So the baby formula research is proving to be a whole lot harder then I first expected. Today, I found the carbon footprint of a cheeseburger, a glass of milk and a variety of the usual products (SUVs for example,) but no matter how hard I searched, I could not find the carbon footprint of soy baby formula, or even soy milk for that matter, although all the soy milk companies market their product by claiming the carbon footprint for soy milk is much lower then the carbon footprint for cow's milk.
While this is undoubtedly true, I found some distrubing stats on soy production in general...one website had this to say "soy farming in South America doubled in the past five years-from 44 million acres in 1999 to 94 million in 2004."
Also, giving soy formula to a baby apparently equals giving five birth control pills a day because of the estrogen, which some wingnut was claiming is why we have so many gay folks in this country...I wanted to post on his blog, "then how do you explain animals who are gay...or leisbains for that matter?"
Anyway, if anyone out there knows of a good place to start looking for stuff like that, please let me know. I wrote an e-mail to these soy product companies: white wave foods, which makes Silk Soy Milk and Horizon Diary Products, The Vermont Soy Company, which makes Vermont Organic Soy Milk, and SoyFoods, which actually is the overarching company which includes White Wave...this is what my e-mail said...Hello,
My name is Kimberly Henderson and I am a midwifery student/environmental student in search of information on the carbon footprint of a 12 oz container of soy baby formula. Since this information seems elusive, I'm starting with soy milk and then I'm going to add in the other things that are in baby formula once I find information on soy milk.
Anyway, I'd greatly apprieciate any information you might have.
Thank you,
Kim H
Love ya,
Carrot
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Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but maybe useful anyway.
http://grist.org/advice/ask/2005/10/12/meat/
http://www.mercola.com/article/soy/index.htm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89808292
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~Fallon~
An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't- A. France
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Why exactly is it disturbing that the soy production in South America has doubled in the last five years?
www.progressiveu.org/blog/americangirlinchina
http://www.aidenvironment.org/soy/03_factsheet_soy_aug05.pdf
It's a factsheet about it. If you scroll down to the second page, they cover the environmental impact and have photos of the forest clearing soy production requires.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
That's quite damaging. Now, are more soybeans really that important? I think not.
www.progressiveu.org/blog/americangirlinchina