Almonds are a big one that I know of. The vast majority of the world’s almonds are grown in California, a state that has been facing severe drought for years now (though maybe not so much this year), but somehow still finds hundreds of billions of gallons of water yearly to keep almond farms irrigated.
And eating almonds is one thing, but processing them into milk is an order of magnitude more wasteful. It takes about 400 almonds to make a half gallon of almond milk, and each one of those almonds requires a gallon of water to produce. So that’s 400 gallons of water spent to produce a half gallon of almond milk. A single almond tree can make about 30 gallons of almond milk per harvest, so we’re looking at 24,000 gallons of water consumed per tree, which yields a full shelf of Almond Breeze at a single grocery store.
And as farms keep expanding and conditions become drier and drier over time, it’s going to destroy the ecosystems of the state. And all so that people can have a decent milk alternative to have with their morning coffee and cereal.
The majority of California’s water usage is going to beef and dairy. They are large producers of animal feed which are heavy water users. Per liter, dairy milk requires 628.2 L of freshwater vs almond milk requiring 371.46 L of freshwater. And if you use something like oat milk instead that gets you to 48.24 L
One graph even has California’s animal feed water usage so large it actually goes off the chart at 15.2 million acre-feet of water (it is distorted to make it fit as it notes). For some comparison, the blue water usage of animal feed is larger than all of almonds water usage of ~2 million acre-feet of water
Correspondingly, our hydrologic modelling reveals that cattle-feed irrigation is the leading driver of flow depletion in one-third of all western US sub-watersheds; cattle- feed irrigation accounts for an average of 75% of all consumptive use in these 369 sub-watersheds. During drought years (that is, the driest 10% of years), more than one-quarter of all rivers in the western US are depleted by more than 75% during summer months (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Fig. 2) and cattle-feed irrigation is the largest water use in more than half of these heavily depleted rivers
I don’t think anyone is arguing that, particularly when looking at how much devastation is done to the Amazon Rainforest all for the sake of livestock.
Just pointing out an example of how even food items that are vegan may also have a significant negative impact upon the environment (and as mentioned above, some also impact the rights of workers) that folks should take into consideration when deciding upon food choices. Even if something is technically vegan, it does not necessarily mean it is sustainable or ethical.
Personally, I prefer oat milk or rice milk over almond milk because those options have a significantly smaller footprint. If protecting the environment is a priority for someone who made the decision to be vegan, they might want to consider cutting out almonds (or at least almond milk), too.
There have been multiple people claiming the opposite on this very post. That is why I interpreted the original comment that way. The impression I see many people have is that almonds are the driver of water usage of the colorado river and they miss that dairy and beef are responsible for >50% alone
Are almonds great, no, but are they worse than dairy milk in terms of water usage as many people think, also no the opposite is true.
Almonds are a big one that I know of. The vast majority of the world’s almonds are grown in California, a state that has been facing severe drought for years now (though maybe not so much this year), but somehow still finds hundreds of billions of gallons of water yearly to keep almond farms irrigated.
And eating almonds is one thing, but processing them into milk is an order of magnitude more wasteful. It takes about 400 almonds to make a half gallon of almond milk, and each one of those almonds requires a gallon of water to produce. So that’s 400 gallons of water spent to produce a half gallon of almond milk. A single almond tree can make about 30 gallons of almond milk per harvest, so we’re looking at 24,000 gallons of water consumed per tree, which yields a full shelf of Almond Breeze at a single grocery store.
And as farms keep expanding and conditions become drier and drier over time, it’s going to destroy the ecosystems of the state. And all so that people can have a decent milk alternative to have with their morning coffee and cereal.
The majority of California’s water usage is going to beef and dairy. They are large producers of animal feed which are heavy water users. Per liter, dairy milk requires 628.2 L of freshwater vs almond milk requiring 371.46 L of freshwater. And if you use something like oat milk instead that gets you to 48.24 L
https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impact-milks
One graph even has California’s animal feed water usage so large it actually goes off the chart at 15.2 million acre-feet of water (it is distorted to make it fit as it notes). For some comparison, the blue water usage of animal feed is larger than all of almonds water usage of ~2 million acre-feet of water
https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ca_ftprint_full_report3.pdf#page=25
This is true across the American West as a whole
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1064&context=wffdocs
I don’t think anyone is arguing that, particularly when looking at how much devastation is done to the Amazon Rainforest all for the sake of livestock.
Just pointing out an example of how even food items that are vegan may also have a significant negative impact upon the environment (and as mentioned above, some also impact the rights of workers) that folks should take into consideration when deciding upon food choices. Even if something is technically vegan, it does not necessarily mean it is sustainable or ethical.
Personally, I prefer oat milk or rice milk over almond milk because those options have a significantly smaller footprint. If protecting the environment is a priority for someone who made the decision to be vegan, they might want to consider cutting out almonds (or at least almond milk), too.
There have been multiple people claiming the opposite on this very post. That is why I interpreted the original comment that way. The impression I see many people have is that almonds are the driver of water usage of the colorado river and they miss that dairy and beef are responsible for >50% alone
Are almonds great, no, but are they worse than dairy milk in terms of water usage as many people think, also no the opposite is true.