Soy, almond, cow's, none? What milk should we be drinking
for the planet?
By environment reporter Nick Kilvert
Have you ever looked at an almond-milk latte and just
thought: "Why?"
Dairy milk produces more emissions on the farm
Water and transport costs for alternatives should be
factored in
Diversity of food sources reduces strain on individual
resources
Why trade the smooth, creamy, protein-rich bounty of a cow's
mammary glands for nut water?
For some, intolerance to lactose or certain proteins means
avoiding dairy milk is a dietary necessity.
For others, it's an ethical choice aimed at easing the
subjugation and suffering of animals.
But increasingly, avoiding dairy is seen as a way to reduce
our dietary impact on the environment.
After all, cattle belch methane, and land-clearing for
grazing is one of the biggest drivers of deforestation globally.
So, is it time we all we all made the switch to a milk
alternative like almond or soy, or is there a dark horse — or camel — on the
horizon?
Soybeans don't burp, but they do linger
Research from the University of Wisconsin last year
analysed the comparative energy costs of dairy milk, and soy and almond milk
substitutes.
They looked at the entire life cycle of each product, from
production on a farm, through transport to market, and time spent on the
supermarket shelf.
For their source farms, they picked the biggest dairy,
almond and soy producing regions in the US: Wisconsin, California and Illinois
respectively.
And for their retail outlet, they chose a supermarket in
Chicago.
Not surprisingly, dairy milk faired poorly in the
"cradle-to-gate" phase — as in, before the product made it off the
farm.
But by the time consumers were plucking their preferred
cereal salve from the supermarket shelf, those carbon footprints had been
turned on their heads.
The supermarket was running its refrigeration on Chicago's
electricity grid, with a mix of 74 per cent coal, 20 per cent nuclear.
Dairy milk spent an average 2.6 days in the supermarket
fridge, compared with 5.9 and 7.8 days for fresh almond and fresh soy respectively.
After fossil fuel costs were calculated for the longer
distance to market and longer refrigeration time, both soy and almond drinks
had a higher global warming potential than the dairy, according to researcher
Courtney Grant.
"It's important to consider the full life-cycle of a
product when evaluating its environmental impacts," she said.
"I was surprised to see that the transportation of the
products had such a large influence on the results."
OK, back up - some clarifications are needed here.
Now, this is one very specific study and is not
representative of all markets and market parameters.
Also, the emissions from the soy and almond products don't
come from the crops themselves.
This study is probably more an indictment on
fossil-fuel-dependent transportation and electricity systems than soy- or
almond-based products.
But it does highlight the complexity of our food production
systems, and the danger of making assumptions and generalisations when it comes
to buying environmentally friendly products.
An environmentally friendly option in one location, may be
the exact opposite in another, according to sustainability researcher Michalis
Hadjikakou from Deakin University.
"Every country is unique, every continent is unique,
and the thing [we] find very hard to understand is that, even if you look at
one thing in isolation like milk, you can have very, very different degrees of
efficiency of production," he said.
But, if you grab a carton of dairy, almond and soy milk at
random off the shelf in Australia, chances are the latter will have
significantly smaller carbon footprints than the cow juice.
According to the Water Footprint Network, it takes roughly
3,400 litres of water to produce a kilogram of rice, and about 4,142 litres of
water for a kilogram of almonds.
That doesn't translate exactly to almond milk, as almond
milk often contains as little as 3 per cent almonds.
But the point is, almonds like water. They also like warm
weather.
As the world's appetite for almonds has grown, California
has taken up the brunt of production, doubling its land area devoted to almond
growing in 20 years.
While it has the reliable warm weather, the region's water
supply is less predictable.
In 2014, California was experiencing one of its worst
droughts on record. Snowmelt-fed rivers normally used to irrigate crops were
running on empty.
To get water, large-scale irrigators were locked in an arms
race. Multinational farming companies were dropping bores into groundwater
reserves, emptying aquifers faster than they were being replenished.
As far back as 2011, researchers were warning that the water
reserves under California's Central Valley were being rapidly depleted by
irrigators with "potentially dire consequences for the economic and food
security of the United States".
Almond crops certainly weren't solely to blame, but
California's tug-of-war between environmental flows and crop irrigation mirror
Australia's own recent struggles.
Almonds here are grown almost exclusively on the mid and
lower reaches of the Murray River.
Soy on the other hand is grown up and down the east coast,
and in limited parts of the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia.
According to Roy Morgan data from 2016, about 5 per cent of
Australians had consumed at least one soy drink in a given seven-day period
that year.
That's versus our daily dairy milk consumption of around a
quarter of a litre per person every day.
Soy production would need to be massively ramped up to plug
that gap.
According to The Lancet's Planetary Diet, the optimal daily
dairy target for planetary and human health is 250 grams. Australians consume
about 350 grams per day now, according to Dairy Australia.
Both soy and almond can undoubtedly play a role in replacing
some of our dairy excesses.
But, especially as climate change makes rainfall and
temperatures more erratic, we'll want more options to feed ourselves, not
fewer.
Diversifying the products we consume stops us from hammering
one particular resource or growing region to meet demand, according to Dr
Hadjikakou.
"When you're eating a more flexitarian diet with a
reduced percentage of animal products and diversified around different plant
based proteins and some animal protein, you're spreading out the impact,"
he said.
So, in the interests of diversity, what do climate-change
resistance, milk and vodka have in common?
The future: one hump or two?
Have you ever looked at a camel-milk latte and just
thought: "Why?"
No. Probably not. But it may soon be coming to a cafe near
you.
Camels are adapted to arid conditions and are capable of
converting dry, nutrient-poor feed into energy.
In a practical sense, that means they can be grazed on more
marginal pasture, and may show resilience in the face of climate change.
And many farms including Summerland Camels in southeast
Queensland catch wild camels, meaning they're taking pests out of the
environment, according to its director Paul Martin.
"We catch them in the wild, train them and domesticate
them to become dairy animals," he said.
There's also some evidence that camels aren't as methane
heavy as cows.
A small study in 2014 analysed the emissions from five
Bactrian (two-humped) camels, five alpacas, and six llamas (both species of
camelid).
While the camels produced the same amount of methane per
unit of fibre as cows, when the data was standardised for body weight, the
camels emitted around half the amount of methane over a 24-hour period.
That's because they consume smaller quantities of food and
are more efficient at converting that to energy.
While camel's milk may be one in a smorgasbord of milk
options we should embrace in future, it's not likely to be a big player.
Camels produce less than half the milk of a dairy cow, and
Mr Martin says making camel's milk economically viable is a challenge.
But there is a silver lining. Camel dairies like Mr Martin's
have been forced to experiment and diversify to be profitable.
Among the camel-milk-based products they've come up with are
gelato, cheese, and vodka, made from whey.
Cheers to diversity.
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