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Old 06-16-2017, 03:37 AM   #1 (permalink)
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CNN had an article about cows being bad for the environment:

These are the most climate-damaging foods - CNN.com

I find it strange they discuss dairy and beef up front and then add cheese and butter later.

I decided to look into almond "milk." I saw many things praising it, but few actual numbers, and one study, financed by a coconut "milk" producer, claiming that coconut "milk" is more environmentally friendly than soy or almond.

All hail our new milk overlord! http://lcacenter.org/lcaxii/final-presentations/719.pdf [dead]

Well, how many palms does it take to grow enough coconuts to supply enough liquid for one bowl of cereal per day.

How much milk (or whatever) does that take?

I honestly do not know, but I read a medium coconut contains about three-quarters of a cup of liquid (I do not confide much in Yahoo! Answers, but I could not find any numbers elsewhere: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/i...9181636AAdfjQa) and five pounds of "meat," which can be shredded, to provide half a cup of [undiluted] "milk." https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-ext...t-milk-2138093

Well, that gives you ten ounces of... something... which might be tolerable on cereal.

A good yield of coconuts is fifty per palm, although some may yield one hundred, and it is six years before they start producing. https://www.britannica.com/plant/coconut-palm If you want 365 coconuts, you need 7.3 palms. Does it make sense to say 7.3 palms?

“In normal system 56 seedlings are required for an acre.” Try this planting method for better yield in coconut - The Hindu

56 palms is 7.67 times as many as we need, so we require 13% of an acre, 5,678 square feet.

That seemed excessive.

I also read that five hundred square feet of grass is enough for two goats (https://www.weedemandreap.com/how-mu...d-raise-goats/ ) (they said a lone goat bleats constantly, but two are quiet). They only provide milk for 6 - 10 months, but each goat yields at least two quarts a day.

Ten ounces (of something) per day versus one gallon (of goat milk) 2/3s of the days, and that is 5,678 square feet compared to 500, but goats prefer alfalfa hay.

Is there any particular reason you cannot grow that instead of grass?

Other things that interested me en route:

Quote:
[M]ore than 80 per cent of the world’s almond crop is grown in drought-hit California. With a whopping 1.1 gallons (five litres) of water needed to grow just one almond, the nutty orchards are a poor environmental alternative to cow’s milk - which takes just 100 litres of water to produce 100ml of milk. But huge profits for almond milk means orchards continue to be planted in California, with some troubling effects on the surrounding landscape.
https://www.theguardian.com/business...california-dry

Quote:
[F]armers are drilling thousands of feet down into aquifiers to pump out water. This is resulting in subsidence of around 11 inches a year, which “threatens vital infrastructure like bridges, roads, and irrigation canals” and “could trigger earthquakes.” Demand for almond milk, which also now outsells other non-dairy milk substitutes like rice and soy in the U.S, has also managed to endanger honeybees. In order to pollinate the almond trees, 1.6m hives are brought to California every year - according to Philpott - “into an area dripping with insecticides.”
Lay Off the Almond Milk, You Ignorant Hipsters – Mother Jones

Quote:
A cup of coconut milk has roughly 550 calories (about four times the amount in regular cow's milk or soy milk), a whopping 57 grams of fat (close to the amount the average adult should consume in a day), and 51 grams of saturated fat (more than twice the amount an adult should consume daily). It also has about 8 grams of sugar.
Soy milk versus almond milk - Business Insider

“If almond milk closely resembles any beverage, it's a glass of water and a multivitamin.” Why almond milk is a rip-off - Business Insider

Quote:
What you will find: all the options except soy milk have much less protein than dairy milk (unless extra has been added); most coconut milk has more saturated fat than even whole dairy milk, and many of the plant products have added sugars
Quote:
One thing that dairy milk promoters want you to notice: the ingredient lists on plant milks often are long, including not only added sugars, vitamins and minerals, but thickening agents such as carrageenan and other gums. "Milk has only two ingredients, milk and vitamin D,"
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ces/23489445/#

"[O]ne liter of almond milk uses 1,611.62 gallons of water and emits 0.36 kg CO2e. One liter of cow milk uses 77 gallons of water and emits 1.67 kg CO2e. Almond milk uses 1,534.62 more gallons of water per liter than cow milk, but it emits 1.31 kg CO2e per liter less than cow milk." http://www.environment.ucla.edu/perc...ond-milk-1.pdf

Then there are dairy subsidies...

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