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Meat Uses 10x More Soy Than Vegan Foods — So Who’s Really Destroying the Rainforest?
(veganhorizon.substack.com)
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this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
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Stop blaming peoples eating habits and start blaming the oil and gas companies for the environmental disaster we have. It's not you or me we have to fight to keep our rainforests.
Only blaming everything on some big corp also won't bring us forward. It's fine and important to set them under pressure (where possible) but still everyone has to change individually to make progress. If people reduce their consumption of animal products it will have a huge effect and corporations will follow the demand.
If you want to reclaim space from your drive, will you go thru the biggest files that need deleting? Or would you go thru the small ones? Like an individual is in no way polluting as much or in the same capacity as a corporation. I just don't think blaming (and policing) individuals for their actions is a valid approach to solving the climate crisis.
Companies don't produce things to throw them onto a big pile where they rot. You can't change the production behavior of companies without changing the consumption behavior of the population, because the things they consume have to be produced.
Wouldn't regulating those companies and enforcing those regulations be a more effective process to the end goal of solving the climate crisis?
Like just making all animal products illegal without getting the population on board upfront? Good luck with that. Either such laws would be just ignored or you end up in some kind of revolt.
If more and more people adapt, industry will adapt along. E.g. adding vegan options to menus, producing vegan food for supermarkets, vegan clothes, ... In turn, having so many options makes it easier for more people to become vegan with less compromise. Which again increases the customer base for the industry.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
No I'm talking about using regulating peoples consumptions rather regulations to reduce the emissions of these polluting companies. I'm talking about regulating the oil and gas sectors and redistributing the handouts they get to green energy sources.
I'm kinda done with individual led movement unless there's a coordinated campaign and a plan and singular objective. I'm not shitting on being vegan in anyway. Some of my favorite foods just happen to be vegan. I am already an accidental vegan 95% of the time.
I agree with being the change I wanna see in the world but that's more of a personal development thing I am kinda jaded with that for actualizing the change I want to see tho. I think we need more than just changing ourselves if we want real visible change atm.
How would that happen without public support? The public currently pays for these companies to keep doing what they're doing
An overwhelming amount of the public want green and clean initiatives, why would it be hard to get that public support?
To regulate a corporation, you need very roughly 50% of the population to support the idea. To regulate YOUR BEHAVIOUR, it only takes your own cooperation. 10% of the people regulating their own behaviour is more effective than 10% of people voting to regulate corporations.
Until you can figure out how to regulate corporations, you are morally obliged to stop yourself from fucking murdering vulnerable individuals. I know that's a bitter pill but please don't kick and fight. Do it or don't but stop being an apologist for cruelty and violence.
I agree with the sentiment but do you have any numbers to backup how its impact is better than regulating 10% of the companies? Cause that would actually help me understand the mechanics of that.
We do, it's called a government, they pass laws to regulate people and corporations, and have enforcers to enforce that regulation. They just need to have some teeth and do their job.
Also you can cut that apologist shit out. It's boring and it's ineffective in getting people on your side. And you make your messaging and outreach effective cause guilt and shame are not effective tools to motivate people to change their behavior in the long run.
Also, are you advocating for all vulnerable individuals? Or just animals? What about all the cruelty happening in the global south and western imperialism and hegemony? Or are you also an apologist for cruelty and violence on vulnerable non-western individuals? Like two can play that dumb game of who is the virtuest of us all but it's dumb and ineffective and does more to divide us who have more in common and we lose everything that we collectively want.
You are avoiding the central point. If we can agree that we both have a moral responsibility not to be avoidably cruel and violent to all vulnerable individuals, including cattle, pigs, and chickens, and also including human beings, I'll address your points. But to me, they seem like a way you are distracting yourself from your basic moral obligations.
The central point I'm arguing about is whats the best way to reduce climate change and its effects and if controlling peoples consumption is the best course of action. You're the one that brought in things I wasn't even talking about. So please stop being passive aggressive.
And yes honey its imperative we reduce all cruelty we can around us I would extend that to also elected representatives too wouldn't you agree, and holding them accountable. Does that answer your question?
Also, to what extent do you work to ensure you're not being cruel to people around? Are you recycling? Are you reusing, are you repairing? Are you pushing for better worker rights in the factories that make your phones? Are you buying more expensive tech that don't don't exploit people? (How's your FairPhone?). Are you pushing for the ending of the exploitation of the global south? Are you pushing for justice for all or just animals? Where is your moral obligation for that?
I answered yours now you answer mine. And please cut the passive aggressiveness if not please don't bother answering me, cause if you can't the best thing you can do to promote veganism is not talking.
I don't think the drive example is a good analogy as the files aren't individuals with a free will. You can sort and delete them as you like. Based on one single person's decision.
In case of animal products you have a huge market with producers, middlemen and consumers. If you want to change the market, you can't just manipulate one part of the players. Unless you you're a dictator with unlimited backing, you have to reduce offer and demand more or less simultaneously.
I'm using the drive analogy only to highlight the quickest way to reclaim space. With space here being the amount of clean air and water we have.
Also yeah the meat industry does have a lot of emissions, and they need to be regulated to do better with their emissions.
I do agree with that we need more holistic change across the board to undo some of the damage done.
If I have a 50 GB zip file on my disk that I created 5 years ago and which I don't need anymore, I can just delete it and that's it. No one will stop me, no one will defend it.
Now let's take Saudi Aramco, BP or Shell which are huuuuge companies, each equipped with numerous lawyers, lobbyists and massive marketing budgets. As far as I know, there is no delete button on their homepage. They will defend themselves and their profits with everything they have. And as said, they have a lot.
But even if, let's assume we take the three companies listed and just delete them. Within minutes, there will be chaos on the whole planet. Without oil and gas, there'll be no fuel, no heating, no plastics, no electricity anymore. All supply chains will crash. And within hours or days there'll be wars, massive wars for the little fossil ressources remaining and afterwards new companies will take their place.
If we want to delete these companies, we first have to make ourselves independent of their products in all aspects. Which again isn't easy as they'll try to avoid that from happening. But also here, end customers have a big lever. Take a bicyle, bus or train instead of a car. Change your car into a BEV. Install solar power if you have the option. Lower your heating a little and put on wamer clothes.
If you see big oil as the issue they are, then you should act accordingly within your possibilities. And if you find solutions for yourself for any of the dependencies above...
What options do you see there? As far as I understand, there's not much you can do there as it's mostly physics. Every extra step in the food chain dramatically reduces efficiency. If you want to produce calories, proteins or fats, producing plants for consumption always will be significantly more efficient than producing plants to feed animals for consumption.
And getting rid of big meat (JBS, Cargill, Tyson etc.) in favor of small, independent meat farms may be a good thing to combat capitalism and (maybe!!! slightly!!!) improve the conditions for the animals, but it won't bring down emmisions. In fact, many small farms may even lead to higher emmisions because certain measures (e.g. using biomass from manure to produce electricity, using bigger vehicles for transport etc.) can't be applied as efficient on a small scale.
The only way to cut back on meat, egg, milk ... emmisions is to cut back on consumption. And I think politicians will have a very hard time if they try to mandate that against the will of the public.