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Summary: in practice yes, but sneakily not directly, because those areas are first turned into pastures. However, once used up, they are then turned into soy be
by llarsson 6y ago
Summary: in practice yes, but sneakily not directly, because those areas are first turned into pastures. However, once used up, they are then turned into soy bean fields. This also circumvents legislation specific to the rainforest area against deforestation to plant soy beans, because, well, it happened indirectly.
As other comments here also bring up, direct human consumption accounts for about a fifth of all produced soy beans, with only six being in the forms consumers directly probably think of (tofu, edamame, etc.), and the other 14 in the shape of e.g. soy bean oil.
The main driver for all this production (and hence deforestation), however, at a whopping 77%, is to be a source of cheap livestock feed.
This is what the article says. It does not, directly anyway, make any health or environmental claims regarding one diet over another.
Deforestation of the rain forest is bad. We all know this. And because it is only done to meet demands from consumers, what we as consumers can do is demand access to supply chain insight so we can then avoid products that come from this horribly shortsighted process. Regardless of whether said product is a piece of meat, a bottle of oil, or a block of tofu.
- dasyatidprime 6y agoI assume you mean 6% and 14% to sum to the human consumption 20%, in the second paragraph?
- mtsr 6y agoOr, you know, eat less meat. I’m not expecting anyone to go vegan or even vegetarian (I’m neither). But if we all eat a small portion of meat once or twice a week instead of large portions every day, demand for soy will go way down.
- m_eiman 6y agoOr at least select meat from local sources who aren't fed soy beans. And prefer chicken over beef. Preferrably also eco-friendly meat.
- tobylane 6y agoThe animal was fed something we could have eaten. It doesn’t do us much good to shun soy fed beef for corn fed beef. Agree with you on local and chicken.
- garblegarble 6y ago>The animal was fed something we could have eaten Not necessarily - I don't know about where you're from, but here our cows and sheep eat grass and live in fields that wouldn't be suitable for crops
- oever 6y agoResearch is underway to process grass into a milk-substitute. It's a matter of making microorganisms that create the right mix of proteins from ground grass. Plenty of food is already created this way. E.g. microbial rennet is made up from proteolytic enzymes grown in a fermentor and natural (as opposed to chemical) vanillin can be made by a microbe.
- m_eiman 6y agoIf you select meat marked with (certain? most?) eco labels the animals are mostly fed grass or similar. I tried finding the English page corresponding to https://www.wwf.se/mat-och-jordbruk/kottguiden/ekologiskt-notkott/ https://www.wwf.se/mat-och-jordbruk/kottguiden/ekologiskt-no... but failed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- will_pseudonym 6y agothere's actually an interesting argument that i first heard Diane Fleischman pose -- that chicken is worse than beef on a calorie/animal measure and so would harm more animals because it takes more chickens to feed x people than it does cows, and so more animals suffer for the same amount of food produced.
- andi999 6y agoBut then you can argue that mammal suffering is exponentially worse than bird suffering, or fish.
- federona 6y agoI am sure the market will find other uses for it. For instance Soy Plastic. https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_Report.cfm?Lab=NCER&dirEntryID=188277 https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_Report.cfm?Lab=NCE... There is no way personal choice affects industry enough to make a difference. Regulation effects it much much more. If you don't want people eating meat, reduce all the subsidies and make meat price sky rocket, problem reduced. Say it with me, there is no such thing as the free market, there is no such thing as buying your way into fixing environmental problems, some exception though may be found in religion where certain things are banned so it's so socially unacceptable to eat those things that it may well be codified into law. When it comes to fixing these things, it's politics all the way down. Policy, regulation, and enforcement. Also private ownership of the land with terms of ownership saying you can't do anything to this land, through zoning laws. You want to be an environmental billionaire, buy all this land and do nothing with it because you can't and because it's privately owned the government can't decide to let people use it to create jobs, they could however rezone it.
- _rebocador_ 6y agoWhy not? I went vegan, it's pretty good.
- Aromasin 6y agoEchoing this sentiment. I spent years doing mental gymnastics to justify my meat and dairy consumption. Going vegan was a great release of that mental tension.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoI don’t need to do any gymnastics, cheese just tastes so good. Probably the least healthy thing I eat, and most difficult to limit. I don’t need or crave sugar, chocolate, alcohol, coffee, tea... but cheese, yogurt, milk, and their derivations are irresistible.
- roebk 6y agoIt may taste good, but your addiction to casein causes vast amounts of harm to the environment and to the animals who are exploited for the pleasure it brings yourself.
- krageon 6y agoIf guilt tripping turned people vegan, everyone would be vegan by now (seriously, who hasn't heard at least one berate them like this?). Given that this isn't the case, perhaps you can come up with something that is a little more convincing.
- roebk 6y agoThere's nothing wrong with restating the facts. Your argument could be applied to a host of topics. The truth is, the vast majority of people aren't willing to change. For example, heart disease is the biggest killer in the world and yet people still don't take the required steps to prevent themselves of suffering from that disease.
- bkovacev 6y agoYou are aware that tofu/tempeh/s. milk are made out of soy, right? I'm seriously concerned that one mass production (meat) will turn to another. The mass producers need to sell. I hope my comment does not start a carnivore vs vegan war (as just like you, I'm neither).
