• commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 months ago

    about 85% of all soybeans are pressed for oil for human uses. but a soybean is only about 20% oil altogether. that leaves 69% of the soybeans as industrial waste. feeding that industrial waste to animals is actually conserving resources.

    so it’s not even true that the land used to make food for animals isn’t used to make food for people: it’s the same land.

    • QuaffPotions@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      That makes no sense. Every part of a soybean can be made for human uses - textured vegetable protein (tvp) is de-fatted soy, for example. 7% of soy is going for human consumption, because that’s how much demand there is for it. Just as the vast majority of soy production is being used to raise animals for food, because that’s how the economics works. You can see the cited study and more in greater detail in this article - which also shows how cattle farming is in and of itself the single largest driver of Amazon deforestation.

      https://ourworldindata.org/soy

      And this article is a primer on feed conversion ratios, which demonstrates why eating plants directly will always be fundamentally more efficient and better for the environment than raising animals for food ever can be.

      https://www.pbs.org/wnet/peril-and-promise/2022/03/feed-conversion-ratios-help-explain-meats-outsized-climate-impact/

      • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        cattle farming is in and of itself the single largest driver of Amazon deforestation.

        what does this have to do with what we are discussing, or how many mice were killed for that bun?

      • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        the vast majority of soy production is being used to raise animals for food, because that’s how the economics works.

        the vast majority of soy (85%) is pressed for oil.

      • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        Every part of a soybean can be made for human uses

        sure, but there are not enough people who want to eat soycake for the amount of oil that we produce. so giving it to animals is as good a use as any.