SOY

written by

posted on

December 3, 2024

We've had a breakthrough in soy. For the umpteenth time, a patron asked whether or not we use soy.

If you've been reading these blogs, you know I dealt at length with PUFAS (Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids) in September, but I did not have the definitive data I now have. Thanks to this patron, my hunch has been confirmed.

The anti-soy/PUFA (Omega 6) mentality permeates the wellness community for good reason. Many farmers like us, trying to meet the demands of patrons, immediately do all they can to eliminate any vestige of questionable material. However, as I explained in September, wellness fads can whipsaw back and forth as easily as pharmaceutical fads.

Studies linking soy to any number of issues abound, but I've always questioned if it's processed, or broken apart, soybeans versus soybean meal.

Most feedstocks for animals use only the meal, which has all the oils pressed out. The oil is too valuable to feed to animals; it's more valuable to sell to humans. Besides, animal rations are after the protein, not the oils.

To my knowledge, none of the "soy studies" use whole soybeans; they only use the oil-less soybean meal. We all know that breaking apart whole foods, especially in ultra-processing, changes their nutritional and metabolic capacity dramatically. Think about the difference between high fructose corn syrup and corn on the cob.

One of the reasons I've come to this conclusion is because for many years we've had soy-allergic patrons eat our chickens without any problems.

We've had our chickens checked by energy fields, pendulums, crystals, chromatography --yes, we have all sorts of fringe patrons. But we love the various ideas seekers bring to the table-- literally.

Here is the linoleic acid percentage (omega 6) difference between whole soybeans and soybean meal:

That's an off-the-charts difference. What about substitutes people often use to satisfy the anti-soy folks? The most common is either peas or fish. Here is the linoleic acid percentage in those:

In other words, the low end of whole soybeans is statistically identical to the upper end of the peas and fish. And as a practical matter, in farm feedstuffs, nobody checks. What about some other substitutes?

Here you go:

Every single one of these is far higher than whole soybeans.

Why is this important?

Because at Polyface, we use whole soybeans, non-Genetically Modified, from local farmers in our omnivore feed rations (poultry and pigs).

None of the substitutes grows around here and our oceans are already being overfished.

Our use of whole soybeans patronizes local farmers in an enterprise they know how to grow and have the infrastructure to plant and harvest. Neighborly mutual interdependence.

Is it perfect? Nothing this side of paradise is perfect. If you're looking for perfection, you could argue that eggs and chickens shouldn't even be grown commercially but should be a byproduct of kitchen scrap recycling like they've historically been. But we're far away from that, so let's use our information and techno-infrastructure to grow them the best and most efficient way we can, with a view to the whole planet's ecology.

Due to the tests and anecdotal patron stories surrounding Polyface pastured poultry and pork, I've felt fairly confident that my hunch about the difference between soybean meal and whole soybeans was accurate. Now I'm thrilled to have definitive proof.

Both you as patrons and us as purveyors, can hold our heads high knowing that the poultry and pork from Polyface adhere to high standards both nutritionally and ecologically.

And to make sure it's not missed, thank you for getting unprocessed meat and poultry.

The breading and additives on ultra-processed meat and poultry are toxic, even if the raw protein isn't. Never have domestic culinary arts been easier. Great-grandma would swoon if she saw our techno-gadgetized kitchens.

Thank you for scratch cooking, for eating together as a family, for enjoying left-overs (the benchmark of those who "get it"), and for voting for health with your food dollars.

We're all in this together, and we're delighted to be sharing the wellness journey with you. Now go eat some Polyface pork and chicken.

Thank you.

