Harvest Mice inside Tulips
(Photo: Miles Herbert https://t.co/vD5yoDg8Ic) pic.twitter.com/kuyBaz0fA5— 41 Strange (@41Strange) January 12, 2020
No good intention goes unpunished, per the Guardian — “the deadly truth behind your almond-milk obsession”:
… A recent survey of commercial beekeepers showed that 50 billion bees – more than seven times the world’s human population – were wiped out in a few months during winter 2018-19. This is more than one-third of commercial US bee colonies, the highest number since the annual survey started in the mid-2000s.
Beekeepers attributed the high mortality rate to pesticide exposure, diseases from parasites and habitat loss. However, environmentalists and organic beekeepers maintain that the real culprit is something more systemic: America’s reliance on industrial agriculture methods, especially those used by the almond industry, which demands a large-scale mechanization of one of nature’s most delicate natural processes.
Environmental advocates argue that the huge, commercially driven proliferation of the European honeybees used on almond farms is itself undermining the ecosystem for all bees. Honeybees out-compete diverse native bee species for forage, and threaten the endangered species that are already struggling to survive climate change. Environmentalists argue a better solution is to transform the way large-scale agriculture is carried out in the US.
Like all bees, honeybees thrive in a biodiverse landscape. But California’s almond industry places them in a monoculture where growers expect the bees to be predictably productive year after year.
Commercial honeybees are considered livestock by the US Department of Agriculture because of the creature’s vital role in food production. But no other class of livestock comes close to the scorched-earth circumstances that commercial honeybees face. More bees die every year in the US than all other fish and animals raised for slaughter combined.
“The high mortality rate creates a sad business model for beekeepers,” says Nate Donley, a senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s like sending the bees to war. Many don’t come back.”…
On top of the threat of pesticides, almond pollination is uniquely demanding for bees because colonies are aroused from winter dormancy about one to two months earlier than is natural. The sheer quantity of hives required far exceeds that of other crops – apples, America’s second-largest pollination crop, use only one-tenth the number of bees. And the bees are concentrated in one geographic region at the same time, exponentially increasing the risk of spreading sickness…
JPL
Good Morning!
Mainmata
We raise bees as a hobby. It is a lot of work. They get cranky in July-August because it is too hot and they are susceptible to insect attacks and other problems. However, they are super industrious and we keep a highly diverse, pesticide free habitat as do neighbors (bees fly far).
The almond industry is not even remotely sustainable.
OzarkHillbilly
OK, this is dumb:
I really don’t know what they are talking about. It sounds like they are making a straight numerical comparison, 1 bee – 1 pig, I suppose they could be talking about percentages but even that is silly. It’s an apples and oranges comparison that makes no sense however you look at it.
In today’s world bees are in trouble. Hell’s bells, insect #s in general are dropping precipitously all over. We are stressing the environment to the breaking point in more ways than we know. Nonsense comparisons don’t help, they confuse.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mainmata: I have thought about putting in a hive or 2 but every time I start adding up the investments of time and money, I just decide to try and make my place as bee friendly as I can for the bees we already have.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly:
More like a bees to pigs comparison.
OzarkHillbilly
@mrmoshpotato: It’s funny because those were exactly the numbers I started running down to show how silly the comparison was. I finally gave up because no matter how I tried to make them relate it was absolute nonsense, not least because they are raised for 2 entirely different reasons.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
The whole article is a bit of a mess. We should care about natural bee decline, but I don’t know why we care about commercial bee decline, especially when the decline is due to bee keepers chasing profits from almond growers. It’s almost like a story about how many cattle in the meat production industry are killed each year.
If there are ways to make things better, by all means implement them. But this story seems to embellish the facts for effect.
Amir Khalid
@OzarkHillbilly:
I agree. Since pigs are bigger than bees, a pig biomass: bee biomass comparison would probably make more sense.
p.a.
How many folks here use almond milk or other cow milk substitutes? I’ve tried most, but don’t seek them out: about all I use milk for is the occasional breakfast cereal.
Baud
@p.a.: I do. Also for cereal only.
satby
@p.a.: I liked unsweetened almond milk well enough but quit drinking any of the milk substitutes years ago when I found out how wasteful the crops are to water resources in California. And to be honest, I like regular milk. For the last couple of years I’ve been drinking local milk from a farm near here.
The Dangerman
@p.a.:
I like Oat Milk for cereal and simple consumption. Curiously, Oat Milk yogurt is terrible. I also drink cow’s milk. I mix it up.
