Nausicaa

Unfortunate trend.

Switzerland now doesn't grant the full special status if you are from a "safe" region in ukraine, even though attacks are common there.

Source: SRF (in German)

Source

I found this graphic. Even if we feed the waste the industrial waste to livestock and deduct that from the demand for animals (76 % – 13.2 % = 62.8 %) which I don't think we can do 1:1, over 60 % of the world wide soy bean production is only done for animal feed. From the graphic I don't know if the mentioned waste is even fed to the animals.

But in the worst case scenario eating plant based would save 60 % of soy beans from ever being made, while the new demand from the plant based diets must be lower. Because lots of non-plant based people eat soy products already, especially in Asia and it still only makes up 20 % of the soy bean production right now.

Okay, but the AND has lots of articles on how to avoid deficiencies while eating animal products, isn't that kind of their job? As well the 2025 AND paper says "The target audience for this article is RDNs, NDTRs, and other health care practitioners." So it makes sense why they detail how to avoid deficiencies.

I am not saying just do whatever. But there are clearly upsides to a plant based diet that to me offset the work you have to do.

If you are interested you can check out acti-veg.

All of the included studies quantify impacts from ‘cradle-to-gate’. This means they include: Land use change; On-farm impacts in crop or livestock production (including the manufacturing of inputs such as fertilizers, or emissions from manure); Animal feed production; Food processing: the conversion of raw ingredients into sold products, such as the processing of cereals into bread; Transport: this includes transport from the farm up to retail. Transport of food from retail to consumers’ homes is not included. Packaging

I assume the paper means that byproduct by specifying "soybean cake" in a seperate category.

"Soybean cakes can therefore be considered inedible for humans but they are derived from an edible product and can be considered as the main driver of soybean production."; "If the EFA of the part used as feed material is > 66%, then the feed material is considered as the main driver of land-use and therefore in competition with food production. Practically, this is the case only for soybean cakes (EFA=72%)" https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gfs.2017.01.001

So the soybean byproduct is not a net positive with no drawbacks.

I used sci-hub.

I assume you mean this paper. It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that, in adults, appropriately planned vegetarian and vegan dietary patterns can be nutritionally adequate So they now limit the recommendation to adults. For older adults they paint an in my opinion pretty balanced take, but the recommendations they make are still applicable to older people that do not eat plant based.

"Facilitating vegetarian dietary patterns in individuals younger than age 18 years and/or for those pregnant or lactating requires specific guidance that considers how vegetarian dietary patterns may influence these crucial stages of growth and development and is outside the scope of this position paper." (source above). The way I am reading this, the paper doesn't mention young and pregnant people because that was not the aim of the paper, and not because they present clear evidence against it.

NHS scotland in 2025 said A vegetarian or vegan diet can be suitable for everyone. However, you might need to consider specific needs at different life stages – for example, children or if you’re pregnant, even though they did not list their sources.

The DGE said in 2024 For vulnerable groups, i.e. children, adolescents, pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and elderly people, the DGE cannot make a clear recommendation either in favour of or against a vegan diet due to limited available data

The NHS says During pregnancy and when breastfeeding, if you follow a vegan diet you'll need to make sure you get enough vitamins and minerals for your child to develop healthily., though this hasn't been updated since 2022, while the review date in 2025 has apparently passed but the guidance did not get reviewed. There are no sources for this page I can see.

So vegan diets are definitely suitable for adults and maybe or maybe not for other age groups / stages of life.

Just because somebody does eat animal products doesn't mean they automatically have good health, you have to think about how to get your nutrients with any diet. Taking a supplement of B12 / eating fortified foods is not difficult in europe.

Why not?

you're right, it is incorrect to say we could just switch it 1:1 to growing human food, Two-thirds of pastures are unsuitable for growing crops.

However also from the same source, We could let natural vegetation and ecosystems return to these lands, which would have large benefits for biodiversity and carbon sequestration if we eat less animal products. If there were less subsidies for animal products, people would buy less of them.

Instead of meat the EU should in my opinion subsidize plant based foods more whose climate impact is substantially less. Greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food product.

Contrary to commonly cited figures, 1 kg of meat requires 2.8 kg of human-edible feed for ruminants and 3.2 for monogastrics. By human-edible feed the paper means for example cereal grains, soybeans, pulses, banana and cassava (Fig. 1).

Plant-based diets can support healthy living at every age and life stage..

For the world: Source

For europe: At least 71% of the EU’s farmland is used to feed livestock, according to new research published by Greenpeace. Around 63% of arable land is dedicated to feeding farm animals.

Imagine if we used that land to grow crops for human consumption ...