Postcard of the Day

[fflo]

 

Comments

[amw.livejournal.com]

I was so surprised to find out that this is a thing (I've never seen it at the grocery store), I just did a web search to find out what it is. Turns out they dehydrate alfalfa to make pellets to feed to cattle! It's so remarkable to me how large the industry is just to create food to feed to other animals, when the food could just as easily be eaten by humans directly.

I decided to try eat vegan on a whim a couple years ago and what really steeled my resolve was taking the Greyhound across the Great Plains and seeing all the soy bean fields, when I know Americans don't eat very much soy. I asked around and turns out those soy fields that go on for hundreds of miles are all there just to feed cows. Such a strange world we have built for ourselves.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

That is super interestin'. I was gonna look up the place myself and find out what it was all about.

Just heard on the radio this morning that soy beans are one of the U.S. products China's thinking about tarriffifying. Seems we send a lot of them abroad, for people and/or animals there.

It is indeed a strange world we have built for ourselves. Microplastic being eaten by plankton and all.

[amw.livejournal.com]

I was surprised the other day to hear how much American soy gets exported to China too! I mean, without a doubt, soy is very popular here. One of the classic street vendor breakfasts is youtiao (something like a donut/churro) with soy milk, and almost every bakery sells soy milk in the morning. Of course lots of people eat soy sauce and tofu too. For some reason i assumed it all grew here.

Sometimes i wish i knew a bit more about the global supply chain. It would be interesting to know what sorts of products get sent where and why. I guess for certain exotic things like coffee or tropical fruits it's obvious, but shipping staple crops around the world seems so odd to me.