Baud
@The Dangerman:
I have never seen much less tried oat milk. I’ll have to look out for it in the store.
raven
This fellow is a friend and one of THE experts in bee’s in the US.
satby
One of my problems with all the substitutes is that to be palatable a lot of them have added sweeteners. And I consider that a bigger health risk than whatever benefits they’re supposed to have.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
They are interrelated. The causes of colony collapse disorder in domestic bees are the same in wild bees. Bees are raised for more than just almonds. The folks I get my blueberries from have several hives to service them. I get what little honey I use from them at the same time I pick the berries. I have read that almonds are also responsible for much of the draw down in the aquifer in the central valley because their water demands are so high. It’s an unsustainable crop.
@Amir Khalid: 4,000 bees weigh one pound. A pig raised for slaughter weighs app 250 lbs. 1 pig = 1 million bees. But that comparison makes no sense because not only are they raised for different reasons, their impacts on the environment are entirely different too, not to mention the difference between a free range pig and a CAFO pig.
raven
Here’s an hour long “What Bees in Nature Can Teach Us” by Dr Delaplane.
OzarkHillbilly
@p.a.: Cow’s milk here (my wife). I’d like to find a local source for goat’s milk.
satby
@raven: impressive c.v. Have you and he ever talked about the colony collapse problem that so many bee keepers have had? I’d be interested in what he thinks causes of contributes to it, there’s so many theories.*
And you answered while I was typing, so now I have to look at that ?
NotMax
Explains why I haven’t seen filet of bee in the meat case for quite some time.
;)
@Baud
My understanding (although have never been inside one) is that Starbuck’s is now pushing oat milk.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
That said, bees — unlike pigs — are not slaughtered for consumption; they die naturally at around four or five months, maybe sooner if they encounter a predator or environmental contamination. I’d be worried about a spike in bee mortality, or loss of nectar sources in their habitat.
raven
@satby: I can certainly ask him. Maybe there is something in the video I posted but it’s an hour long.
raven
@satby: A quick google search shows a ton of his work is in just that.
satby
@raven: I’ll watch the video because I bet it’s pretty interesting (at least to me, been following the colony collapse crisis for a while now).
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: @Amir Khalid: Neonicotinoids have been banned in Europe because they have been found to contribute to CCD, but there is no one single cause. A certain type of mite is also suspected of playing a large part.
Booger
And to add insult to injury, the house eyes from almonds is inedible. can’t even make mead from it.
raven
This is the last of a series of 4 ten minute talks on CCD by Keith.
satby
@Baud: so I went looking and found this article on all the cow’s milk substitutes and their sustainability.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: surprised you don’t get a couple of goats yourself. Take care of a lot of weeding for you.
The Dangerman
@Baud:
I don’t know how much penetration it’s made in the market; I’ve only seen it in my local healthy foods store (which is kinda local, not national like Whole Foods). I like it, but I like everything (even brussels sprouts). Well, OK, apparently not the Oat yogurt; to me, it was like eating Natto, which is just nasty. Which is too bad, it’s supposed to be really good for you.
Steeplejack
I thought Sunday morning was supposed to be a time of quiet reflection around here. Bee-ware! Apian Apocalypse is not how I want to start the day.
NotMax
@satby
It’s two, two, two food fads in one. (And green.)
;)
NotMax
@The Dangerman
Saw it at Safeway just the other day. Once the big chain supermarkets are stocking it in depth, that’s usually a sign the fad has peaked.
satby
@NotMax: I have never gotten on the green smoothie bandwagon (UGH!!). Vegetables should be roasted or sauteed, with butter. Not swirled into a gloppy ersatz milkshake.
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
Yeah, no. Just no.
JPL
@satby: My son is going to rent goats to clean up the ivy from his property. It’s pricey but they do a good job.
NotMax
@satby
No disagreement from this quarter.
As I occasionally say about such questionable concoctions, I wouldn’t put it in Hitler’s mouth.
:)
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: I have thought about raising meat goats. At 12.5 acres you might think I have enough land for it but the truth is most of it is turned on edge so that fencing it would probably be prohibitively expensive. Of the reasonably fence able land there is only enough browse for at best 2 or3 goats and I suspect that might be stretching it. I could have 3 or 4 Nigerian dwarfs for milk but dairy goats need more attention and care, especially during kidding/milking season.
Right now, we can pick up and go for a long weekend on a whim and all I need do is make sure the chickens have enough feed and water.
