Category: Reflections

It blows my mind the amount of water involved in producing different foods. Obviously meat takes a lot.

But many of the ‘environmentally friendlier’ options aren’t quite that – almonds, avocados, and to a lesser extent soy – a lot of complications involved:

https://www.watercalculator.org/ is a fun little tool to check out your water footprint, though the survey is a bit exhaustive and I found it easier just to google ‘how much water is needed to grow 1 pound of x’

From https://www.gainesville.com/story/opinion/2021/08/24/douglas-r-noble-californias-agricultural-water-policies-nuts/8217589002/

404.8 gallons of water to make one pound of almonds. Same with pistachios – both are big crops in California. 2.8 billion pounds of almonds grown in 2020, 600 million pounds of pistachios. 99% of pistachios eaten in the US are grown there, and 80% of the global almond supply. Only using 1,376,320,000,000 gallons of water – almost 1.4 trillion gallons. The article points out their multi year drought, record breaking wildfires, and drying up water reservoirs. May be a connection there!

If water were priced using a net present value of its worth over the next thousand years, almonds and pistachios would be saved for the most special occasions, and likely only eaten by whatever royalty is left and only the richest of the upper class. Certainly not an every day staple.

Good article.

Re almond milk:
https://www.greenoptimistic.com/milk-problem-environment-20140908/

It takes about 960 gallons of water to create one gallon of almond milk (and that’s at 2% almond content with the rest being water, which is I guess the industry norm. Probably some variation there between brands though. Vs 4-5 gallons of water per gallon of cow’s milk: https://afs.ca.uky.edu/content/water-needs-dairy-herd

One point here – a lot of places claim a much higher amount of water is needed to supply cows milk, which is why I grabbed a link authored by PHDs. But that said -4-5 gallon per gallon of milk number is likely once the cow is grown and doesn’t include what is required to get them to that state. So likely higher, but there’s a lot of room between 5 and a thousand…

Re avocados:
https://www.greenmatters.com/p/avocado-environmental-impact
didn’t have an apples to apples comparison, but had some interesting info – points out that most major avocado production centers are already facing drought for the locals, and lead to greater deforestation and soil erosion. But in terms of water consumption, had to look here:
https://danwatch.dk/en/undersoegelse/how-much-water-does-it-take-to-grow-an-avocado/

In the region of Chile where most of their avocados are grown, just shy of 154 gallons per pound. Compared to oranges @ 13.2 gallons per pound, or just over 7.5 gallons per pound for tomatoes.

Sure, that particular region of Chile is very dry, which means more water needed.

From this link:
https://www.fairobserver.com/more/environment/hans-georg-betz-avocado-environment-water-footprint-production-consumption-europe-china-latin-america-news-13621/

Sweet:
“in Petorca, “every cultivated hectare requires 100,000 litres of water per day, an amount equivalent to what a thousand people would use in a day.” In 2019, the Chilean government declared a water emergency in the province.

Since 2016, the people living in Petorca have been allocated 50 liters of water per day, a fraction of what avocado trees need. In fact, the water shortage has been so acute that water was being delivered by trucks. When the water was tested, it contained levels of coliform bacteria far above the legal limit, causing diarrhea among children.”

But good news – in 2020, they upped the daily water usage limit for people to 100 liters. Compared to the 75 gallons (280 liters) it takes to grow one pound of avocados in the same place. And then you have to wonder – how many of those go bad sitting on grocery store shelves – I know there are plenty at the local Freshco!

This is very upsetting.

Just to round it out let’s talk about soy (sorry for quoting at length here, was easier than paraphrasing):

https://www.foodingredientsfirst.com/news/true-cost-of-crop-soy-milk-consumption-may-be-more-environmentally-harmful-than-dairy-study-finds.html

“Livestock, Young further argues, may in fact play an integral role in preserving food chains. “Our analysis of the evidence suggests to us that grazing animals are of absolute paramount important to sustainable food systems and that grass and ruminants are the only way to restore degraded soil at scale, while still producing food for humans,” he says. “

“Taking the value of total milk consumption in the UK in the period of 2017/18, the authors of the study calculated that cows can produce 85 L of milk for every kilogram of soy they are fed in the form of feed. In comparison, one kilogram of soy can produce between 4.25 and 7.5 L of milk. “

“Young underscores a concern shared among members of his team that almond, soy and coconut drinks may be more environmentally detrimental than previously thought. “That is if we include the large and small animals that lose their habitat or die for other reasons associated with the production of the main ingredients,” he notes.

Young underscores a concern shared among members of his team that almond, soy and coconut drinks may be more environmentally detrimental than previously thought.
“Oat milk is perhaps one exception to this, but it is not suitable for babies and children. It is nutritionally inferior to cows’ milk and from avoidance of waste perspective, the residue needs to be fed to pigs, which hardly makes it an ideal option from a vegan perspective.”

As such, the researchers hope to stimulate a more informed debate than we’ve seen so far and bring some balance to discussions.

“We totally respect the right of ethical vegans to avoid cows’ milk and we recognize that some people are lactose intolerant. We also recognize that there are many faults with intensive dairy farming including welfare concerns,” says Young.

“However, rather than turning away from this we are attempting, in our small way, to encourage the government and the public to support high welfare and environmental farming systems where the benefits of an integrated approach are recognized and animal contentment rates alongside the rather cold and formulaic assessments of animal welfare,” he concludes.

This is not the first time that the environmental impacts of soy have come into focus. In the context of replacing palm oil cultivation with less detrimental alternatives, soy, next to corn and rapeseed were found to be “even worse” as these crops are much more land-hungry, according to research by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Oil Palm Task Force.”

I had heard before that ‘soy is estrogenic’ – this was a good article that talks about the ins and outs of that and how hard it is to make blanket statements about whether or not a food is good for you due to how complicated it is to study, and how complex the body is:
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/soy/


Final thought – there are tons of different websites that support each opposing view, and provide contradictory information. So a little challenging to wade through that. Particularly from the vegetarian side, there are a lot of sources that indicate water usage on meat products is far, far higher than say, avocados – though only beef from one I saw was higher than almonds. Chicken and pork was less. I think one consideration there that I didn’t see much discussion of was relative nutrient profile. Pound for pound is one thing, but the question of optimal diet should likely focus on how to round out the essential vitamins and minerals within a reasonable number of calories. We are omnivores for a reason.. I also found the conversations around soil degradation, and that grazing the land with animals over the long term was much better for soil nutrient profile than growing monoculture crops to be an interesting point I wouldn’t have considered before.