-Joel

soy

Chicken

Pork

pigs

Food Shortages

I'm in Oregon today speaking at the Azure Harvest Festival and a question from the audience during a Q&A stimulated a lot of discussion: "What do you think about the possibility and preparation surrounding food shortages?" David Stelzer, founder of Azure Standard, answered that the issue is not food volume, it's food nutrition. That was an interesting answer that has a lot of merit. As a nation, we are overfed and undernourished. This is the crux of the MAHA movement and the epidemic diseases we see in our country. At Polyface, we know the pastured meat and poultry we produce is far superior in essential phytochemicals and other nutrients due to the carotenes, exercise, and stress-free habitat we offer. You can taste the difference, feel the difference in texture, and measure it empirically. Perhaps my most poignant affirmation was our cat test. We purchased meat from the supermarket and offered our own for the four cats. They wouldn't touch the conventional meat (ground beef). Even though two plates and four cats would be much easier to accommodate if they spread out, all four crowded around the plate with our meat, eating it all and licking it up, before later sniffing and gingerly eating the supermarket counterpart. Since cats don't understand TV ads or USDA propaganda, they know what's good and what's not. We encourage anyone dismissive of food differences to ask their pets: you can trust them far more than doctors and experts. Yes, I get the nutrient deficiency angle on the shortage question. But I'd like to explore it a bit further. Right now, the world throws away more human-edible food, as a percentage of production, than at any time in human history. The planet is awash in food. Some 40 percent gets thrown away because it has a slight blemish, exceeds the sell-by date, or is tainted in some way. We have a fundamentally segregated food supply rather than an integrated one, and that creates a lot of unusable waste. The vulnerabilities of our food system, I think, are much more subtle. When I was in Uruguay two years ago, speaking at a conference, one of the other presenters was from Germany and showed a soil map of the globe. Not a single commercial agricultural region had a stable or positive soil trajectory. Every single area on the planet is losing soil; some faster than others, but globally our soil depletion continues without any sign of abatement. This is not a good trajectory. As much as the technocrats promise food without soil, that's not the way to bet. Soil is the skin of the earth. When it goes, famine results. The main difference now compared to centuries ago is that we have the capacity to move food around. Nobody starves due to a lack of food on the planet; they starve due to socio-political unrest and dysfunction. But what happens when massive areas can't grow anything anymore? Even being able to move food around doesn't help when there isn't enough. The soil trajectory does not look good. But at Polyface, we're building soil. Areas covered with shale (layered rocks) half a century ago now have a foot of soil on them. That's not the 3-5 feet that 150 years of inappropriate tillage eroded, but it's a build-back start. In addition to soil loss, as a planet we're seeing hydrologic decreases. The Oglala aquifer, which undergirds the irrigated agriculture in five states, has dropped more than 100 feet in the last half-century. At its current rate, it will be unpumpable in about 50 more years. Imagine if all those circular irrigation pivots in Nebraska and Kansas shut down. What then? At Polyface, we keep building ponds to inventory surface runoff. By definition, surface runoff occurs when rains come too fast at once or too much at one time for the soil to absorb it. Holding that and using it strategically in a drought is a way to reduce flooding during rain events and grow grass when it gets dry. This is one of the most landscape resilient techniques we can implement. Finally, major animal and plant diseases threaten the world's food systems like never before. African swine fever, hoof and mouth disease in cattle, and bird flu in poultry appear to be getting worse and covering larger areas. Why? We believe it's because chemicals and factory farming compromise the immunological systems in both plants and animals. Monocrops and chemical fertilizers wreak havoc on immune systems, opening the planet's food systems to new levels of fragility. In contrast, at Polyface, we believe happy animals and biodiversity offer the best antidote to immunological deficiency. Stress from unsanitary conditions, mono-species density, or dietary deficiency (rations or fertilizer) invites disease. Nature uses disease to cull the weak. Predators pick off the stragglers. This is the way biology works. But at Polyface, we keep these vulnerabilities at bay with compost fertilization, pasture rotations, and lots of species diversity, including pollinators and wildlife. Here's the point: the basic long-term vulnerabilities in the planet's food systems could all be reversed with practices Polyface uses every day. Looked at another way, the entire food shortage question could be answered if eaters and farmers implemented these ecological and immunological protocols, working together to rather than completely separated. We don't need to fall into an abyss of starvation. If we all simply began eating food from farms that build soil, increase water, and stimulate immunity, we could deliver a hospitable, abundant planet to our children. Reversing these trajectories wouldn't take much time or money. It takes intentionally-minded folks who connect the chain of sustenance from their plate to the planet. Polyface patrons do that. Thank you. Let's heal the land together. Joel

SOY

More from the blog

Food Shortages

Choosing Your Farmers

The Crisis Beneath Our Feet

About

Education

Polyface Farms

Healing the land one bite at a time!