Articles of the Green nationalists

Soy: an amazing bean

The past twenty years the use of soy has experienced an enormous growth in Europe. All around you find articles and studies being published on the benefits that the use of soy has on our health. Soy rapidly was seen as the ideal meat substitute and even the use of soy would be better for the environment.

An ideal product, the perfect protein, soy an amazing product.

The soybean originated in the orient. It is being used there for thousands of years, the earliest mentioning of soy dates back to 2838 BC. This detail is always mentioned in campaigns to make soy more popular. They want people to think that soy has been grown and consumed for thousands of years.
Think again! Until approximately thirty years ago soy in the raw form was considered inedible even in Asia where the bean has its origin. The soy plants where just used to fertilize the land. Soy in raw form is not only inedible but is also toxic for the human body. The soy must first be fermented through an extensive industrial process, before it can be considered as safe and edible. Nevertheless soy is on the menu for a long time in Asia, but only in the fermented form. In Asia it is also more common to eat soy in addition of meat or fish in stead of as a substitute for meat as it is proposed in the western world. The way we use soy over here in Europe is not as it is customary is Asia.

In Europe soy is primarily used for animal feedings and to fabricate soy oil. Due to the explosive demand for meat and the therefore enormous expansion of the bio-industry the import of soy has increased vastly. In the current time this comes down to 39 million tons of soy annually. The Netherlands after China is the biggest importer of soy in the world. Approximately 90% of the soy that is imported in Holland is used for cattle feedings. The remaining 10% is mostly processed into oil.

Soy or soy extracts can be found in various products. It is used in foods such as chocolate, pasta, margarine, sauces, vitamin products and so on. In addition soy is also used in many industrial products such as glue, paint, cosmetics, fire fighting equipment, ink etc. For us the consumer it is not always obvious that soy is used in a product. This is because the soy oil is referred to as vegetable fats and oils, and certain soy extracts are placed under an E number. People take in so much more soy than you would initially think.

Is soy really as good as governments and agencies want you to think and believe? Soy is associated with many profitable health claims. It should have a preventative effect against heart diseases, it should reduce the risk of cancer, it contains great proteins, it shouldn’t contain any fats or cholesterol, It should reduce the risk of baldness with men, as a substitute for meat it should be less stressful for the environment and the list continues. International advisory organs and food and drug authorities have been raving on for years about the great effects soy should have on our health and thus promote the widespread use of soy. It is true that there are certain beneficial nutrients in soy. Soy oil for example provides essential fatty acids, proteins and the eight essential amino acids. Essential means that the human body needs the nutrients but can’t make it themselves.

However soy also contains many chemicals that have a very negative impact on our health. One of these so called anti-nutrients blocks the effect of trypsin, a substance that is necessary for the absorption of nutrients in our body. Soy also contains the substance lectin; this substance makes it difficult for the intestines absorb important nutrients such as the vitamins A, D, E and B12. Soybeans also contain large amounts of fytat acids which inhibit the absorption of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc. It also contains high levels of aluminium which can contribute to a faster aging of our brain. Haemagglutinin is a substance found in beans but mainly in soy beans that makes red blood cells conglomerate, resulting in less oxygen being transported to organs and tissues. There are also large amounts of phyto- oestrogens in soy, different studies are inconclusive about the effects of these hormones on the human body. Now this is one of the problems, various studies point out different things. It is true that soy in the fermented form (tempeh and miso) contain less harmful substances than soy in unfermented form (soymilk and tofu).

The claim that soy reduces the impact on the environment is quickly to be overthrown. Due to the explosive demand for soy the production is being up scaled time after time. To comply with this production demand millions of acres of rainforest and savannah is destroyed. Between 2003 and 2005 already 70.000 km2 of the Brazilian Amazon forest was denuded. It is estimated that if this expansion (of the cultivation of the soybean) continues; by the year 2020 nearly 22 million acres of rainforest and savannah in Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina will have disappeared. They call this less damaging to the environment? And I didn’t even mention the transport of the soy beans yet which also causes a lot of pollution. The production of soy in South American countries (Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay) is encouraged by the IMF and the World Bank. The concerning countries borrowed money from these organizations and are therefore forced upon the neoliberal free trade to pay off their debts.

The only bad news about soy you find in the left wing media is because of the genetic modification. Genetically modified soy for example is Roundup ready soy, which is modified to withstand the toxicity of the herbicide Roundup. Roundup is a pesticide which kills al living things in the area it has been used on, without endangering the cultivation of soy. Monsanto, the company that distributes roundup, claims that with only the use of Roundup fewer pesticides are needed. Reality has already shown that the use of roundup will inevitably lead to more use of pesticides, which will be even more toxic, in the nearby future. This because the weeds are becoming more resistant to the roundup herbicide. It is claimed that the use of this product doesn’t have any negative effect on the human body. A substance that makes sure that every living thing (besides the soy) in the nearby vicinity is killed, would that really have no effect whatsoever on our health?

