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[SELF] I often see people claiming that 80% of soy is grown to feed cattle. Not only is that easy to disprove, the weaker claim, that the vast majority of soy is till grown to feed livestock, is also untrue: almost all soy is grown for oil.
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pwdpwdispassword is in self
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Our world in data has compiled data from the FAO (a project of the UN), and shown the breakdown of the global use of soy:

![img](https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2021/02/Global-soy-production-to-end-use.png)

tofu = 2.6
soy_milk = 2.1
other_eg_tempeh = 2.2
oil = 13.2
poultry = 37
pig = 20.2
aquaculture = 5.6
other_animals = 4.9
dairy = 1.4
beef = 0.5
pets = 0.5
soybeans_fed_directly_to_livestock = 7
biodiesel = 2.8
lubricants = .3
other_industrial =  0.7

# RESULTS:

it looks like if we total them up, we actually get 101%.

total = other_industrial   lubricants   biodiesel   soybeans_fed_directly_to_livestock   pets   beef   dairy   other_animals   aquaculture   pig   poultry   oil   other_eg_tempeh   soy_milk   tofu
print(total)

# RESULTS:
: 101.0

we can use these numbers, anyway.

so how much of the total soybean crop is used for soybean oil?

non_oil_food_uses = other_eg_tempeh   soy_milk   tofu
percentage_of_beans_pressed_for_oil = total - non_oil_food_uses - soybeans_fed_directly_to_livestock
print(percentage_of_beans_pressed_for_oil)

# RESULTS:
: 87.1

and we can check this against the amount of soy meal that is produced as a byproduct of oil production with a little reasoning: a soybean is about 20% oil, so lets see what 80% of 87.1% is

oil_in_a_soybean = 20/100
meal_produced_from_a_soybean_pressed_for_oil = 80/100
how_much_meal_is_produced_globally = percentage_of_beans_pressed_for_oil * meal_produced_from_a_soybean_pressed_for_oil
print(how_much_meal_is_produced_globally)

# RESULTS:
: 69.67999999999999

well god damn. that's what the FAO said we fed to livestock!

so almost all soy (87%) is pressed for oil, and the industrial waste is fed to livestock.

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2 years ago