- andi999 6y agoBut it is more efficient. Less soy needed for soy product then for the same meat calories.
- chrisseaton 6y agoWhy not grass fed meat then there’s no soy at all!
- refactor_master 6y agoIt’s a massive waste of land though.
- chrisseaton 6y agoHow is it wasting land to feed cattle on it? It’s often not doing anything else.
- bjoli 6y agoNot all land is a good pasture. In many parts of the world, good pasture are also efficient carbon sinks. In my part of the world those carbon sinks are rare (only about 10% of pastures are carbon sinks), and the few that are good are even better as farmland. That overlap is not 100%. Some good pasture is bad farmland, but the claim that good pasture is good farmland is a good rule of thumb
- distances 6y agoAny land reclaimed from livestock feeding could be returned to nature, be it rainforests in Brazil or woodlands in Europe. Livestock uses a massive amount of agricultural land in comparison to plant production meant for direct human consumption. It's just a very very simple math based on the amount of crops it takes to grow animals for meat -- and soy is much more efficient than grass in that sense, so your suggestion would make things decidedly worse for environment.
- furyg3 6y agoIndeed. Even if eating meat caused zero deforestation (directly or indirectly), it's super inefficient. If everyone stopped eating meat, 75% of the land used for farming could be re-wilded. That land area is something like China, the US, the EU, and Australia... combined. I'm not vegetarian, but after seeing the results of deforestation first hand I've reduced my meat intake substantially. Side benefits included improved cooking abilities and lost weight without trying.
- oever 6y agoAnd less dairy. Or less animal-sourced dairy but instead dairy made from grass in a fermentor. https://thosevegancowboys.com/onze-missie/ https://thosevegancowboys.com/onze-missie/
- krageon 6y agoThere appears to be no product here, just a blurb that reads like it was workshopped by a marketing company.
- oever 6y agoThe marketing is indeed heavy. There is a lab behind it investigating how to make a grass-based product that can be used instead of milk even for making cheese. That means getting microorganisms to create the right proteins from ground up grass in a fermentor. Tips from yeast experts are welcome: https://thosevegancowboys.com/bountyhunt/ https://thosevegancowboys.com/bountyhunt/
- mytailorisrich 6y agoIn the West we probably eat "too much" meat. But if you consider the way demand increases because of the scale of the world population and economic growth (i.e. people are getting richer and want to finally be able to afford and enjoy meat) the bottom line is that, when it comes to environmental issues, we also need to reduce the global human population sooner than later because this really is the root cause.
- keerk43 6y agoExactly. Going full vegan requires real effort to get enough of all nutrients you need. A vegetable-heavy diet with little animal products on the other hand easily gives you everything, without any vitamin pills, and reduces your carbon footprint almost as much. It's also psychologically easier as you can still enjoy good steak or whatever you like every now and then. I highly recommend chickpeas and fava beans in particular. Much better for stomach than kidney beans, and perfect for many kinds of rice and pasta dishes. Fava beans are also very easy to grow outside in most climates if you're into gardening and have the space.
- wooger 6y agoVeganism just draws an arbitrary line, wasn't scientifically selected for ecological benefits or any scientific health basis. Look at honey - obviously good for you, obviously sustainable, not allowed in the vegan diet.
- fragile_frogs 6y agoConventional beekeepers aim to harvest the maximum amount of honey, with high honey yields being viewed as a mark of success. When farmers remove honey from a hive, they replace it with a sugar substitute which is significantly worse for the bees’ health since it lacks the essential micro-nutrients of honey. https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan/honey-industry https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/why-go-vegan/honey-ind... Humans can live without honey, bees need to survive.
- fragile_frogs 6y ago"A vegetable-heavy diet with little animal products on the other hand easily gives you everything, without any vitamin pills" yeah that's because you are indirectly consuming those vitamins that have been given to the animals...
- JeremyNT 6y ago> Exactly. Going full vegan requires real effort to get enough of all nutrients you need. This is really not true with the possible exception of iron, which you can mitigate by eating a lot of citrus (this helps with absorption; plants have lots of iron, but heme iron has much greater bio-availability). I am not vegan since I eat dairy and eggs still, however this is purely because I enjoy them and not for any particular dietary reason. I allow myself these luxuries while understanding that's what they are: luxuries, not requirements. We are all human, after all, and we can't all be monks who optimize every behavior. I think it's important to be honest about that and truthful about our motivations when we decide to eat animal products, because it is really not by necessity (at least, not in the western world, where plant-based alternatives are affordable and readily purchased). If everybody ate mostly soy and legumes it would solve a lot of problems, even if they still have a steak or cheese every now and then. But they don't need to have that steak or cheese to be healthy :)
- 3131s 6y agoWe have enough insight into the supply chain to know that the block of tofu is not the driver of the problem. Soybeans have a high protein yield, hence why they're grown for feed. The plant fixates nitrogen as alluded to above. Soy is a complete protein, albeit with an amino acid profile that is not quite as similar to human muscle tissue as some meat. It is a miracle plant! Soybeans are easy to prepare and taste fantastic, and can form the core of a healthy diet.