure, in its original state it’s not edible, but undergoes processing (LIKE MANY OTHER FOODS) to become edible. And that this has gone on since at least the 11th century, so it’s not like Big Soy is trying to poison the little people.
He’s normally a very reasonable and intelligent person, and I don’t know how to reach him. I thought it might be helpful to show him where these myths have come from with hard data sources to prove it. He seems open to the possibility, so I don’t think he’s a lost cause yet!
Help?
A fair amount is just racism.
How do you mean? I eat soy products and I’ve never had anyone mention race as a reason for avoiding soy products.
People from east and southeast Asia have been cultivating and eating soy beans as a staple food since before Babylon. I mean that literally; there is evidence of soy bean cultivation in what is now China from like 7000 BC.
It’s tough to take a phrase like, “Soy makes men weak,” as anything other than racism when it puts down a quarter of the population of the planet. At best, it’s ignorance, but in my experience the people who hold this opinion don’t change their mind when you explain this to them.
Some people are clever enough to try and say that they don’t hate Asian people, but they’ll stigmatize everything about being Asian. Soy products are associated with Asian people, so as a workaround, they can walk right up to the racism line, without jumping completely over it. It’s subtle racism.
deleted by creator
Lol
Yeah hating on soy beans is literally fascism. And probably transphobic as well somehow.
I don’t get you guys anymore. I feel you are so disconnected in your far leftist bubble. Most people just shake their heads and you wonder why the far right is on the rise.
And I literally just bought a big bag of soy…
Nobody makes someone alt-right except themselves.
Ok so Europe’s far right is on the rise because everyone suddenly became a hardcore Nazi. It does not have to do with illegal mass immigration leading to enormous socioeconomic problems and the left and center parties ignoring this for decades because they are afraid being immediately labeled nazi
Speaking from Germany, where are those enormous socioeconomic problems created by illegal mass immigration?
Right there with the decades in which the left and center ignored this problem. Damm CDU and its woke agenda.
Hmmm, does it really make sense to say “and you wonder why the far right is on the rise” in this here position?
Of course, I wonder every single day, especially since it has affected me on a personal level as an immigrant, but do you really think the ‘wacky far left’ s behind the far right rising? Lots of leftists took it too far recently, but is that an excuse to start literal fascism? Is a normal healthy person’s response to ‘PC gone mad’ to create six alternative media websites and spout lie upon lie about immigrants then proceed to dehumanize asylum seekers? Is it an excuse for misreading statistics? Is the normal response to go to cesspools far right forums where black people are consistently called “apes” and the n word?
Hi (Waving from left bubble) !
I agree. I don’t think anyone is thinking that hard about the “Asian” roots of soybeans. And people on the left are just as hung up on their identity politics as people on the right.
There is a strong association between Tofu with hippy culture, even though there really isn’t such a thing anymore. I guess if you don’t want heart disease by the time you’re 40, you must be a hippy.