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Milk's impact on the planet dairy, soya, rice, oat and almond compared

sConsumer feature here on sustainable milks, so not much science to see, would need more research, but it seems hemp and pea protein milk are best in terms of health and sustainability, soy milk really bad, other milks fall in between.

How to choose the healthiest, most sustainable milk alternative

ETA: I've tried them all, would have to say I like Oat Milk the bestest for taste, and Hemp isn't bad - I hated pea protein, it has a vegetable aftertaste that I found manky.

ETA also: scrub that, I don't think I have tried pea protein milk, I tried a pea protein powder and it was that which tasted foul. Deffo for the Oat milk though, it uses 6 times less water than your earth-raping almonds!
 
Wookey said:
Consumer feature here on sustainable milks, so not much science to see, would need more research, but it seems hemp and pea protein milk are best in terms of health and sustainability, soy milk really bad, other milks fall in between.

How to choose the healthiest, most sustainable milk alternative

ETA: I've tried them all, would have to say I like Oat Milk the bestest for taste, and Hemp isn't bad - I hated pea protein, it has a vegetable aftertaste that I found manky.
Click to expand...

I believe there is a potato milk too.
 
editor, you seems to be overlooking a very important fact. Transport impact aside, a glass of almond milk contains 1/8th of the protein of cows' milk, so everything pertaining to almonds on your graph needs to be multiplied by 8, and that's before transport from another country is taken into account, so by the time you've consumed 8 glasses of almond milk, just to obtain the same amount of protein as a a single glass of cows' milk, your environmental impact will be much larger than if you'd drank cows' milk, and that's before you take into account the calcium and many other good things you you get from cows' milk that almond milk doesn't contain and will have to be garnered from other sources, resulting in further 'impact'.
You seem very blinkered on this subject. Try looking at the bigger picture, because it seems to me that milk coloured water is much worse for the environment on a 1:1 nutritional vs environmental impact level.
 
Never heard of this before

Pea Protein Milk
With the amount of protein per glass matching cow’s milk, pea protein milk is a healthy alternative to dairy. It also boasts enough omega-3s and calcium to rival traditional milk. Unsweetened options contain a fraction of the sugars found in milk, but the chalky, flour-like taste of pea protein milk will leave many choosing a sweetened option. Still, this amount of protein in an alternative milk is hard to come by.

Better yet, pea protein milk is a great option for eco-conscious consumers. Peas can often grow without irrigation and are easily rotated by farmers, naturally fixing nitrogen in soil and reducing the need for artificial fertilizers. Growing peas requires up to six times less water than almonds, and this milk alternative has a much smaller carbon footprint than dairy.
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Saul Goodman said:
editor, you seems to be overlooking a very important fact. Transport impact aside, a glass of almond milk contains 1/8th of the protein of cows' milk, so everything pertaining to almonds on your graph needs to be multiplied by 8, and that's before transport from another country is taken into account, so by the time you've consumed 8 glasses of almond milk, just to obtain the same amount of protein as a a single glass of cows' milk, your environmental impact will be much larger than if you'd drank cows' milk, and that's before you take into account the calcium and many other good things you you get from cows' milk that almond milk doesn't contain and will have to be garnered from other sources, resulting in further 'impact'.
You seem very blinkered on this subject. Try looking at the bigger picture, because it seems to me that milk coloured water is much worse for the environment on a 1:1 nutritional vs environmental impact level.
Click to expand...
Yes, this does seem to be the case. According to this article, a lot of the goodness in almonds fails to make it into the almond milk. Eating almonds is much more nutritious, as is drinking milk.
 
editor said:
Me too, but plastic will always have it uses.
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And therein lies the crux of the matter. To the vast majority of people on the planet, meat will always have its uses. Most people eat meat, and due to the fact that there are quite a lot of meat eaters on the planet, intensive farming is the only viable solution to feed these people.
I'm fairly certain that, if asked, most people would like their meat to come from the most cruelty free source, but no matter how anyone twists it, eating meat is cruel (to the victim), but how many people are protesting in Africa, trying to stop lions killing their food?
We (the majority of us) eat meat. It's unfortunate for the animals we eat but it's a fact. Deal with it.
 
Saul Goodman said:
And therein lies the crux of the matter. To the vast majority of people on the planet, meat will always have its uses. Most people eat meat, and due to the fact that there are quite a lot of meat eaters on the planet, intensive farming is the only viable solution to feed these people.
I'm fairly certain that, if asked, most people would like their meat to come from the most cruelty free source, but no matter how anyone twists it, eating meat is cruel (to the victim), but how many people are protesting in Africa, trying to stop lions killing their food?
We (the majority of us) eat meat. It's unfortunate for the animals we eat but it's a fact. Deal with it.
Click to expand...

