For starters, soya GM and heavily sprayed with pesticides, and, as at 2013/14 when I wrote the original of this page, 91% of soya grown in the US alone was GM, with 80% of the GM crop sprayed with Roundup so crop production could be improved by killing the weeds.
Unlike the Asian culture, where people eat small amounts of non-GM fermented soya bean products, western food companies separate the un-fermented soya bean into two golden commodities - protein and oil. And here’s apparently where the problem lies. Studies show that consuming un-fermented soya is linked to digestive distress, immune-system breakdown, thyroid dysfunction, cognitive decline, reproductive disorders, infertility, cancer and heart disease (so says Dr. Kaayla Daniel, author of ‘The Whole Soya Story’).
Here’s another huge fact and related to our horses – a staggering 80% of the world’s soya is apparently grown for farm animal feed, which just for the record is also why soya production is contributing to deforestation - we've all seen the heartbreakingly sad travesty that is the orangutan natural habitat displacement, in order to clear continent-sized tracts of land to grow soya.
So, apart from soya being both GM and soaked in chemicals, while continuing to make thousands of orangutans homeless, here are some more facts as to why I’d rather not feed it to my horses.
So why do equine feed producers include soya in horse feed? One reason only - it's a cheap protein source. However ... soya contains natural toxins known as anti-nutrients, some of which interfere with the crucial protein-digesting enzymes. There are much better alternatives to adding protein into your horse's diet, i.e. hemp seed, linseed or sainfoin, but the best source? Hay. Pure and simple.
Sources:
https://equinechallengesupplements.com/soy-in-horse-feeds-the-silent-antinutrient/
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