Cart before horse - before industrial scale animal farming relatively little soy oil was produced for human consumption. If we weren’t growing soy to use it mostly for animal feed we would grow things like palm oil, which grows in the same climate and yields something like 14x as many calories per acre on the same land.
Edit: Or instead of growing soy with the objective of making animal feed (with the added bonus of getting some oil from it) we could grow crops which have far higher calorific yields like maize, potatoes etc.
Which would be an argument against using palm instead of soy if we grew soy primarily for its oil, rather than gaining the oil as a byproduct of growing soy to feed animals.
over 80% of soy is pressed for oil. they press it in an oil press. The byproduct of that process is soy meal or soy cake. The oil is only about 20% of the bean but makes up about half of its crop value. soybeans are grown for oil and because they rotate with corn. they help fixate nitrogen for other crops and they produce oil. The fact that we’re able to also feed the byproduct of the oil production to animals is a conservation of resources.
None of what you are saying is necessarily untrue but you still have the cart before the horse. Soy is as widespread as it is because we can use it to sustain industrial livestock farming, it isn’t some happy side effect as much as it is the deliberate intention.
it’s not accurate to say the soy beans are grown for animals at all though. they’re grown for markets and soild health. markets value the oil far higher on a per pound basis than the rest of the bean. I just can’t believe a telling of the story of soybeans that places animal feed so prominently, when it’s literally the industrial waste that is fed to animals.
I have read plenty, (you didn’t think I was looking all this up just today, did you?) and i have told you a story in which the objective facts are indisputable. the only point of disagreement we have is how to interpret those facts, and I have given actual reasoning for my interpretation, while you said “look it up”.
Cart before horse - before industrial scale animal farming relatively little soy oil was produced for human consumption. If we weren’t growing soy to use it mostly for animal feed we would grow things like palm oil, which grows in the same climate and yields something like 14x as many calories per acre on the same land.
https://www.soyinfocenter.com/HSS/soybean_crushing1.php
Edit: Or instead of growing soy with the objective of making animal feed (with the added bonus of getting some oil from it) we could grow crops which have far higher calorific yields like maize, potatoes etc.
I don’t think palm rotates with corn, so I don’t believe it would be grown instead of soy beans.
Which would be an argument against using palm instead of soy if we grew soy primarily for its oil, rather than gaining the oil as a byproduct of growing soy to feed animals.
over 80% of soy is pressed for oil. they press it in an oil press. The byproduct of that process is soy meal or soy cake. The oil is only about 20% of the bean but makes up about half of its crop value. soybeans are grown for oil and because they rotate with corn. they help fixate nitrogen for other crops and they produce oil. The fact that we’re able to also feed the byproduct of the oil production to animals is a conservation of resources.
None of what you are saying is necessarily untrue but you still have the cart before the horse. Soy is as widespread as it is because we can use it to sustain industrial livestock farming, it isn’t some happy side effect as much as it is the deliberate intention.
it’s not accurate to say the soy beans are grown for animals at all though. they’re grown for markets and soild health. markets value the oil far higher on a per pound basis than the rest of the bean. I just can’t believe a telling of the story of soybeans that places animal feed so prominently, when it’s literally the industrial waste that is fed to animals.
I don’t know what to tell you mate, this isn’t some closely guarded secret look at the history of the crop especially from the end of WW2 onwards.
I have read plenty, (you didn’t think I was looking all this up just today, did you?) and i have told you a story in which the objective facts are indisputable. the only point of disagreement we have is how to interpret those facts, and I have given actual reasoning for my interpretation, while you said “look it up”.
“The demand for soybeans is currently tied to global meat consumption and is expected to grow”
(https://www.iisd.org/publications/report/global-market-report-soybeans)