"Soybeans shipped all the way from South America are processed into soybean salad oil, made into tofu for vegetarians, and the leftover residue becomes animal feed." Reading this, I immediately felt something was wrong with my Dutch reading ability - I couldn't understand this sentence. This was written by the chairman of the agricultural union in Belgium's Dutch-speaking region, criticizing vegetarian groups for promoting "40 days without meat."

Soybeans from across the ocean - a killer of environmental sustainability?

EVA, located in Ghent, Belgium, continues and gives new meaning to the 40-day fast after the Christian carnival, and has gained responses from many civic groups and institutions. The union chairman, himself a dairy farmer, believes this group of hippie do-gooders has gone off the deep end, contradicting themselves, thinking they are superior - refusing to eat locally produced Belgian pork and beef, eating only those soybeans from far away. He stated bluntly that diesel cargo ships severely pollute the environment, transporting soybeans thousands of miles, and that soybeans are grown on farmland cleared by cutting down rainforest. He added that fortunately, Belgian livestock farming reuses the soybean residue left from tofu production, and that high-quality Belgian meat is what truly preserves environmental sustainability.

Delicious locally produced steak depends on imported feed

A few days later, my colleague Herbal Tea and vegetarian groups joined forces to respond continuously to the agricultural chairman's opinions, and only then did I believe my Dutch reading ability was fine after all! First, they explained that tofu's raw material is not salad oil; second, those soybeans that come from deforested rainforests aboard diesel container ships - 93% are used as animal feed. Furthermore, over 50% of the animal feed for Belgium's livestock and meat farming industry relies on imports. So the "local" steak the chairman is so proud of on his plate is not actually "locally" produced - without a high proportion of imported feed, there would be no way to provide meat for people to eat.

Only if Belgian people reduce their daily intake of beef, pork, chicken, etc., or even stop eating meat, would it be possible to eat animals that are locally raised from feed to growth, inside and out.

Herbal Tea also provided information that lets me eat tofu with peace of mind: soybeans from South America are genetically modified, and the EU does not allow the food industry to use genetically modified soybeans. Therefore, the tofu raw materials people buy come from the European continent, such as non-GMO soybeans grown in France, Italy, Ukraine, and Serbia.

Taiwan vs. Belgium comparison - Taiwanese eat more meat

Herbal Tea said that only if Belgian people reduce their daily intake of beef, pork, chicken, etc., or even stop eating meat, would it be possible to eat animals that are locally raised from feed to growth, inside and out.

Belgians follow the European way of eating, with steak, pork chops, and fish fillets commonly seen as main courses. I had long subjectively assumed that Westerners eating plated meat meant their total meat intake must exceed that of Taiwanese cooking methods using ground meat and shredded meat. But I was wrong!

According to NewsMarket, Taiwanese people consume 213.86 grams of meat per day, while nutritionists recommend 70 grams. Belgians eat an average of 111 grams of meat per day, while nutritionists recommend 100 grams. If both surveys used the same methodology, perhaps this could prove my subjective bias correct (laughs). But regardless, modern diets do tend to include too much meat, which in turn affects animal farming and expands the industrialization of meat processing, creating pollution problems and resource distribution problems that we easily overlook.

Looking through Taiwanese supermarket catalogs, or at popular barbecue restaurants, they compete to offer imported beef and pork from the US, Australia, Japan, and Spain. This reveals that meat-loving Taiwanese consumers prefer imported goods, unlike European meat-eaters who take pride in domestic hometown products. Perhaps Taiwanese consumers are eager to avoid food safety problems caused by unscrupulous merchants, and think less about the sustainable justice of the food production chain.

A first for Belgium's French-speaking region - official agriculture ministry goes head-to-head with vegetarian groups

The vegetarian promotion group Végétek, for the first time in the French-speaking Wallonia region and Brussels, simultaneously teamed up with EVA in the Dutch-speaking region to promote "40 days without meat." The official agriculture department quickly set up an "I am a farmer" website, posted promotional materials in food supermarkets everywhere, promoting the benefits of eating local, and incidentally smearing the vegetarian movement as out of touch with reality, eating only imported vegetarian fruits and vegetables, urging the public not to believe it easily. Both sides went back and forth, neither willing to yield.

The French-speaking vegetarian group cleverly waged an online war, using a one-character difference from the Walloon government's meat promotion website name to launch a new website explaining how meat consumption harms the Earth's environmental resources. The agriculture minister was furious and threatened to sue the vegetarian group for cybersquatting.

What if the milk foam in a rich latte were replaced with soy milk?

In contrast to the Dutch-speaking region, where vegetarianism has steadily grown and has established supporters, in Ghent - the city where the vegetarian movement was born - vegetarian groups used train car advertisements to encourage people to promote "not drinking milk" and instead drink plant-based milk products, such as soy milk, almond milk, and oat milk.

The dairy farming sector in the Dutch-speaking region was furious, pointing directly at these vegetarian activists as having gone too far. However, vegetarians who are nutritionists or biology experts analyzed the environmental pollution problems caused by humans drinking milk, as well as the fact that calves are forced to separate from their mothers right after birth - female calves will grow up to become dairy cows, while male calves enter the slaughter market. They also pointed out that to increase milk production, the dairy industry raises dairy cows into super-sized milk producers, and other problems of mass production after agricultural industrialization.

In other words, if a rich latte drink had no milk foam but instead soy milk foam, would you be willing? I have done various experiments with plant protein milk foam, and soy milk is still the one that can produce thick foam, though of course the taste is different from milk.

The traditional agriculture sector expanded the battlefield to the European Court of Justice, which ruled that plant protein products such as soy milk, oat milk, soy yoghurt, soy cheese, etc., cannot use the words milk, yoghurt, cheese, butter as product names, to avoid misleading consumers.

Open the fridge and look for the hidden soybeans

European people romantically imagine the juicy, tender steak and roast chicken on their plates come from nearby pastures, making them locally produced agricultural products. According to a WWF survey, each European person eats 61 kg of soybeans per year. Many people cannot believe it - they normally don't drink soy milk, don't eat tofu, don't buy soybeans at all, so how could they possibly eat over 60 kg of soybeans?!

Because European animal food relies on imported soybeans to make feed. For example, producing 100 grams of chicken breast requires an incredible 109 grams of soybean feed!

Our ancient Eastern dietary tradition, pushed along by Western concepts of sustainable eating, has become a debate between environmental groups and the agriculture sector. This is something that we soybean descendants with tofu blood in our veins would hardly associate with sustainability issues on the other side of the world.

Note: The image shows the Gilles costume from the La Louvière carnival in Belgium. Sourced from Pixabay.

"40 days without meat" was first held in 2011, and the seventh edition in 2017 expanded to 100,000 Belgian participants. The organizers cited Germany's survey of daily meat intake among Europeans, pointing out that Belgians have reduced meat consumption much faster than other European countries in recent years. They therefore believed they had established public awareness of the link between meat consumption and the environment and climate, achieving the goal of reducing meat consumption to ensure social sustainability, and decided to bring it to an end.

A year ago, I finished writing this article but left it unpublished. Even though time flies and the meat-free fast movement has ended, the differences between the agriculture sector and those pursuing environmental sustainability, and the fact that Europeans eat hidden soybeans every day, remain unchanged.