Soy cake can be used to produce textured vegetable protein (meat alternatives), tofu, tempeh, soy milk, protein powder, biofuels and bioplastics, for example.

Calling that industrial waste is just a complete joke.

The land could also be used to grow other crops for human consumption.

You’re not the animals.

I literally wrote that this isn’t about me/humans, so yes, obviously.

There are many groups that are suffering and that I’m not part of, and I still care about what’s happening to them and want the suffering to end. It seems like most lemmy users share that sentiment when it comes to oppressed humans, so I really don’t get what’s so hard to understand about that when I extend it to animals.

You might have the opinion that factory farming isn’t a social justice issue, fine. Me having a different opinion doesn’t negatively affect you in any way. Why are you so pissed at me just because I see it differently?

Don’t you also draw a line when you choose to eat plants?

I think there’s a reasonable distinction here. You would presumably also draw a line between a conscious human and a brain dead human that won’t ever be conscious again. As far as we can reasonably tell, consciousness requires a brain. Dogs and pigs have brains, so maybe we shouldn’t torture and kill them on factory farms. We can also see them suffering and measure their physical reaction to it.

Of course there’s a possibility that plants have some kind of consciousness too, but 1. that’s speculation and 2. there’s no way around farming them, as you have said yourself:

Untill humans develop the ability to photosynthesize, we are going to have to eat other species, there’s no way around it.

Farming animals will always require far more plant deaths than growing plants for human consumption. These animals have to grow for months before being slaughtered and literally eat tons of animal feed in that time.

Therefore, plant-based food minimizes both animal suffering and deaths as well as plant deaths.

I’m not convinced that plant deaths are an ethical issue in of themselves, but farming has environmental implications so it makes sense to minimize the food that needs to be grown and make the farming as environmentally friendly as reasonably possible.

I’m sorry to hear that. The thing is, you mainly hear from those who are the most vocal, and those tend to be the most angry and therefore unreasonable. And those probably had their fair share of verbal (and/or physical) abuse from meat eaters, as vegans are hated on by a much, much larger part of society than the other way around. (That doesn’t justify their hate, of course)

It’s all a self reinforcing dynamic of groups riling each other up, unfortunately.

Just goes to show how little you care about others suffering. Social justice for me but not for others (those who I consider interior).

Inflammatory prejudices are only bad when others have them. They’re definitely the hateful ones, so lets spread some hate about them.

You just compared your eating preferences which are 100% a choice to someone being born homosexual and not wanting to be killed for it

All the animals on factory farms didn’t choose to be born there and don’t want to be killed either.

It’s not about the sensitivities of humans, but the insane suffering of animals in this system of oppression.

Haha, that’s the best troll comment I’ve seen in a while. Thank you for that.

For things like steak, I agree. Unfortunately it will take many years to become affordable for the average person, but when it happens, it will be awesome.

For many other categories, plant-based alternatives are already close enough for me. I recently tried the store brand plant based Schnitzel from Lidl (a supermarket/discounter chain here in Germany) and it was surprisingly tasty, given that it doesn’t even cost more than factory farmed meat by now.

There are decent burgers, nuggets, kebab, chicken and salami alternatives around as well. It’s crazy how much the taste, price and availability of these products have improved in the last 10 years alone. I don’t miss real meat by now.

I heard about studies that successfully used algae to inhibit methane-producing microbes in the short term, but I couldn’t find any studies that prove its long term efficacy yet. It’ll be interesting to see whether the microbes can adapt to the algae in the long term or not.

The issue with using byproducts as animal fodder is that ruminants produce a lot of methane while digesting them. This enteric fermentation in their stomachs accounts for around 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions, while the entire aviation industry sits at just 2-3%. If we give them more food that is harder to digest, they’ll emit even more methane per animal.

Biofuels make a lot of sense though. After extracting the fuel, the remaining digestate can be used to produce biochar or be put directly on fields as fertilizer, which is nice because synthetic fertilizers account for 1-2% of greenhouse gas emissions.

Another option is to burn the byproducts for heat or electricity in winter during short periods when there’s not enough wind and solar power to cover energy demand.

I got really fucking tired of being called fucking stupid for buying meat free alternatives.

Sorry that you met condescending assholes. Some people just have the urge to feel superior over others for absolutely silly reasons. The rise of meat alternatives is one of the few things that make me optimistic for the future, along with renewable energy, electric cars and heat pumps. Factory farms are so much worse for the environment and animals, of course we should embrace alternatives to the worst option.

Prices also go down with more competition. There basically wasn’t any market for meat alternatives 10 years ago, now it’s growing quite fast. In 5 years, many of them will likely be cheaper than meat.