CNN had an article about cows being bad for the environment:

[Xist]

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:

[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

[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

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

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

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...

[Gasoline Fumes]

Milk is for babies! I don't use much milk, but it's soy and/or rice if I do.

[Frank Lee]

If the Ag industry didn't have to support 7,500,000,000 people it wouldn't be an issue.

[freebeard]

Cows belch methane, a greenhouse gas. Almond trees belch... oxygen.

Soy contains an estrogen mimic. And probably is a GMO.

I prefer rice or cashew milk to soy or almond.

[Fat Charlie]

Considering that they plant trees to grown almonds and they slash and burn trees to raise cattle...

But I'm doing my part just like Ron White- I'm eating the cows!

[Xist]

10oz of coconut product per day from 5,678 square feet.
128oz of goat milk 2/3s of the days from 500 square feet.

Goats produce 97 times as much product per square foot. CNN made a big deal about the land, water, and other resources to feed cows.

500 square feet. Goats harvest their food themselves and fertilize their crops, too. Nobody needs to climb an eighty-foot goat with a machete.

Trees are better for the environment than palm plantations:

[T]o produce palm oil in large enough quantities to meet growing demand, farmers across Southeast Asia have been clearing huge swaths of biodiversity-rich tropical rainforest to make room for massive palm plantations. Today palm oil production is the largest cause of deforestation in Indonesia and other equatorial countries with dwindling expanses of tropical rainforest. Indonesia’s endangered orangutan population, which depends upon the rainforest, has dwindled by as much as 50 percent in recent years.
The clearing of these forests is a big factor in global warming, given how much carbon dioxide (CO2) trees store when left alone. Once forests are cut, tons of CO2 heads skyward where it does the most harm. Also, when not replaced by palm oil plantations, rainforests help maintain water resources by absorbing rainfall and then releasing it into streams and rivers, thus minimizing flooding and soil depletion.

[oil pan 4]

So eat more beef.
Got it.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Fish seems to be more "sustainable" than beef, chicken or pork due to its higher organic matter-to-protein conversion ratio, plus the water from the tanks where species such as catfish and tilapia are grown can be re-used for irrigation and decrease the amount of chemical fertilizers required. Anyway, those veganazis can't count on me to quit eating beef.

Originally Posted by freebeard

Cows belch methane, a greenhouse gas.

Though it's unavoidable, methane emission from cattle raising can be decreased when they're fed a lower amount of carbohydrates. And since most of those carbohydrates can be turned into ethanol, it sounds like a good deal.

Soy contains an estrogen mimic. And probably is a GMO.

Even though it's actually quite hard due to the widespread usage of soy-based substracts in the food industry, I try to avoid soy as much as I can when I cook at home. I don't really get into the anti-GMO bandwagon, my only concern is the transmission of the "terminator" gene to non-transgenic crops due to cross-polinization which becomes a problem for farmers who prefer to use what's known in my state as "creole seeds". My opposition to soy is basically due to the estrogen content.

[rmay635703]

80% of this worlds peoples eat insects.

They convert biosmass into protein quickly using the fewest inputs.

Agree though these types of problems are greatly reduced with fewer people

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Cows belch methane, a greenhouse gas.

Which is a normal part of the environment, to which the Earth has adapted over millions of years. Before we had domestic cows belching methane, we (in the US) had millions of buffalo doing the same thing.

Has anyone ever measured the methane emissions of humans? Particularly those on vegetarian diets that include a lot of beans :-)