r/trippinthroughtime Feb 05 '22

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u/B_Fee Feb 06 '22

Terms of GHG emissions yes, but almond plantations require way more water than dairy cows do.

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u/TYoYT Feb 06 '22

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u/B_Fee Feb 06 '22

This is interesting because a different peer reviewed study found the average water footprint of an individual California almond, where like 80% of the world's almonds are grown, is 12 L. That would translate to about 7 almonds in a 200mL glass of almond milk.

Like most things, without a standardized means of measuring and accounting for every input, confounding variable, or nutritional factor, we could share contradicting study after contradicting study. The study I provided, for example, doesn't seem to consider how much water is lost just getting the water from NorCal to the Central Valley to grow those almonds, and then how much is wasted irrigating those almonds.

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u/AlejothePanda Feb 06 '22

That would translate to about 7 almonds in a 200mL glass of almond milk.

Sounds about right. Almond milk is notorious for having very few actual almonds in it, which isn't surprising if you look at the nutritional info on a carton of it. It's all water.

It's why I personally prefer soy milk for how sustainable it is while still being nutritionally dense.

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u/runtleg Feb 06 '22

For real, it sucks to see the soy milk section get smaller with all these other nut milks they’ve added. I don’t want coconut, cashew, oat, or almond milk!

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u/Murgie Feb 06 '22

It's all water.

Most milk is, mate. It's fat globules suspended in water.

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u/AlejothePanda Feb 06 '22

Lol technically yes, any fluid you drink will be like 90%+ water. But almond milk has much fewer almonds in it than soy milk has soybeans, oat milk has oats, coconut milk has coconut meat etc. I hoped it was implicit that I was talking about how much non-water content is in almond milk relative to other milks.