Farmers who produce soy are growing increasingly dependent on 1 multinational; Monsanto. This because the yearly seeds and pesticides are to be bought at this company. The American company Monsanto, the worlds largest agricultural and technology multinational, is responsible for the production of 90% of all genetically engineered crops in the world. The company has a patent on these genetically engineered crops which obliges the farmer to produce them according to Monsanto rules. Once in the claws of Monsanto a farmer is required to buy expensive seeds from Monsanto. In case of cross-pollination with the genetically engineered crops on a land of a farmer that is not already in a stranglehold by Monsanto will be obliged to pay them from then on. If they refuse to pay they will be sued extensively. If Monsanto suspects farmers from breaching any rule in the contract them to will be sued. In the White House Monsanto asserts its power through intensive lobbying. A lawyer from Monsanto alternated to the FDA, The U.S. agency that deals with food safety. Immediately after his instalment a lot of important resolutions were accepted in the involvement of transgenic plants or foods. After that was settled the lawyer went back to Monsanto to take up his former job.

Monsanto increases its monopoly position on the soy market each year. Because 1 multinational controls such a huge part of the market, a select group of people gain more and more money and money means power in this day and age. Organizations like the EFSA are under the spell of Monsanto and will evermore give positive advices on the use and import of genetically modified crops, even though there is no evidence whatsoever that the products gained from these crops are safe.

The strange thing in all of this is that Europe doesn’t even need to import so much soy for livestock feedings. It is easily possible to produce sufficient livestock feedings in Europe itself. Peas, clover and lupine also contain the necessary proteins. In Europe we also have a grain surplus of 20 million tons which now is being exported out of the EU. This could be used as livestock feedings as well. The agricultural economics research institute has calculated that the animals needed for today’s European meat and milk production can be fed without having to import any substances. But that would be “too expensive” for the large companies, they don’t want to lose not even a dime of their profits.

The countries exploited for the production of the soy are getting poorer. Their land increasingly degraded and polluted by the crop and the extensive use of pesticides. Society is being lied to that soy would be safe, beneficial to our health and less stressful to the environment. Society is being told that genetic modification is nothing special and nothing to fear. Everything for the benefit of multinationals such as Monsanto.

The soybean can indeed be called an amazing bean.

Bio-industry in the Netherlands

At the end of the forties one of the aims of the Dutch government was to assure food was cheap and available for everyone.

In the fifties it became clear that the growth and intensification of business was inevitable, because of the increased prosperity, to meet the demand for meat. Intensive farming that is the bio-industry was born. The Dutch government argued that agriculture and livestock
Had to experience the same kind of growth as seen before in other industries. Mechanization of farming and agriculture were encouraged, small businesses were liquidated or combined in large industries.

At the end of the fifties, the European Economic Community was founded resulting in a larger market for agriculture and livestock products. Expansion, mechanization, rationalization and specialisation were the key issues at that time. The Government sent out employees to convince farmers of the alleged need for expansion. The motto of that time, labour rationalization, meant that there had to be an as big as possible production in the least amount of time. The Dutch government hired scientists to investigate how agriculture and livestock production should be changed to increase as much as possible. Experimental farms were established where scientists did studies and tests, for example increasing the number of piglets a sow can give birth to annually. These experimental farms still exist today!

In the following years many major changes were made in livestock and agriculture in the Netherlands. Government employees found inspiration in other countries where after the government decided that it would be economically efficient to introduce so-called “battery systems” to the Dutch farmers. Chickens from then on could be kept in small cages on grids. Then it was the pigs turn, they from then on could also be kept in small cages on grids. Everything to generate more revenue per surface. Farmers were told that if they didn’t comply with the “inevitable growth” it wouldn’t take long for them to go bankrupt. If they wanted to survive, they had to cooperate. Everything was marked by economic progress, the welfare of the animal was never considered.

Animals are considered as products in the bio-industry, as much animals as possible have to be produced in the shortest amount of time and taking up the least amount of space. Labour, land and energy has to be saved upon. Most actions in the process, from breeding to slaughter, are carried out by automated machines such as chicken sorters, milk robots, conveyor belts, chicken sweepers, meat machines etc. To prevent animals from hurting each other because of frustration, boredom ore mutual aggression they are adapted to their environment. Teeth, wattles, beaks, tails and horns are removed or even burned off without any form of anaesthesia.

