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if you think about the energetic demand of growing food only to feed an animal that then will become food, rather than skipping this step and eating the original food instead.
most people don’t want to eat grass or soy cake. letting cows graze, and feeding soycake (the byproduct of soybean oil production) to pigs and poultry is a conservation of resources.
kadup@lemmy.world 8 months ago
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
not all land is suitable for crops. letting cattle graze it is fine.
usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
Good news is that overall arable farmland usage goes down the less meat you eat. Don’t need to use all the same land, you have flexibility to move around production
we show that plant-based replacements for each of the major animal categories in the United States (beef, pork, dairy, poultry, and eggs) can produce twofold to 20-fold more nutritionally similar food per unit cropland. Replacing all animal-based items with plant-based replacement diets can add enough food to feed 350 million additional people, more than the expected benefits of eliminating all supply chain food loss.
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
overall arable farmland usage goes down the less meat you eat.
I don’t think that has ever happened.
usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
It’s worth noting that soybean meal is not a byproduct. When we look at the most common extraction method for soybean oil (using hexane solvents), soybean meal is still the driver of demand
www.sciencedirect.com/…/S0926669017305010
This is even more true of other methods like expelling which is still somewhat commonly used
www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/5/87
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
some studies show soybean oils being as much as half the value of the crop, despite being just 20% of the weight.
usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
If we assume that’s the case, half of revenue is still not a byproduct, it’s a coproduct. The other half is still pretty relevant to its value and usage. If 50% of your revenue disappears from something, you’re going to be making a lot less of it
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
i think at this point we’ve devolved into arguing semantics. you’re not going to convince me soybean is a viable crop unless you can press it for oil, and i don’t think i can convince you it’s a viable product unless the meal is fed to livestock. but i hope you have a good night!
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
hexane solvents are not the most common method of oil extraction. you have been misinformed.