PDA

View Full Version : Soya causes environmental damage



Pages : [1] 2

just_a_grrrl
Jul 24th, 2005, 05:50 PM
The people I work with are always trying to say that I am killing animals by eating soy because animals habitats are cut down to plant it. They say that they rain forest is being cut down and that I'm better off eating meat because I'm killing animals anyways. I don't believe this, but I'm not very educated in the process of producing soy - anyone care to enlighten me, or give me a response to shut my boss up.

Crimsonskies
Jul 24th, 2005, 06:03 PM
Story about RainForests.

(http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0521-rhett_butler.html)
I hope that helps. :( But, that's also in Brazil. Animals are becoming extinct because of the rainforests being torn down, which is horrible, but, as for the rainforests themselves, I would never want to see them torn down, they're such an import part of life, especially for offering oxygen and what have you, but I rather see new plants grown where the rainforests are being demolished rather than cattle pastures in the vacant land. Although, that still doesn't justify that animals are dying because they're losing their homes. :(

In the U.S., as of 2004, soy comes from mostly the central states, if I'm correct. (ND SD NE KS MN IA MD AR MS IL WI IN MI OH) I think the U.S. would use their supplies, (which don't come from areas of torn down rainforests) rather than import from Brazil and other areas where soy farms are replacing rainforests.

harpy
Jul 24th, 2005, 07:20 PM
You could write to the manufacturers of the soy products you buy expressing concern and asking where they source theirs from.

Last year I wrote to Cauldron, who make a lot of the tofu products sold in the UK, and they said that while their soya does come from South America they have a written guarantee from the suppliers that it comes from areas not affecting the Amazonian Forests. Hmm. Someone else checked with Clearspring, another popular brand, and they said theirs were grown in France.

kokopelli
Jul 24th, 2005, 07:25 PM
A huge amount of soy is used as animal feed, in America about 95% of all non-exported soy protein ends up as livestock feed. Of this, 77% to 95% is irretrievably lost in the process of animal metabolism. (figures from 'The Book of Tofu' by Akiko Aoyagi and William Shurtleff...possibly the percentages have changed, but probably not much)

So eating farmed animals is contributing even more to rainforest destruction. If people ate soy directly themselves, instead of feeding it to animals, a very much smaller area of land would have to be cultivated. Your workmates presumably don't eat wild-ranging animals, but the farmed kind which are consuming vast amounts of crops which could have been fed directly to humans, without the waste of protein and animal suffering, so they're even more responsible for rainforest destruction than you are.

kokopelli
Jul 24th, 2005, 07:29 PM
You could write to the manufacturers of the soy products you buy expressing concern and asking where they source theirs from.

Last year I wrote to Cauldron, who make a lot of the tofu products sold in the UK, and they said that while their soya does come from South America they have a written guarantee from the suppliers that it comes from areas not affecting the Amazonian Forests. Hmm. Someone else checked with Clearspring, another popular brand, and they said theirs were grown in France.

I bought some soya beans which were organically grown in Kent from 'ethical juicers' website...I've planted some here in Wales and they're doing OK so far. Global warming probably means it'll be possible to grow all sorts of stuff in the UK that wouldn't grow here before.

just a grrrl, I would've thought in Canada your beans would most likely be home-grown, anyway :)

just_a_grrrl
Jul 24th, 2005, 09:13 PM
oh wow guys, thanks so much! You've been tons of help!

Roxy
Jul 25th, 2005, 06:07 AM
Thanks so much for bringing up this topic. It's something I never really thought about before this.

adam antichrist
Jul 25th, 2005, 01:34 PM
Mmmm, they never cut down forests to graze animals...
:rolleyes:

adam antichrist
Jul 25th, 2005, 01:46 PM
they said that while their soya does come from South America they have a written guarantee from the suppliers that it comes from areas not affecting the Amazonian Forests.

Yeah, it was rainforest once, but now it's a pretty meadow!
:D

aubergine
Jul 25th, 2005, 03:13 PM
Even if it comes from a bad location/supplier, we consume less soya than livestock. Not eating meat means we are possibly contributing less to this problem. Without mass farming, soya farming would be a non issue.

SurfNSun
Jul 25th, 2005, 05:58 PM
i read somewhere recently that thousands of acres of rainforest were being cut down each down to make into cattle ranches, since the demand for beef is sickingly rising.... but i recall reading that the Big Beef Industry is taking a big portion of our rainforest each day...pretty soon we'll be telling our children about the good ole' days when we actually had a rainforest.

harpy
Jul 25th, 2005, 06:38 PM
Yeah, it was rainforest once, but now it's a pretty meadow!


:D Hope you're wrong! I expect the French stuff is safer though; not too many rainforests there.