The animals life expectancy is modified, animals are especially bred for fast growth. This makes it possible to slaughter more animals in a year’s time. Because of this unusual fast growth the animal experiences a lot of health issues and risks. Many animals don’t make it to the defined slaughter age, but that is perceived as economically acceptable.

Alarmingly is the use of large amounts of antibiotics in the bio-industry. These antibiotics come in handy for farmers, because it works both growth enhancing and inhibitory to viruses. It is estimated that in the Dutch livestock sector 400.000 kg antibiotics are used annually. The antibiotics end up in the final product, and thus ultimately in the consumer. The feeding for the animals is artificially made up to enhance the fastest possible growth. Cheap raw materials are imported from third world countries to construct the most economically efficient possible food.

In southern European countries it is possible to slaughter the animals a few cents cheaper then in Holland, so many animals are put on transport to foreign countries. For days the animals are trapped without any food or water. If at birth it shows that an animal may not be sufficient enough the animal is killed immediately. The current legislation doesn’t talk about animals, but about products or kilograms per square meter.

Some examples of the gross animal abuse that takes place within the bio-industry:

Chicks
Tens of thousands of chickens are thrown together in a hall. In the beginning they still have some room to walk around, but chicks grow rapidly. The limited space they had is fast gone. When the chicks reach the age of 6 weeks, they are considered “ripe” for slaughter. So called chicken catchers grab the chickens and stuff them into crates. This happens so roughly that many chicks contract wing or bone fractures. When the crate is closed often a chick has its wing or leg clamped between the crate and the lid of the crate. The crates overfilled with chicks are loaded into trucks and put on transport to the slaughterhouse. On arrival they are unloaded on a conveyor belt. This conveyor takes them to a place where they are manually put on hooks (by their legs). Then they are run to a low voltage electrified bath by their heads. The strength of the electric shock they are submitted to is very low; so many animals are not sufficiently anesthetized. Then the chicks are passed through a rotating blade, where their throat is cut through. It often happens that the throat of the chick is not sufficiently cut through, so the “work” is manually finished.

Calves,
Chest calves are placed in a box after birth in which they can move as little as possible, so the calf can’t grow any muscular tissue. The calf never gets to drink milk from his own mother, they get fed a bucket of milk twice a day. This milk contains little iron, a nutrient necessity for the protection of the calf’s health. Because of the little iron the calves take in they are sure to suffer from anaemia. This anaemia makes sure their flesh stay white in stead of turning red as it is supposed to. The white meat of the calves brings up more money in the market so farmers keep the calves deliberately sick.

Ducks and geese
Ducks are confined in individual cages and geese are kept in small communal areas. The ducks get two times a day and the geese three times a day a 30 inch long funnel tube stuffed down their throats, by which they get 1 kg of corn porridge immediately inserted in their stomachs each time. Another way to force feed the ducks and geese is by stuffing a tube down their throat which shoots down (by air pressure) dough balls soaked in milk or oil, or grain and fat immediately into the stomach of the animals. Beside that the ducks and geese only get salted water so thirst can be generated. All these interventions are used so the liver will experience an abnormal growth.

These are just some of the harrowing stories about how animals are abused and mistreated by the bio-industry. Every animal has its own suffering!
Overproduction
Because of the many measures applied in the bio-industry Holland is the most cattle dense country in the entire world. Every year the bio-industry “produces” 450.000.000 animals.
The Netherlands daily exports 1.000.000 “pieces” of live poultry, 20.000 pigs and 60.000 piglets. Approximately 5.2 million living farm animals leave the Netherlands annually. In the first place because it’s a few cents cheaper to slaughter the animals abroad and in the second place because the countries which import the animals prefer to slaughter the animals in their own way or country.

Dutch businesses spend approximately 250 million Euros a year for the promotion of Dutch agricultural export products, which is the biggest amount of money a country spends in the entire EU. The large amount of money is spend in this fashion is easy to justify when you see the millions of profits these companies make every year.
Holland is one of the biggest meat exporting country of the world.

Vivisection

For centuries animals have been abused for many research purposes. Millions of animals became the victim of sometimes extremely cruel experiments. For a lot of these experiments the real purpose is questionable. It is true that vivisection in the past has helped to develop several drugs and vaccines. The question is whether it is still necessary to use animal testing nowadays.

Reptiles, ferrets, cats, goats, dogs, horses, sheep, amphibians, cattle, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, pigs, fish, birds, rats and mice. These are all animals to undertake numerous tests each day in the Netherlands. A total of about 600.000 animals are annually diverted to animal testing in the Netherlands alone. The main purpose of these tests are generally for medical reasons. The animals are being deliberately infected with various diseases for these studies, such as hepatitis or HIV. Besides using vivisection as a means for medical studies, animals are also used for testing other things; such as the toxicity of (the ingredients of) cleaning detergents and many other purposes. As an example psychology students use animals for the most absurd tests. Some of these bizarre animal tests consist of intentionally addicting the animal to some sort of substance after which the students will examine how the animals react after long abstinence, sudden cessation of the substance or to an overdose.

