I heard something to do with Nitrogen and …cow farts(?) I am really unsure of this and would like to learn more.

Answer -

4 Parts

  • Ethical reason for consuming animals
  • Methane produced by cows are a harmful greenhouse gas which is contributing to our current climate crisis
  • Health Reasons - there is convincing evidence that processed meats cause cancer
  • it takes a lot more calories of plant food to produce the calories we would consume from the meat.

Details about the answers are in the comments

        • Tywèle [she|her]
          1•1 year ago

          76% of soybeans world wide are used as animal feed as per your own source. I’m not sure what you are trying to argue with your original comment to me?

            • Tywèle [she|her]
              0•1 year ago

              Care to quote the relevant parts of your sources? I’m not going to read everything from that just to find this claim.

                • Tywèle [she|her]
                  1•1 year ago

                  You provided the sources, so you read them right? It shouldn’t be a problem for you to quote your sources to support your claims.

              • @commie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                0•1 year ago

                Although some of the crop is used directly, more than 80 percent of the crop is processed into soybean meal and oil through crushing.

                • Tywèle [she|her]
                  1•1 year ago

                  Thank you for quoting the relevant part.

                  But I think you are interpreting this wrong. This doesn’t say that 80% of soybeans are pressed into oil at all. It says that 80% are processed into soybean meal (which gets fed to animals) and oil (which are mostly for human consumption). And with the data from ourworldindata it means that around 80%-13.2%=66.8% (very roughly) of soybeans are processed into soybean meals which is also very similar to the data ourworldindata provides:

                  The majority (77%) of the world’s soy is fed to livestock for meat and dairy production. 7% is fed directly to animals as soybeans, but the remainder is first processed into soybean ‘cake’.{ref}Soybean cake (sometimes referred to as soybean meal) is a high-protein feed made from the pressurisation, heat-treatment and extraction processing of soybeans. The oil is extracted from the soybeans to leave a protein-rich product.

                  Emphasize mine.

                  • @commie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                    1•1 year ago

                    soybean meal is the byproduct of pressing soybeans for oil. you can’t press soybeans for oil without getting the byproduct.

                  • @commie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                    1•1 year ago

                    oh I see where you made a mistake. you didn’t account for the 4% at the bottom of the chart. and you don’t seem to understand that soy meal is the by-product of pressing soybeans for oil. That’s soybean is only about 20% oil. In order for 17% of all end uses of soybeans to be oil about 85% of all soybeans must be pressed for oil The byproduct of that process produces soy meal that soy meal makes up about 69% of the weight of the entire soybean crop. that by-product is what is fed to animals.