I had to look up eutrophication so here’s some info on it for anyone else that’s wondering what that means.
“Eutrophication is the process by which an entire body of water, or parts of it, becomes progressively enriched with minerals and nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus.”
Cows and Agriculture runoff are HUGE eutrophication sources- I live near the Twin cities and if you look at the confluence of the Minnesota river (which runs through lots of farmland) and the Mississippi (which runs through less) you can see a literal line in the water where they come together because there’s so much sediment and debris from runoff in the Minnesota.
In case anyone needs to hear it: If you drink plant milk then this chart says you should feel good about yourself! You don’t have to super-duper optimize to two decimal places by forcing yourself to drink a plant milk you don’t like. Good work :)
This makes me want to drink water.
I saw another study that looked at similar factors and Oat milk seemed to check all the boxes for me, I’ve completely switched over. None of these seem like a magic bullet, but almost anything is better than dairy.
Oat milk just has so many calories and carbs. Hard to use it instead of almond or soy for that reason.
Ah, that must be why it tastes good
So overall soy is really the best, and almond is a close 2nd.
Almond is really unsustainable climate wise. Nearly all of it is grown in California almost exclusively using aquifer water which is rapidly depleting.
Combine that with wildfires and the correct answer is oats. (Soy is also great)
Why is the eutrophication so high for dairy? I’d think pesticide use would drive up the value on plant-based products. Cows don’t need fertilized grass/hay. Is it from the cow excrement? Wouldn’t excrement be too valuable as a fertilizer and for producing methane power to just let it all run off into streams etc.?
In New Zealand HUGE amounts of fertiliser are used to boost the amount of grass grown and thus cows per unit area. Some ends in groundwater and a lot can end up in streams and rivers too.
A few things to consider. A minority of cows are free range grass fed, a very small minority are 100% grass fed and free range to an extent that matters, even in the case of 100% grass fed there might be fertilizers used. And make no mistake, cows on open pastures are not a good way to feed the human population from an environmental stand point, probably worse than factory farms honestly. Fields are terrible at sequestering carbon and lack a lot of the biodiversity of the forests most of them historically replaced.
Cows are given antibiotics to prevent diseases (and to promote muscle growth, although doing so is now banned in the EU and China). They shit out a large fraction of the antibiotics, and these kill soil microbes (and make the survivors antibiotic-resistant, which is absolutely great news for public health). Without soil microbes to process them, the organic matter in litter does not stay in soil and instead gets respired into the atmosphere (accelerating global warming) or washed into lakes and rivers (causing eutrophication).
Wouldn’t excrement be too valuable as a fertilizer and for producing methane power to just let it all run off into streams etc.?
A lot of it is sold off but the cows aren’t always spending time where it can be collected. When they are out in the pasture the crap just stays where it falls and it will inevitably get picked up by rainwater.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if this is including the manure that is being used as fertilizer as well. Because when it rains that manure isn’t just going to stay on the field. There’s one road in my area where, whenever it rains, you can watch a crap river flow down the road because of the sheer amount of manure running off the nearby field.
I recommend saving this chart for the next time somebody tells you almond milk is bad for the environment 😆
Well, it’s #2 on freshwater usage so it’s not like it’s exactly perfect.
Usually saying almond milk is bad for the environment is used as a reason to keep drinking cow milk
Why is dairy milk still the cheapest?
Heavy subsidies for our most cruel products?
Almost like the market is higher and if everyone switched, the market would swing production towards the alternatives and you’ll never actually escape the problem because it’s rooted in outdated technology.