Must admit I hadn't thought of growing my own tofu but it's a nice idea.

defu
Jul 29th, 2005, 03:55 PM
read about that too. it's a major problem in brasil where people can buy land from the government and decide what to do with it-well they cut the forests down of course and plant soy. brasil is one of the biggest 'soy factories' in the world

moochbabe
Aug 7th, 2005, 11:53 PM
I am so glad that someone posted this, cuz I've been really thinking about this problem a lot lately. Especially cuz I have a vegetarian friend who I was criticizing cuz she still eats gelatine and the likes and then she threw that at me. I told her that i thought all my soy came from American places and things, and now have found out that I am right. But at the time it was so hard to say anything back, I'm glad to know that not all soy produced comes from the rainforests. Now I can sleep at night again!:D

Crimsonskies
Aug 8th, 2005, 01:58 AM
Well, lately, not all has come from America, if you're an American citizen. There has been a shortage in soy supply. I emailed a company about that lately, and this is the response I received:


Dear Alicia:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. Until recently all soybeans used in White Wave products were grown on organic farms within the United States. Currently the majority of our soybeans that we purchase remain US grown, however due to a recent organic soybean shortage we have begun purchasing organic soybeans from Brazil.

The Brazilian soybeans purchased by White Wave are grown in an area of the country south of the rainforests. No rainforests are damaged in the growth or production of our soybeans.

In addition, the company that White Wave contracts with to purchase Brazilian soybeans is constantly monitoring to make certain no slave labor is used on their farms. Three inspection methods are used to check for slave labor including a visit to each farm from a national certification agency, random visits to each farm by local labor authorities and an extensive inspection and interview process of the farm by the buyer certifying that the farm does not use slave labor.

The Brazilian soybeans continue to meet White Wave's high quality standards. Just like our American-grown crop, the Brazilian beans are grown with traditional plant breeding and farming practices. To insure that the soybean stocks are pure, the plants are grown in a region isolated from non-organic and genetically modified soybean production. White Wave carefully and continuously monitors our soybean growers directly to ensure that the soybeans have not been genetically altered and are of the very best quality.

Highly reputable independent laboratories specializing in genetic identification regularly test White Wave products. Silk® Soymilk has always tested negative for the presence of genetically modified material. We will continue to test Silk and White Wave products to maintain our high quality standards and our product integrity.

We hope this information is helpful.

Best regards from the folks at White Wave.

adam antichrist
Aug 8th, 2005, 02:24 AM
Funny, there is more and more land "south of the rainforest" every year!
:rolleyes:

moochbabe
Aug 8th, 2005, 05:39 AM
Thank u so much, that was really helpful cuz that's pretty much the brand that I eat, and hopefully the other ones I eat are ok too. I think I'm gonna check now, that was a really good idea too, thank u so much Crimsonskies!

adam antichrist
Aug 8th, 2005, 09:46 AM
I emailed tofutti asking where theirs is grown since it wasn't clearly stated on their site. This is their reply:


Thank you for your recent Tofutti email. Our soy is grown in the U.S and is non-GMO. Please feel free to contact us should you have any further questions.
Sincerely yours,
Steven Kass
Tofutti Brands Inc

Thumbs up!

Crimsonskies
Aug 8th, 2005, 03:27 PM
No problem. I don't want to be the cause of a destroyed rainforest. :(

moochbabe
Aug 9th, 2005, 02:16 AM
Thanx for that reply too adam antichrist! i am going to check wholesoy and yves, i'll let you guys know what they say.

Farflame
Aug 11th, 2005, 02:03 AM
i read somewhere recently that thousands of acres of rainforest were being cut down each down to make into cattle ranches, since the demand for beef is sickingly rising.... but i recall reading that the Big Beef Industry is taking a big portion of our rainforest each day...pretty soon we'll be telling our children about the good ole' days when we actually had a rainforest.

Heh, if there's no rainforest, you'll probably be struggling to find the breath to tell them the story :)

This topic comes up all the time if you're a vegan. Non-vegans try to tell you that you're harming creatures whenever you eat soya, or carrots or whatever. The truth is, simply by existing you're harming all sorts of creatures - for example, your body is destroying bacteria constantly. That's not the point, the point is that you're doing LESS harm than a non-vegan, and you're doing your best to reduce the harm and suffering that you cause. Unlike them :p

moochbabe
Aug 11th, 2005, 05:49 AM
Farflame, that's so true! Even vegetarian people seem to be rude about the subject and environmental impact to vegans. What is up with that?!

Enemy Within
Aug 15th, 2005, 10:50 PM
I had learnt that the main soy productors country is Argentina, and Argentina doesn´t plant in Amazonas. Indeed, China is going to build a railway between Chile and Argentina to carry soy to Chilean ports in the Pacific Ocean, and from there, soy is going to be carried taken to China.

Anyway meat-eaters are responsible of deforestation and directly of many animals killed, so they can´t say that a vegan is responsible of animals murdered.

moochbabe
Aug 16th, 2005, 06:08 AM
And even if they do say something about vegans killing animals, it makes them hypocrits. It's good to know about the Argentina thing though because whether I am impacting animal's homes less or not, I really don't want to do it at all. :)

moochbabe
Aug 17th, 2005, 01:13 AM
So good news, Wholesoy gets all of their soybeans from the US. Here's what they said:

Thank you for contacting WholeSoy. We buy our soybeans from a single organic supplier in the Midwestern United States. The beans are certified organic and 100% non-gmo.

So that's good news!