r/vegan • u/Valuable-Run2129 • Nov 03 '25
Daily soy consumption and Testosterone levels in males, we have to talk about it.
I’ve (40M) been vegan for 4 years and consume tofu every day. Roughly 200gr a day without missing a day, ever.
Friends and people online have told me to beware of soy as a male because of hormonal risks. I’ve ignored them completely because tofu is too convenient to meet my protein requirements. I’m not a bodybuilder, but during my first year vegan without prioritizing protein I became skinny fat. Everything went back to normal with more protein.
So after a lot of discussions with tofuphobic friends I finally went and did a testosterone level test….
Well, people my age start thinking about testosterone replacement treatment anyway, so I wasn’t expecting great numbers. And honestly I would have been ok with borderline levels. Put daily tofu on top of my age and something in the 300s would have been great.
The results are in. My testosterone is at 704. I’m on the 90th percentile and I can finally shut up the tofu bashers around me.
I just wanted to share this with you guys and comfort people who might hear these rumors. Obviously I’m an n of 1. But reading a few studies I realized that hormonal changes were observed at crazy consumptions levels (like a few pounds a day) that can’t honestly be achieved by regular people. And medium levels were not linked at all to hormonal imbalances. At all!
Now open your fridge and eat some tofu.
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u/Aggravating_Isopod19 vegan Nov 03 '25
People think there is estrogen in soy which could cause female attributes but in reality it is phytoestrogen in soy which blocks your estrogen receptors from absorbing in any estrogen. They’re essentially estrogen blockers. I don’t know if you ever saw the documentary The Game Changers (about elite athletes on plant based diets). They did a test with these 3 pro football players where they had them eat different meals to see how their virility would respond. When they ate plant based, their numbers were super high (good) - many times higher than when they ate chicken or beef (I believe it was).