Increasingly genetically engineered animals are used for both medical and biological research.
Researchers try to create the perfect animal for the testing, eliminating or creating certain qualities in the animal. Since animals are in many ways different to humans they adjust the animal so that they are genetically more like us. To create the “perfect” animal researchers crossbreed the animals over and over again meanwhile selecting the animals that correspond to the disease they want to investigate. Through constant inbreeding animals arise who contain the desired diseases or disorders. Given the fact humanity has learned more about the genetic codes during the recent decades it is now possible for researchers to “built in” hereditary characteristics (characteristics seen only in humans) directly in to the animal. All the changes made to the animals DNA are permanent, all of their offspring will carry the same anomalies. The patrons of genetic engineering claim that this genetic engineering will eventually lead to a decline in the number of animals needed for vivisection. The animal will automatically contain the desired piece of genetic code through birth. They forget to mention that before the “perfect desired animal” is created millions of animals will lose their life during the process. Every year more than 300.000 animals are genetically engineered for research purposes. Less than one quarter of these animals are actually going to be used for research. The other three quarters will be slain instantly, they are not “useful”, they don’t carry the desired gene or they are simply said not fully compliant.

Most animals, who are subjected to testing, will die afterwards. Sometimes the death is a significant part of the test because researchers want to know how the testing has affected the internal organs. Some animals might get so “lucky” that they can be recycled for another or even a third test but for the majority of the animals this is not the case. The advocates of animal testing always use the argument of the “humane endpoints”, which means that animals who contract a fatal disease or a tumor during the test will be euthanized before the symptoms get to severe. By this method animals should experience less suffering. The one thing they don’t tell you is that the animal will only be euthanized if this doesn’t interfere with the specific test. If the researchers perceive it as an important part of the test to see the animals languish and demise, by diseases if in humans would be seen as abominable, the will simply do it. During testing the animal is regarded as simply an object. Such rules as the humane endpoints are easily tampered with and only meant to soothe the minds of opponents of vivisection. Of course there is the need to better understand certain diseases and try to develop a cure or vaccine for them, but is absurd that so many animals have to suffer for this cause.
Nowadays there are many alternatives for animal testing; such as cells that are kept alive in a test tube, stem cells, bacteria and/ or computer simulations. It is ridiculous to think that without animal testing for example the quest for finding a cure for cancer could not continue.
Progress in research doesn’t go accordingly with animal cruelty. Unfortunately governments and companies do not see the need to implement these changes. To date, much more money is invested in vivisection, annually around 500 million Euros, then there is money invested to find an alternative to vivisection, annually about 3. 5 million Euros.

The Dutch government could easily change something to the situation the animals have to live their lives. They could for example pas a law would restrict vivisection, one that is not easily diverted by companies and researchers. Why isn’t our government doing this? Of course there are some political parties who are against vivisection, but in our current political system they are a minority. Also the EU has the Netherlands on a tight leash, we have to conform to what the EU decides. If for example the Netherlands would ban the import of products tested on animals we would be sued by a council of the EU. They will not allow “unfair competition” for companies who do use animal testing. Of course the aspect money is a big deal in the whole matter. A huge sum of money revolves in the companies that use animal testing. For the companies and nowadays governments making (more) money is always more important then the welfare of animals.
Luckily, more and more protests arise against animal testing. Ever more people come to see that with the current technologies it is no longer needed to abuse animals for all sorts of nonsense studies. On march 11 2009 there has already been made a significant step forwards in the battle against animal testing; a European ban on using vivisection for cosmetics or importing cosmetics for which animal testing has been used. Fortunately that is already one less ridiculous reason for which animals are abused. But who knows this again could only be a thing to keep people who care about animals quiet. Only time can tell if there ever will be a complete end to the massive suffering that is vivisection.

Pantheon Rising wrote:The top two reminded me very much of the documentary Food Inc. as it touched on the exact same topics; most notably Monsonto's relation to farmers and the government.

"Animal's rights" and the Environment is an issue I am very serious about and with the coming of socialism I only see the liberation of animals, not to be our property and to be used and abused, but to stand next to us like our faithful companions they are.

Nationaal-Syndicalist wrote:I'm also very sceptic at some parts of the ecological movement, especcially now "ecology" and "green" has become a lucrative slogan for the Capitalists, who developed a whole new branch of "green" industry. These are connected with all kind of "actiongroups" and enviromental organisations who promote these "green products" which are in most cases as destructive as the products they'll have to replace.