Climavores: The protein we love to hate

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When a lot of people think of soy, they think of allergens, overly processed food, and man boobs. There’s even a current full-court press in some corners of the nutrition community to blame seed oils like soybean oil for disease and obesity. And that’s not even taking into account environmental concerns around deforestation in the Amazon and heavy pesticide and herbicide use in soy monocultures.

The U.S. grows 90 million acres of soybeans annually, second only to Brazil in global soybean production. And almost all of that U.S. soy is genetically modified, another red flag for environmentalists.

But Mike and Tamar say soy has gotten a bad rap. And it’s time to set the record straight.

This week, they dig into the nutritional and environmental benefits of soy and ask how soy became a proxy for the evils of industrial agriculture.

Resources:

• National Institute of Health on the myth of man boobs
• GOOP on seed oils
• farmdocDAILY on lower fertilizer use in soy vs. corn
• Our World in Data on soy’s bad reputation and whether it’s justified

Have a question about food and climate change for Mike and Tamar? Leave a message on the Climavores hotline at (508) 377-3449. Or email us at [email protected]. We might feature your question on a future episode.

Climavores is a production of Post Script Media.

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