One of the important components of the whole food plant-based (WFPB) nutrition that METI is promoting for the control and reversal of non-communicable diseases (NCD) like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and cancer are legumes. This includes beans, peas or lentils – which are small peas. 

When one reads about the ‘longevity’ diets of the people living in the ‘Blue Zones’, one of the common findings is that they eat legumes practically every day: it is a must in order to live a long life. Unfortunately, in Samoa not many legumes are grown. We grow the ‘long beans’, which could be harvested after the pods have dried, but usually, people consume them in their immature state as vegetables. 

Therefore, at present, when you want to eat legumes, you have to buy imported products. In one of its projects, METI is introducing farmers to grow soya beans. We were fortunate that the Chinese project at Nuu was generous enough to give us such seeds to plant. We did experiment with growing soya beans in an earlier village project, a few years ago and the participating farmers were quite happy to incorporate the beans in their vegetable soups. 

Soya beans are a versatile crop: you can –just like with long beans- pick the immature pods and extract the immature seeds that are called ‘edamame’, which are delicious and high priced overseas. The mature beans, as we mentioned, can be used in soups or – and this is where it becomes interesting – can be manufactured into soy products, such as tofu (the unfermented type) and natto (the fermented type). 

Many Samoans nowadays are familiar with tofu and METI has in fact included tofu recipes in its Plant-Based Cook Book. Unfortunately, because of misinformation on the Internet, we receive calls from concerned patients that ‘soy products promote breast cancer…’. And this concern is based on the fact that soy products contain phytochemicals called isoflavones, which is a class of phytoestrogens. And since estrogens do promote breast cancer, it is natural to assume that phytoestrogens might too. 

Luckily, this puzzle has now been solved. It so happens that there are two different types of estrogen receptors in the body, alpha and beta. Whereas estrogen latches on to the alpha receptor, soy phytoestrogens preferentially bind to and activate the beta receptor! It was discovered more than 10 years ago the two types of receptors in fact often function in opposite ways. 

As mentioned: estrogens can promote breast cancer growth, whereas phytoestrogens inhibit the growth-promoting effects of actual estrogen. In other words, eating tofu or other soya bean by-products protect against breast cancer: even after eating a few servings of soy products. It is interesting to note that Asian women have one of the lowest incidences of breast cancer. And it is no wonder since they regularly consume soy products: just a few servings of soy a day, with the excess beta activation, would actively help prevent breast cancer.

Interestingly, when these same women went to the United States and started eating and living like Americans, their breast cancer risk shot right up. One could not have better evidence that it is the food we eat that protects us from cancer. Soy products not only protect against breast cancer but also protect women once they have contracted the cancer. 

In a 2009 scientific article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, it was suggested that soy food consumption was significantly associated with decreased risk of death and [breast cancer] recurrence. That study and others that came to the same results have moved the American Cancer Society to conclude that soy foods should be beneficial. 

Pooling all of the results, soy food intake after breast cancer diagnosis was associated with both reduced mortality and reduced recurrence— that is, a longer lifespan and less likelihood that the cancer comes back. This improved survival was observed for both younger women and older women. 

We invite you to visit METI’s Healthy Living Clinic at House No. 51 at Motootua (across from the Kokobanana Restaurant) to become acquainted with METI’s whole food plant-based diet and Lifestyle Change programs. Or call us at 30550. Learning how to follow these Programs might be your ‘game changer’!