Soy-based foods - desserts, yogurts, milk, vegetable steaks, tofu and especially snacks - contain too many isoflavones, plant substances similar to female hormones with potentially harmful effects on health, warns ANSES, which recommends not serving them in mass catering.
The health agency also calls on "agri-food players to review soy production and processing techniques" in order to reduce the isoflavone content of their products, in a notice published Monday, requested by the Ministries of Food and Health.
Isoflavones are phytoestrogens, plant substances similar to female hormones (estrogens) found in legumes, vegetables, and mainly soy.
"They can interfere with physiological hormonal functioning, and therefore lead to adverse effects on the reproductive system," Aymeric Dopter, head of the nutrition risk assessment unit at ANSES, explained to AFP.
"Since soy is the main source of isoflavones, ANSES recommends not serving soy-based foods in mass catering to avoid overconsumption," from nurseries to schools, middle schools, high schools, company restaurants, nursing homes, hospitals and clinics, and therefore for "all age groups."
"It's not about casting aspersions on soy as a food, but rather on the isoflavone levels currently found in soy products," says Dopter. "Until we have soybeans with lower isoflavone levels, we need to ease up on the consumption of these products," he summarizes.
– 100 times more in aperitif biscuits –
Anses first defined for the first time, thanks to available scientific knowledge, toxicological thresholds below which there is virtually no risk to health ("toxicological reference values"): they are 0.02 mg per kg of body weight per day for the general population and 0.01 mg/kg for pregnant women and women of childbearing age as well as prepubescent children.
She then compared these values to the population's dietary exposure levels and found a "risk of exceedance" for consumers of soy-based foods.
These thresholds are thus exceeded by 76% of children aged 3 to 5 years consuming soy foods, 53% of girls aged 11 to 17 years, 47% of men aged 18 years and women aged 18 to 50 years.
Consequently, the Agency advises "diversifying foods of plant origin, knowing that dried vegetables other than soy are significantly less rich in isoflavones."
It is also aimed at food industry manufacturers: although isoflavone levels depend on the soybean variety, growing conditions and the degree of maturity of the plant, it is possible to reduce them by using certain agronomic techniques and manufacturing processes.
Thus, isoflavone levels can vary from one soy dessert to another by a factor of two, and there are 100 times more in soy-based snack biscuits than in soy sauce. Indeed, the latter "are made with toasted soybeans, which concentrate the isoflavones, whereas once boiled, the bean will lose some of them," explains Perrine Nadaud, Mr. Dopter's assistant.
"In the preparation of soy products, whether by washing, soaking, or a whole series of operations, traditional techniques in Asia make it possible to reduce the levels of these isoflavones," she adds, as well as upstream, "the selection of varieties, the location, the degree of maturation of the seed."
ANSES will now share its toxicological reference values with its European counterparts.
His opinion will contribute to the revision of the decree relating to the nutritional quality of meals in school catering – the text in force, dating from 2011, must be updated.
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