Eco-conscious fashions are sometimes not much better, or even worse, than the status quo.
Last week, I wrote about the global plastics treaty that is being negotiated by the United Nations Environment Programme. It is fueled by a popular but thoroughly misguided view that demonised plastic as a polluting product of the consumer capitalism age that does more harm than good.
With the kind of people who resent capitalism for equally misguided reasons, the idea that plastic is bad is not such a big leap in their confirmation-bias journey.
As a consequence, there are campaigns, for example, to replace plastic shopping bags with paper or canvas bags, even though these supposedly ‘eco-friendly’ alternatives are demonstrably much worse from an overall environmental footprint perspective than the cheap and cheerful disposable bag they seek to replace.
A recent news report highlights the perverse fact that since 2000, the Scottish government has felled almost 16 million trees – more than 1 700 per day – on publicly-owned land to make way for wind farms.
The electric vehicles in which the eco-conscious like to parade are produced with materials mined in the Congo by miners who have never even heard of electric cars and work in life-shortening conditions for starvation wages.
This happens with a lot of eco-conscious fashions. People tend not to think too far or too critically when it comes to feel-good, guilt-assuaging behaviour. They don’t bother much with the hard data that would support or contradict their virtue-signalling.
Soy beans
Another such fashion is the popularity of food products, and particularly oil, derived from soy beans.
These are popular mostly owing to the rise of vegetarian and vegan diets, which have necessitated meat replacements that are high in nutrients such as iron and vitamin B.
Soy products like tofu, tempeh, and soy milk are low in saturated fat and cholesterol-free, and have been linked to potential health benefits. (Note the markers of uncertainty: ‘linked to’ and ‘potential’.)
When you meet someone for the first time, how can you tell they’re vegan?
You thought I was going to say they’ll tell you. Which is true. They will. Virtue-signalling and judging meat-eaters is among their favourite pastimes.
If they don’t, their skinny, under-nourished body, their ashen, lined face that looks ten years older than they really are, and their constant picking at trail mix will tell you all you need to know.
(I know. I over-generalise. But it is hard to obtain all necessary nutrients from a vegan or vegetarian diet, especially for children, pregnant women and the elderly. Even vegans admit it is so hard to sustain a vegan lifestyle that only 16% of converts succeed. To look and be healthy going vegan or vegetarian is certainly possible, but it takes time, skill and effort in meal planning and cooking, all of which are in short supply among us working stiffs. Get it wrong, and you miss out on essential nutrients like saturated fats, collagen proteins, long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, iron and vitamin B12, which you need to keep that glowing, youthful complexion.)
Public image
Soy has a public image of being environmentally friendly, on the grounds that it requires fewer resources than livestock agriculture and produces lower carbon emissions.
In a simplistic sense, that is of course true for any plant-based alternative to animal products. However, this claim has been wildly exaggerated. Giving up meat would not do all that much for the climate, and it ignores the fact that it is much harder to meet nutrient requirements for large, poor populations without relying upon meat.
Soy is also grown for its oil, which is an economically-attractive vegetable oil. Soy is one of the most widely-grown crops in the world.
However, despite its large global footprint, and perhaps thanks to its eco-conscious fashion status, soy oil has escaped the critiques that have attached, sometimes unfairly so, to rival vegetable oils.
Allow me to correct this oversight.
Ecosystem impacts
About 80% of the world’s soy is produced in the United States, Brazil and Argentina. Some 20% of the world’s soy production is used in human food (most of the rest is for animal feed, with a small share for biofuels and other industrial uses).
China is the world’s largest importer and consumer of soy, and soy is a daily staple in the countries of south-east Asia.
The acreage under soy production has increased 15-fold since the 1950s, and the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) is concerned. Since it can be harvested only once per life-cycle, increasing soy production is largely dependent on using more land to plant soy.
As a source of vegetable oil, which accounts for almost 70% of the soy products used for human consumption, soy compares poorly. It delivers a mediocre yield per hectare, so it requires more land to produce.
Soy for oil production occupies almost 30% of oil crop acreage worldwide, supplying 28% of the world’s vegetable oil demand. By comparison, palm oil makes up around 40% of the current global vegetable oil supply, despite occupying only around 5.5% of the total global oil crop area.
‘Without proper safeguards, the soybean industry is causing widespread deforestation and displacement of small farmers and indigenous peoples around the globe’, the WWF says. ‘To ensure that soybean expansion does not further harm natural environments and indigenous communities, WWF is encouraging the development of better production practices. We call for transparent land-use planning processes and promote responsible purchasing and investment policies.’
As with any other crop, soy production has significant environmental impacts. It can lead to soil erosion, requires a lot of fresh water, and the fertiliser and pesticides used in its production pollute soil, waterways and subsurface aquifers. It increases emissions associated with land-use change, and contributes to habitat and biodiversity loss.
Human impacts
Soy production also has social impacts, some of which are negative. There has been little research on direct impacts, but indirect impacts as a consequence of harm to ecosystem services are demonstrably negative. Very little work has been done on measuring, managing, or mitigating these impacts.
For all its reputation as a healthy food, soy consumption has also been linked with serious negative health effects.
In animal studies, soybean oil has been found to cause obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, and fatty liver disease.
Even more worryingly, soy oil – unlike other vegetable oils – has also been implicated in neurological conditions like autism, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, and depression.
It has been associated with changes in gene expression in the hypothalamus, a region of the brain that regulates metabolism, body temperature, reproduction, physical growth and stress response. Among the changes to roughly 100 affected genes is one that reduces the presence of the ‘love hormone’ oxytocin.
Although studies in animals do not prove harm in humans, two of the study’s authors have rung warning bells.
‘The dogma is that saturated fat is bad and unsaturated fat is good. Soybean oil is a polyunsaturated fat, but the idea that it’s good for you is just not proven’, Frances Sladek, a University of California at Riverside toxicologist and cell biologist told the university’s news wire.
‘If there’s one message I want people to take away, it’s this: reduce consumption of soybean oil,’ said Poonamjot Deol, the study’s lead author.
Ironic
It is ironic that a type of vegetable oil (and its associated food products) that rarely receives critique in the popular media could be worse both for the environment and for human health than rival oils – like palm oil – that take a lot of unfair flak, or have largely cleaned up their act.
Fashionable, eco-friendly and health-conscious choices are rarely quite as simple as they may seem. Behind the happy marketing, there is usually a complex story of trade-offs and under-reported impacts and risks.
This is certainly the case with soy products. They don’t significantly outperform rivals in terms of the qualities desired in food and food processing, but their popularity gives them a certain immunity from criticism on both health and environmental grounds.
Life is never quite so simple and tidy. Soy products, and soy oil in particular, may be popular, but they have significant downsides too.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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