If lions were able to industrially farm their impala via artificial insemination, with sheds bigger than cathedrals churning out billions of impala carcasses every year in one long and unceasing production line of pain, then you still wouldn't have a point. Because there would have to be 7 Billion lions doing this, for your comparison to work, and for there to be the moral equivalence you seem to want to find.

Seeing as there are more people at a Wembley match than there are lions in Africa, that's not going to happen. Why are there so few lions in Africa? Killing, and profligate human consumption of space and resources, that's why.

It's basic human ethics that just because ONE of us can do something, doesn't mean we ALL can.

People in different societies eat different animals at different rates, it's not uniform. You don't have to be veggie to make a massive difference, you can just stop eating meat morning, noon and night like the Americans, eat good quality grass-fed meat wisely and sparingly, once a month say, and you're already cutting down your poisonous impact by a massive percentage. It's not black and white as you paint it.

We're not obligate carnivores, and there is nothing essential about eating meat, it's just culturally common choice and easily commodified. But if we all ate meat at the same rate as Americans, we'd need another couple of planets to use as farms! The fashion must be reversed if we want a habitable world in 100 years time, and seeing as force-feeding people is frowned upon in polite society, the only thing I can do as a human is control what goes in MY mouth, and so I will. It's a way of being autonomous and true to one's humanist beliefs - because you don't have to be particularly pro-animal to be a vegan, you just need to like the rest of your own species enough.

I suspect that last bit is where you might need some practice, said with love. x;)
 
Wookey said:
It's basic human ethics that just because ONE of us can do something, doesn't mean we ALL can.
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I'm confused by your human ethics here, tbh. Surely the ethical position is the reverse of this - unless we all can do something, none of us should. That is a basic building block both for true justice and for true sustainability.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
I'm confused by your human ethics here, tbh. Surely the ethical position is the reverse of this - unless we all can do something, none of us should. That is a basic building block both for true justice and for true sustainability.
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I've always seen the two as co-dependent, and corrololorlories of each other - just because one can doesn't mean we all can, and therefore! If everyone can't do it, nobody should do it, it's...what, contrary to natural justice? Not fab anyway.
 
And while people are quibbling about fucking peanuts, here's the real issue:

Europe’s animal farming sector has exceeded safe bounds for greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient flows and biodiversity loss, and urgently needs to be scaled back, according to a major report.

Livestock has the world’s largest land footprint and is growing fast, with close to 80% of the planet’s agricultural land now used for grazing and animal feed production, even though meat delivers just 18% of our calories.

Europeans already eat more than twice as much meat as national dietary authorities recommend – far beyond a “safe operating space” within environmental limits, says the Rise foundation study.

As a result, huge sectoral “adjustments” will be needed by 2050 to rebalance the sector, including a 74% drop in greenhouse gas emissions and a 60% cut in nitrate-based fertiliser use, it finds
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Europe's meat and dairy production must halve by 2050, expert warns
 
editor said:
And while people are quibbling about fucking peanuts, here's the real issue:


Europe's meat and dairy production must halve by 2050, expert warns
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I don't think people are quibbling with the need to cut down on production..
But telling people to become vegan is not going to work..
Plenty choose to be vegan.
It might be more progressive or helpful to educate people to cut back on meat and dairy? In a non aggressive way?
Europe could halve production and there would still be enough for people to eat.

Do you recall the Butter Mountain problem? The issue is with over production.
And that is what needs addressing aggressively. Not people who eat meat as part of their diet.
 
Lupa said:
But telling people to become vegan is not going to work.
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Has anyone here told anyone else to be vegan? I've said the same thing all along: people need to consume far less meat and dairy products for all the reasons in that report above. And for the inherent cruelty, if it bothers them.

Banging on about the amount of protein in almond milk is a complete sideshow.
 
editor said:
Has anyone here told anyone else to be vegan? I've said the same thing all along: people need to consume far less meat and dairy products for all the reasons in that report above. And for the inherent cruelty, if it bothers them.
Click to expand...


Ok.. maybe it just came across a bit dogmatic then...or I must have misinterpreted it.

Production is undoubtedly a problem
A big one.
I think that if production was cut by half that the industry would be monitored better and that would certainly make for changes in how animals are reared and used for food.
 
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