About Beyond Soy

We are two 20-something's (Ashley and Tom) who are trying to navigate a soy-free life. Our soy-free life isn't just a health kick; it's a necessity.

Tom & Ashley

Who We Are

For several years Ashley struggled with chronic pain. After years of trying different medicines and visiting doctors we decided to check for food allergies or intolerances. To our surprise, we discovered Ashley was soy intolerant. We scoured the Internet for resources, information, and tips and tricks for living with a soy intolerance and, unfortunately, we couldn’t find very much. Any information about being soy-free was scattered and difficult to compile.

Beyond Soy is meant to be what we couldn't find; a resource to provide a comprehensive look at living with a soy intolerance. We'll tell you the things we've learned along the way and aim to help you to live a soy-free life without adding unnecessary burdens.

We are normal people: we shop at the normal grocery store and we don't make everything from scratch. While health is the driving factor for our soy-free lifestyle, convenience is also important to us. Much of the soy-free information that we did find during our research seemed way too hard to follow. There were plenty of suggestions for home-made everything, but we felt overwhelmed. Instead of spending all day grinding flour to bake our own bread, we wanted to just buy soy-free bread.

We’ll tell you our tips and tricks and what we’ve learned in trying to life with a soy intolerance. Thanks for stopping by and talk to you soon!

What Is Beyond Soy

Recently we've had several people ask why Beyond Soy doesn’t provide lists of soy-free products or lists of products that are known to contain soy. Many allergen-based websites contain these lists (some are incredibly comprehensive) and we wanted to explain why they won’t be found on Beyond Soy.

Lists of products, especially products that you should avoid because they contain soy, tend to be very negative. These sorts of lists provide a negative view of living with a food intolerance, allergy, or sensitivity. Even if they focus on what you can eat (the soy-free products), they still limit the options you have: when the list runs out, so do the soy-free foods you can eat. This negative or limited tilt toward food intolerances is unhelpful. Eating without soy doesn’t mean focusing on soy. And instead of a list of acceptable foods, we prefer to share tips and practices for eating without soy.

We don't believe in focusing on the negatives - image via pixabay

We don't believe in focusing on the negatives - image via pixabay

In addition to the negative features of a list, food products change over time. As ingredients change, products can become soy-free or can start to include soy. As a result, lists tend to go out of date. When this happens, the list starts providing incorrect information! This is especially bad if a product that is listed as soy-free now contains soy, and it can be unnecessary limiting if a now soy-free product is avoided because it happens to be on an old “contains soy” list.

Instead of making lists, Beyond Soy teaches people to find soy-free food on their own. We offer tips, tricks, and strategies for people to live a full life with a soy intolerance, allergy, or sensitivity. We provide some examples of soy-free foods that we find, and at the same time we encourage people to find food that they love to eat that is also soy-free. We also teach them to find or create solutions to food problems they encounter. This way, living with a food requirement isn’t restrictive or negative but instead it is merely a challenge to overcome, one of many along life’s path.

So, go out, explore, experiment, eat soy-free, and live well!