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
            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?

                • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                  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.

                • 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]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                    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.