Booger
@Booger: honey, not “house eyes”
satby
@JPL: I wanted to do that last year, but I needed tree limbs cut away from my garage roof too, so had to use human landscapers. ? The goats would have been way more fun!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I just don’t think almonds in California has as effect on wild bee population on Missouri. The wild bee collapse is worldwide, IIRC.
evodevo
@Mainmata: Yes, this. Beyond the bee problem, there is the fact that almond trees suck up water like crazy (~one gallon per NUT!!) in a state that faces chronic water shortages. Rice, grapes, cotton and walnuts use substantially less…
OzarkHillbilly
@Booger: Heh. Read that and thought “WTF?” then decided it was something almond aficionados were aware of. The mead part went right by me.
Baud
@satby:
Thanks. The unsweetened pea protein sounds intriguing, if I can find it.
satby
That’s where I’m heading with my house of elderly beasts. After years of paying ungodly amounts for mostly mediocre pet sitters I’m looking forward to being able to arrange a trip without having to worry unduly about the pets. Cats can be content with a once daily visit by a sitter for a food, water, and litter check. At some point you have to dial it back, and I’m at that point*
* Well, almost, I still have two not very elderly dogs, so it’s a couple years away.
Ken
This xkcd is somewhat related, if we’re talking about the mass of animals. No bees, though if you google around you’ll find people have extended it to ants.
laura
I starting using oat milk because it’s got a really creamy mouth feel and the taste is very mild and it’s not a nut milk. It gives the illusion of a high fat 1/2 & 1/2 but without the fat. I love dairy in all its forms especially cheese and it shows. On the scale. So I swap out oat milk as part of a weight loss plan of plant based foods when possible and save the high cal stuff for occasional indulgence. I live in the heart of Almond country and the 1 gallon water to 1 almond seems to dear a price.
MazeDancer
Answer: Oat milk. Preferably, organic without gum thickeners. But start with gummy if you gotta.
Oat milk is delicious. No bee slaughter required.
ETA: Simultaneous oat milk endorsement by Laura, I see. It’s a sign. Try it.
Ken
@Booger: Is it a taste thing, or is that where the cyanide is concentrated? I’d be surprised if it doesn’t ferment, if only because people have figured out how to ferment all sorts of unlikely substances.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:We have commercial bees here in MO too.
Indeed it is. Commercial bees are raised worldwide. The decline in insect numbers in general is worldwide. The use of insecticides is worldwide.
I’m really not sure what you are driving at by separating the bees used for almonds from other bees. The bees in the Central valley are the exact same bees in Washington apple orchards. Not the same type of bee, the same bees. Once the almonds are pollinated, the bee keepers ship their hives to other locations to pollinate other crops. It’s a big business.
debbie
@Mainmata:
It also seems short-sighted to force them to wake up a month earlier than their natural cycles.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Goats that you rent to rid your property of weeds are accompanied by goats whose sole purpose is to keep predators away. I’m not sure how that works if you just have a few. You’d probably need a barn or shed for them to sleep in, sorta like the chickens. It sounds like lots of extra work to me.
debbie
@p.a.:
I’ve never tried any of them. I’m not allergic to milk, so it seemed unnecessary. I use skim milk for the lack of fat.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
The story makes it seem like California almond growers are responsible for the worldwide collapse of bees. That seems wrong.
Commercial bee keepers can prevent almond growers from destroying their bees by not selling their bees to the almond growers. They’re choosing easy money so they’re not all that sympathetic.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: It would be interesting to see that done by continent. I don’t know what it would tell me but I’m sure it would tell me something.
germy
debbie
@Baud:
There are all kinds of milks out there. In fact, dairies are complaining about the competition.
different-church-lady
Clearly we all need to switch to avocado milk.
Baud
@germy:
Wait, we’re in Year 4 of the Trump’s term and we don’t know what J stands for?
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Plus you know they’d go straight for your flowers.
Baud
@debbie:
My Costco carries only soy and almond and I chose almond because it has less fat (and the soy is sweetened, I think). The problem is I don’t want to go out searching for alternative milks.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL:
I have never read of goats that are not prey, maybe they mean boars? The books I have on raising goats (all 2 of them) recommend guardian animals, either dogs (Pyrenees are very common) llamas or donkeys. That last one kind of surprised me at first but thinking about it they can be mean little cusses.
When I was still thinking about it (to be honest, a part of me still does) my wife and I discussed the issue of guardian animals and she told me in no uncertain terms that if I got a dog it would be sleeping inside the house. Kinda defeats the purpose. So if I ever did it would have to be an ass.
Rather fitting for me.
ETA: When I rented the skidloader for the eclipse, I made a flat spot specifically for a goat shed should I ever make the jump. At least it was a spot for people to throw up a tent or 2 that wkend. I will build a shed there eventually. Storage is lacking for us.
