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Benefits of feeding chickens soy-free feed

written by

Marie Reedell

posted on

August 16, 2019

Soy is a standard ingredient in conventional chicken feed - even for organic chickens.

The reason farmers feed soy to chickens is because it’s cheap. In fact, it’s basically the cheapest form of protein you can feed an animal.


However, if you put chickens in a field of soy, they wouldn’t touch the plants. It’s just not something that would be in their natural diet. 

Humans have to process and cook soy in order for chickens to eat it. 


For commercial chickens, the soy in chicken feed is just the soy fiber. Farmers grow soybeans, and then they’re processed into oil. What’s left is the soy fiber, which is toasted and then mixed in a feed.

For a small farmer, the soy would be roasted and then mixed in feed.

Feeding soy to chickens has negative effects on their health. 


It leads to deficiencies in vital vitamins and minerals like manganese, iron, Vitamin E, zinc, and calcium. And, these deficiencies can lead to health issues like abnormally formed bones, pancreatic atrophy, and susceptibility to diseases.

So, when you eat meat or eggs from chickens that are fed soy, you can imagine that there would be implications for your nutrition, too.


Since the animals are not the healthiest, the meat and eggs are not as nutrient dense.

And then there’s phytoestrogens. The levels of phytoestrogens in soy are significantly higher than any other food and do carry into the meat and eggs. High phytoestrogens cause health issues in humans like hypothyroidism and various types of cancer.

And, to make things worse, growing soy is bad for the environment.


First off, so much forest has been cleared to grow cheap soy. 

Second, about 85% of soy grown is GMO, which means that the fields are sprayed with toxic pesticides and herbicides. This disrupts our fragile ecosystem in so many ways - from water contamination to displacing native plants, bugs, and animals. 

So, what should we do? Let’s remove the soy from feed!


A soy-free feed replaces cheap soy protein with flax and fishmeal. Our feeds contain a specially formulated blend of corn, peas, wheat, flax meal, fish meal, crab meal, alfalfa meal, seashell flour, and a nutri-balancer which has kelp, probiotics, vitamins, and minerals.

All of our chickens for meat are fed a soy-free feed. The farmer offers both regular eggs and soy-free eggs so customers can have access to more affordable eggs that are a step up from commercial options.

After reading this, what would you do? Would you spend a bit more to have soy-free chicken and eggs?

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Over the past few months a bunch of people asked us if we tested our bone broth for toxic heavy metals. When we get the same question a lot, we of course look into it. My first question was --- Is there an issue with toxic metals in bone broth? As it turns out, yes, there "can" be an issue! Heavy metals are naturally present in our environment. We need the "good" heavy metals to thrive: iron, zinc, magnesium, copper, etc. But, we can 100% do without the toxic heavy metals: arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, etc. Too many toxic heavy metals can lead to a host of pretty awful issues: nervous system damage, cardiovascular issues, cancer, endocrine disruption, kidney damage, and so on. Our body is designed to excrete heavy metals through urine (and a little bit through sweat, hair, and breastmilk too)... but only so much. There's a limit. If you're overloaded, your body will store those heavy metals in your bones, blood, tissues, and organs. 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It's titled "The Risk of Lead Contamination in Bone Broth Diets". This study found high levels of lead in organic chicken bone broth, which is quite concerning. And, in fact, this one study is still cited in articles written today! Let's dig a little deeper. Let's go farther than the short abstract. Here are the broths tested in the study and their test results for lead:  (9.5 parts per billion): Broth made from tap water plus skin and cartilage(7.01 parts per billion): Broth made from tap water plus bones(2.3 parts per billion): Broth made from tap water plus meat(0.89 parts per billion): Tap water alone cooked for the same amount of time as a control. But, they only used organic chicken from one farm. And, there's zero information about that farm, their practices, the feed, and the broth recipe. Did they use vinegar or wine in the broth? Was the chicken's water contaminated with lead? What was the quality of the feed and the soil? Were the chickens raised indoors or outdoors? 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For some reference, the EPA says that less than 15 ppb of lead is safe in drinking water. Not saying that I agree, but it's a good reference point.  These results are good. It means the broth definitely isn't overloaded with toxic heavy metals. But, it's not good enough!!! We need to test again! We really need to a lower LOQ. We need to know the results with an accuracy of as low as 1 ppb. It looks like the lab we sent the original samples to doesn't have an LOQ that low. So here I am on the hunt for a lab to do it again. As soon as I can, I'll send samples in again and paying for more expensive testing to get the info you deserve. Stay tuned! I hope to have the new results in by the end of April 2025. Do you worry about toxic metals (or other junk) in your food? Where have your fears stemmed from? I'd love to hear from you. You can comment below (no account required) or contact us 😊 ----- Sources The risk of lead contamination in bone broth dietsBone Broth and Lead Toxicity: Should You Be Concerned?Bone Broth and Lead Contamination: A Very Flawed Study in Medical HypothesesBone Broth, Collagen, and Toxic Metals: A Research Review