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]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      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?

          • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            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]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              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.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                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.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                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.

                • Tywèle [she|her]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  1 year ago

                  How do you come to this conclusion? The data on ourworldindata is showing “the allocation of global soy production to its end uses by weight”. Which means the “Oil (13.2%)” is the percentage of the total weight of the global soy production that is processed into oil.

                  you didn’t account for the 4% at the bottom of the chart.

                  Of what chart?

          • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            both of them are pretty light reads.

            if you prefer to live in ignorance I am not going to stop you.