Not to mention the amount of water required for operations like this
Or the amount of rainforest that was burned down to produce soy to feed to those.
It’s just irresponsible to accept meat as a default food option.
Even if you don’t go vegan completely no-one should have it more than once a week. Slowly cutting back now makes it way less expensive and also easier once the regulations happen - and it also shows the politicians that they have people behind them for regulations like that, too
hardly any soy goes to cattle at all
While technically true, more than ¾ of it goes to animal agriculture.
the owid article shows exactly what I said.
Abbott 85% of the global soy crop is pressed for oil for human use: livestock are mostly fed the industrial waste from that process
Brazil sells soy mostly to feed pigs and chickens in China
pigs and chickens are mostly fed soy cake: the industrial waste from making soybean oil
Going to copy my comment from above:
Soybean meal is not a byproduct of soybean production either. It’s the main source of revenue
When we look at the most common extraction method for soybean oil (using hexane solvents), soybean meal is still the driver of demand
However, soybean meal is the main driving force for soybean oil production due to its significant amount of productivity and revenues
[…]
soybean meal and hulls contribute to over 60% of total revenues, with meal taking the largest portion of over 59% of total revenue
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0926669017305010
This is even more true of other methods like expelling which is still somewhat commonly used
Moreover, soybean meal is the driving force for the whole process [expelling oil from soy] because it provides over 70% of the total revenue for soy processing by expelling
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/5/87
Even other extraction methods being explored in research as well don’t have soybean oil as the main driver of demand
From the results, soybean oil makes up around 24% of total revenues; revenue from insoluble fiber makes over 70%, due to the large amounts produced throughout the process. [of Enzyme-Assisted Aqueous Extraction]
Soybean meal is not a byproduct of soybean production either. It’s the main source of revenue
these aren’t mutually exclusive
it’s the bulk of the weight of the bean, but it isn’t the reason it’s grown
Hexane extraction is the most common method used in the industry to produce soybean oil due to its high oil recovery and lower production cost. With the demands of soybean oil increasing either in food or industrial applications, expansion plans are considered by many companies to increase production capacity.
I can’t believe how dishonestly you are trying to cherrypick those papers
More than three-quarters (77%) of soy is used as feed for livestock.
https://ourworldindata.org/soy#more-than-three-quarters-of-global-soy-is-fed-to-animals
Soybean meal is not a byproduct of soybean production either. It’s the main source of revenue
When we look at the most common extraction method for soybean oil (using hexane solvents), soybean meal is still the driver of demand
However, soybean meal is the main driving force for soybean oil production due to its significant amount of productivity and revenues
[…]
soybean meal and hulls contribute to over 60% of total revenues, with meal taking the largest portion of over 59% of total revenue
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0926669017305010
This is even more true of other methods like expelling which is still somewhat commonly used
Moreover, soybean meal is the driving force for the whole process [expelling oil from soy] because it provides over 70% of the total revenue for soy processing by expelling
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/5/87
Even other extraction methods being explored in research as well don’t have soybean oil as the main driver of demand
From the results, soybean oil makes up around 24% of total revenues; revenue from insoluble fiber makes over 70%, due to the large amounts produced throughout the process. [of Enzyme-Assisted Aqueous Extraction]
it is the bulk of the weight of the bean, but that isn’t the reason it’s grown
Soybean meal is not a byproduct of soybean production either. It’s the main source of revenue
these aren’t mutually exclusive
In the context of production, a by-product is the "output from a joint production process that is minor in quantity and/or net realizable value (NRV) when compared with the main products".[2]
soy oil punches way above it’s weight in value.
Hexane extraction is the most common method used in the industry to produce soybean oil due to its high oil recovery and lower production cost. With the demands of soybean oil increasing either in food or industrial applications, expansion plans are considered by many companies to increase production capacity.
I can’t believe how dishonestly you are trying to cherrypick those papers
That’s much more cherrypicked quote ignoring the “however” part about how soybean meal being the main driver of production
It’s quite a thing to claim someone else is cherrypicing and ignore critical context. I don’t see much point in continuing this discussion if that’s how things are going to go
I pulled that straight out of the abstract
This was such a thorough article. Really good reporting.
Smaller, more focused publications tend to have higher reporting standards is what I’ve noticed.
The cows are bad it seems, but it’s glossing over natural gas companies not maintaining their infrastructure of leaky pipes. They are both larger emission producers, and completely unnecessary and unjustifiable.
Edit: It’s hard to feel that the environmental debate has been hijacked. Even when an article lists 2 higher sources of methane production with corporate leakage in gas pipes, the focus is solely on beef. Is this industrial astroturfing, or vegans that have their own skin in the game so to speak and this isn’t about the environment. The environment is a complex topic that requires multifaceted solutions to solving different contributory factors, yet it’s been condensed down to this weird meat eating witch hunt.
Not all greenhouse gas production is equal nor should it be treated equally. If we eliminate the personal automobile from being needed to commute to work, literally nothing else about society needs to change and we are at pre-ww2 emissions.
Yeah like take methane which is 20 times worse than carbon as a greenhouse gas, but we don’t talk about that because not enough people want to stop eating meat - which accounts for more emissions than all types of transport combined
We have to both tackle fossil fuels and meat production if we want to hit climate goals
To have any hope of meeting the central goal of the Paris Agreement, which is to limit global warming to 2°C or less, our carbon emissions must be reduced considerably, including those coming from agriculture. Clark et al. show that even if fossil fuel emissions were eliminated immediately, emissions from the global food system alone would make it impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C and difficult even to realize the 2°C target. Thus, major changes in how food is produced are needed if we want to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
(emphasis mine)
