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Something like 75% of all non-meat food grown in the US is fed to animals for later eating. When you complain about soy destroying forests, you are complaining

by moosey 8y ago

Something like 75% of all non-meat food grown in the US is fed to animals for later eating. When you complain about soy destroying forests, you are complaining about meat consumption: > Just over 70 percent of the soybeans grown in the United States are used for animal feed, with poultry being the number one livestock sector consuming soybeans, followed by hogs, dairy, beef and aquaculture. The second largest market for U.S. soybeans is for production of foods for human consumption, like salad oil or frying oil, which uses about 15 percent of U.S. soybeans. A distant third market for soybeans is biodiesel, using only about 5 percent of the U.S. soybean crop. In 2013, soybean exports reached record highs, exporting 43 million metric tons to overseas markets. China remains the largest export market for U.S. soybeans. https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexistence-soybeans-factsheet.pdf https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten... You'll find this same thing over and over again when discussing clearing land for crop growth. The vast majority of it is to support meat production. Going vegan is probably the number one thing you can do to fight climate change and pollution in general, as an individual. Especially since switching would eliminate vast amounts of farming, and the associated chemicals and water loss. edit: and deforestation. It is not a small thing, not at all, and to diminish it is to deny the massive sea of change that is required to actually fight climate change with 7B people on the planet. Sure, there is a lot of cultural blowback against veganism, but I think it is manufactured via marketing, just like the anemic belief in climate change in the United States.

akiselev 8y ago
It's unfortunate that more people don't internalize this fact. One of the first things you learn in middle/high school ecology is that 90% of available energy is lost between each step in the food chain. Producers can only convert about 10% of the sun's energy to useful electrons in photosynthesis, herbivores only get 10% of the energy it takes to grow their food, and carnivores only get 10% of the energy herbivores take in. Some factors like the decreased non-predatory death improve those numbers for industrial agriculture but not by much. In US agriculture, we have some estimates for the ratio of output calories to the input calories [1] that are astounding. For every 100 kcal of feed stock, we get ~19 kcal back from chicken, ~7 kcal from beef, and a whopping 1 kcal from shrimp. Essentially, every 1000 kcal of beef takes 14,000 kcal of corn/soy/alfa-alfa and 1000 kcal of shrimp takes 100,000 kcal of whatever it is shrimp eat. [1] From the book Diet, Energy, and Global Warming by Eshel and Martin
arghwhat 8y ago
1. You mean "going vegetarian". Going vegan is something entirely different, and entirely unnecessary in this context. 2. Food is being massively overproduced, so a few thousand people boycutting meat is unlikely to even remotely affect the production amount, thus having no difference at all. A much bigger difference would be made by trying to fight food waste. Fight profit-optimization by over-production, go for local sellers rather than supermarkets with absurd over-stocking, etc. 3. You don't need to boycut meat to solve that problem. Just reduce it. From what I've read, the US consumes absurd amounts of meat, which fuels a giant meat production industry. If you cut the average meat consumption in half in the US, the meat industry would no longer be the primary consumer. Meat itself is not to blame for the absurd over-production and over-consumption we see today. It is instead a result of the usual corporate greed, profit optimization, and our total ignorance for the side-effects of our convenience. Vegetarianism is entirely symptomatic treatment, rather than dealing with the root-cause. (For the record, I respect the choice to not eat meat for other reasons, but I am only considering the environmental impact here.)
- moosey 8y ago
  `. I don't mean "going vegetarian". I mean "going vegan". Milk, eggs, and fish have some of the same problems environmentally and ethically. When I say ethically, I don't just mean our responsibility not to bring harm to other species on the planet, although I feel that is important, but also our responsibility to future generations. 2. Yes, food is overproduced. Yes, too much food gets thrown away. However, this is massively dwarfed by the wasted food that we feed in animal lots, by a huge degree. Yes, me and my family going vegan doesn't have a huge impact, but it certainly massively reduces our carbon output, at a time when it just seems to be going up on a person to person basis. Last I checked, the amount that I was personally outputting was around 50% the US average. The only major difference was that I was vegan. 3. To maintain 7B people, most people will have to not eat meat, or eat it so sparingly as to be effectively vegan/vegetarian. Let's present evidence: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/veganism-environmental-impact-planet-reduced-plant-based-diet-humans-study-a8378631.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families... > A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. > It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car. I don't care if you eat meat, but do it with honest realizations as to the cost. In a couple generations the costs will be clear, and our actions today regarding animal food production will be viewed for the atrocity that it is.

by moosey 8y ago

akiselev 8y ago

It's unfortunate that more people don't internalize this fact. One of the first things you learn in middle/high school ecology is that 90% of available energy is lost between each step in the food chain. Producers can only convert about 10% of the sun's energy to useful electrons in photosynthesis, herbivores only get 10% of the energy it takes to grow their food, and carnivores only get 10% of the energy herbivores take in. Some factors like the decreased non-predatory death improve those numbers for industrial agriculture but not by much. In US agriculture, we have some estimates for the ratio of output calories to the input calories [1] that are astounding. For every 100 kcal of feed stock, we get ~19 kcal back from chicken, ~7 kcal from beef, and a whopping 1 kcal from shrimp. Essentially, every 1000 kcal of beef takes 14,000 kcal of corn/soy/alfa-alfa and 1000 kcal of shrimp takes 100,000 kcal of whatever it is shrimp eat. [1] From the book Diet, Energy, and Global Warming by Eshel and Martin

arghwhat 8y ago

1. You mean "going vegetarian". Going vegan is something entirely different, and entirely unnecessary in this context. 2. Food is being massively overproduced, so a few thousand people boycutting meat is unlikely to even remotely affect the production amount, thus having no difference at all. A much bigger difference would be made by trying to fight food waste. Fight profit-optimization by over-production, go for local sellers rather than supermarkets with absurd over-stocking, etc. 3. You don't need to boycut meat to solve that problem. Just reduce it. From what I've read, the US consumes absurd amounts of meat, which fuels a giant meat production industry. If you cut the average meat consumption in half in the US, the meat industry would no longer be the primary consumer. Meat itself is not to blame for the absurd over-production and over-consumption we see today. It is instead a result of the usual corporate greed, profit optimization, and our total ignorance for the side-effects of our convenience. Vegetarianism is entirely symptomatic treatment, rather than dealing with the root-cause. (For the record, I respect the choice to not eat meat for other reasons, but I am only considering the environmental impact here.)

moosey 8y ago
`. I don't mean "going vegetarian". I mean "going vegan". Milk, eggs, and fish have some of the same problems environmentally and ethically. When I say ethically, I don't just mean our responsibility not to bring harm to other species on the planet, although I feel that is important, but also our responsibility to future generations. 2. Yes, food is overproduced. Yes, too much food gets thrown away. However, this is massively dwarfed by the wasted food that we feed in animal lots, by a huge degree. Yes, me and my family going vegan doesn't have a huge impact, but it certainly massively reduces our carbon output, at a time when it just seems to be going up on a person to person basis. Last I checked, the amount that I was personally outputting was around 50% the US average. The only major difference was that I was vegan. 3. To maintain 7B people, most people will have to not eat meat, or eat it so sparingly as to be effectively vegan/vegetarian. Let's present evidence: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/veganism-environmental-impact-planet-reduced-plant-based-diet-humans-study-a8378631.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families... > A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. > It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car. I don't care if you eat meat, but do it with honest realizations as to the cost. In a couple generations the costs will be clear, and our actions today regarding animal food production will be viewed for the atrocity that it is.