The message
from Martin Brown contains these words:

Janet Galpin wrote:

I've grown a very small quantity of soy beans as part of an HDRA trial.
I gather though that some doubt has been cast on their healthiness when
eaten as beans (soaked, rapidly boiled etc) , as opposed to being
processed into tofu etc.

They are common boiled salted as a bar snack in Japan. If they were
seriously dangerous the Japanese would not live so long.

Soya does contain various contraceptive hormone mimics that totally
annihilate rodents but do not appear to do much if any harm to humans.
And may even be beneficial for women. Soya is widely used as a food
additive in processed foods. You will eat plenty of it without knowing.

It is astonishing that soya is safe to eat given the potency of the
chemicals involved. Japanese eat lots of soya, cooked and fermented and
suffer no obvious ill effects. OTOH cows milk is toxic to many Japanese.

I would eat them. But then I would also eat highly fermented nattou.
They are a bit of an acquired taste. Somewhat slimy with protein. Try:

http://www.vegsoc.org/info/soya.html

And references therein.

Thanks for this reassurance. A useful site too.
Janet G