We now feed animals a ton of food and water just to then eat them. Don’t you think just feeding ourselves and skipping the middleman is more productive?
This is true on small scale subsistence farms, but it breaks down when scaled up to the amount of meat consumption in typical developed nations.
Look at historical meat consumption for societies built on agriculture (as opposed to, for example Inuit who relied on hunting). You can also look at food consumption by nation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption Affluence and increased meat consumption are strongly correlated. And while veganism may be a luxury, so is high meat consumption. This would imply that modest meat consumption makes best use of these scraps and inedible parts of plants (i.e. efficiency), but that higher levels of meat consumption is wasteful of resources.
This is true on small scale subsistence farms, but it breaks down when scaled up to the amount of meat consumption in typical developed nations
I’m afraid you’re misinformed.
soy cake is a byproduct of soybean oil production. it’s about 90% of the soy we feed to animals globally. that’s one of the biggest ones, but you’ll find this repeated across the industry: corn cobs and corn stalks used in fodder, crop seconds like onions and tomatoes fed to livestock etc.
Or perhaps soybean oil is a byproduct of the animal feed industry. It sure shows up in lot of products, yet people aren’t typically running out to the stores buying bottles labeled as “soybean oil.” I.e. it’s a cheap industrial filler. Most likely, they are co-products that wouldn’t likely exist without each other due to the economics. It should also be noted that soy cake is human-edible, so feeding it to animals represents that inefficiency I was talking about.
Given that less affluent societies consume less meat (on average) compared to more affluent societies, this demonstrates that meat requires more resources to produce. Otherwise this discrepancy would not exist. Developing nations consume more meat as they become more affluent.
We now feed animals a ton of food and water just to then eat them. Don’t you think just feeding ourselves and skipping the middleman is more productive?
Basic high school biology on trophic levels. The “rule of thumb” is that you only retain about 10% of the energy each time you go up a level.
we feed them parts of plants we can’t or don’t want to eat. they help us conserve those resources.
This is true on small scale subsistence farms, but it breaks down when scaled up to the amount of meat consumption in typical developed nations.
Look at historical meat consumption for societies built on agriculture (as opposed to, for example Inuit who relied on hunting). You can also look at food consumption by nation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption Affluence and increased meat consumption are strongly correlated. And while veganism may be a luxury, so is high meat consumption. This would imply that modest meat consumption makes best use of these scraps and inedible parts of plants (i.e. efficiency), but that higher levels of meat consumption is wasteful of resources.
I’m afraid you’re misinformed.
soy cake is a byproduct of soybean oil production. it’s about 90% of the soy we feed to animals globally. that’s one of the biggest ones, but you’ll find this repeated across the industry: corn cobs and corn stalks used in fodder, crop seconds like onions and tomatoes fed to livestock etc.
Or perhaps soybean oil is a byproduct of the animal feed industry. It sure shows up in lot of products, yet people aren’t typically running out to the stores buying bottles labeled as “soybean oil.” I.e. it’s a cheap industrial filler. Most likely, they are co-products that wouldn’t likely exist without each other due to the economics. It should also be noted that soy cake is human-edible, so feeding it to animals represents that inefficiency I was talking about.
Given that less affluent societies consume less meat (on average) compared to more affluent societies, this demonstrates that meat requires more resources to produce. Otherwise this discrepancy would not exist. Developing nations consume more meat as they become more affluent.
and it is eaten by humans, but not in the quantities it is produced due to soy ean oil production.
a soybean is only about 20% oil, but oil makes up almost half the soy beans value
it’s produced in an oil press
soy cake is the byproduct of soybean oil production, and if we didn’t feed it to livestock, it would be industrial waste