[Aerich]

What Stratos said. You don't really have to worry all that much about the various effect of foods, unless you eat large (e.g. unbalanced) amounts of certain things. There is also significant variation from person to person about how much something affects them. For example, using your soybean comment, mineral uptake and thyroid production are affected by many factors, including genetics, diet, age, etc. And food research is a research fad at the moment. Practically everything you eat has had something negative said about it.

Re: tofu - plenty of people eat soybean products with little or no problems.

Milk: it's true - if you stop eating milk products for a while (we're talking months, I think), you do lose the enzymes to digest them.

Unsaturated fat - it is a better fat than saturated fat. It may suppress certain body functions, but I'm not sure which ones. The whole point here is that unsaturated is somewhat more healthy than saturated. Neither of them are an especial problem if you get lots of exercise and DON'T have a genetic predisposition to cholesterol buildup in your arteries.

Now I'm no nutritionist, but I pay attention to this kind of stuff. In general, balanced diets are better - Atkins may have damaging longterm effects. For weight loss and greater overall health, eat more vegetables (raw if possible so the vitamins aren't cooked out), drink more water and less soda, coffee, etc, and cut down on caloric intake - carbohydrates are the easiest target, as most dieters can tell you. Also, paying attention to the type of calories is important - good carbohydrates (starches with nutritive value and fibre) such as whole-grain breads instead of white bread or candy - sugar is empty calories.