Why A Vegan Diet Would Hurt The Environment: Livestock Grain Ingredients Would Become Pollutants11/25/2018 The truth is that over 90% of all livestock grain ingredients are not fully produced crops, but byproducts from the processing of human foods. This unpopular fact is actually one of the many ways that vegans’ own arguments work against them, because, in reality, farm animals have the ability to turn products that would otherwise be waste into even more usable calories beyond just the edible parts of the crops. Although it’s a fiber and not a food product, cotton is the perfect example of this. Many byproducts of cotton production, including cottonseed, cottonseed oil, and cottonseed meal, are used extensively as livestock grain ingredients. Before cottonseed was used to feed farm animals, farmers did not know of any use for the surplus of seeds after their next crop was planted. For this reason, every year, thousands of tons of cottonseed would be burned, releasing unfathomable amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, or thrown into rivers, intoxicating fish and clogging waterways. Sound drastic? Actually, making use of cotton byproducts in livestock grain is only a very small piece of the very big picture. A 2017 study put some exact numbers on this sustainability benefit of farm animal production: “Livestock recycle more than 43.2 × 10^9 kg of human-inedible food and fiber processing byproducts, converting them into human-edible food, pet food, industrial products, and 4 × 109 kg of N fertilizer.” White, Robin R, and Mary Beth Hall. “Nutritional and Greenhouse Gas Impacts of Removing.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 13 Nov. 2017.
“Many consumers are unaware of the advantages of livestock productivity gains conferred by modern practices, by-product feeds, and use of technology. The gains made by ‘recycling’ safe, yet otherwise valueless, by-products from human food and fiber production lessen competition between humans and animals for crops that can equally be used for feed or food, maximize land use efficiency, and decrease the environmental impact of food production.”
Capper, Jude L, et al. “Animal Feed vs Human Food: Challenges and Opportunities in Sustaining Animal Agriculture Toward 2050.” CAST Issue Paper, no. 53, Sept. 2013. Some farmers have expressed concerns that these byproducts do not yield the same results as high-energy corn or soy. However, the science does corroborate that: “Replacing cereals and soybean meal with human-inedible by-products in a high-quality forage diet to dairy cows increased net food protein production substantially without lowering milk production.” Karlsson, Johanna, et al. “Replacing Human-Edible Feed Ingredients with by-Products Increases Net Food Production Efficiency in Dairy Cows.” Elsevier Journal of Dairy Science, vol. 101, no. 8, Aug. 2018. Science Direct. So ya, farm animals do eat a lot. But that’s not human food their depleting. They’re actually removing one of our world’s most hazardous environmental disturbances.
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