JPL
@different-church-lady: Just how does one milk an avocado?
Baud
@Ken:
So Solyent Green was an idea ahead of its time.
debbie
@laura:
Have you ever used oat milk in baking?
different-church-lady
@JPL: Very, very carefully.
danielx
Plan for the day did not include being awakened at 7 by cats careening through the bedroom at warp speed – across the bed, midair to the cedar chest and crashing into the Venetian blinds.
Grrrrrr….
debbie
@Baud:
My store carries a number of different milks, but they’re all at least four times as expensive.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: I would think that they would be noisy over night. There’s coyotes and snakes around here so you’d need an animal trained to deter both. My son has seen several copperheads ugh. The son sent me a video of goats being picked up from his neighbor’s house. I bet there was a dog too.
A farmer a few blocks from me has goats but he also has a barn. He has the property for sale so I assume it will be replaced with mcmansions.
different-church-lady
@danielx: I could not imagine a better way of waking up.
Baud
@debbie: Well, that’s a deterrent.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
One of my brothers has a couple of Pyrenees. I’m surprised they can move fast enough to be of much good.
germy
@Baud:
MazeDancer
@satby: What an interesting article about substitute milks. Has implications beyond just “milks”.
Once again soy is shown to be sketchy stuff. And coconut good for so many reasons.
Baud
@germy:
Fixed.
different-church-lady
@germy: The joke will be on Frank when Trump starts saying it
Baud
@MazeDancer: I’ve tried coconut water, which I didn’t like. Is coconut milk high in fat or sugar? I think natural coconut is.
danielx
@different-church-lady:
We will have to agree to disagree- I can think of many better ways. By the smell of bacon, for example.
germy
@different-church-lady: Luntz is the guy I always see on network news, holding focus groups about Democratic candidates as if he’s simply an impartial fact finder.
debbie
@germy:
Luntz backtracks on most of what he says. It very well could have been truth.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I haven’t read the story but from what you are telling me they are oversimplifying things quite a bit, either thru ignorance or laziness (because accuracy is hard).
They don’t sell them to the almond growers, they rent them. Almond growers only need them for a month, after that they are a just nuisance that need care. As to the beekeepers, shrug, sympathy (I guess the article was a “think of the poor beekeepers” variety?) has nothing to do with what I am speaking of. Again, it’s a business, one that is central to a lot of the industry that is American agriculture. The bees get shipped here, then there, than to another place… I have to think that is stressful to the bees and probably contributes to a higher mortality rate for them but don’t really know.
A stressed bee hive is more susceptible to disease, and a stressed bee hive that is shipped from state to state can spread disease to wild and and local beekeeper’s hives much more efficiently quicker than natural.
As with so much, I think the real problem is with the industrialization of American agriculture.
germy
@MazeDancer: Soy products give me headaches; I don’t know why.
The daily industry has been campaigning aggressively in the courts and in media to protect their industry. Maybe all this anti-almond milk news is true, or maybe it’s more PR.
Since trump got in, I’ve grown more skeptical of everything.
satby
@MazeDancer: yes, I’ll have to try oat milk again. I don’t have digestive trouble with regular milk, and the raw whole milk I currently drink comes from a small, very local, grass fed herd. I use the plant milks (oat and coconut) when I make vegan milk soap.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Was just reading about the bankruptcy of Borden the other day. The competition from alternatives was one of the things they attributed the bankruptcy to.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
It has a lot of problems, but until there’s a solution that keeps food prices down, our options are limited.
germy
Well, we don’t need a focus group to figure out who he’ll be voting for.
satby
@germy: the ridiculous waste of water that goes into almond cultivation has been recognized as a problem for at least 10 years.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
It is sad. I saw a Borden truck just the other day. Elsie sent me right back to my childhood when Borden trucks delivered to homes.
sab
@JPL: Goats don’t eat english ivy. They do eat poison ivy.
germy
@satby: I’m sure, but I’m not seeing articles about factory farming in the dairy industry. Their product labels always show a single happy cow grazing freely in a big field. Not a row of diseased, antibiotic-fed cattle locked to milking machines.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: I don’t think snakes are too much of a problem for goats. My pig/chicken/now sheep raising buddy has 2 guardian dogs, an Akbash and a cross breed of indeterminate origin. They are always chasing off coyotes and foxes, but they also keep a sharp eye on the sky for raptors.
Immanentize
BLECH! Three alarm migraine last night. Had to dose up, so I am zombified this morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: They are very good at it, and can move quite fast given the motivation. No way does a 20-40 pound coyote survive an encounter with a 100 lb Pyrenees.
satby
@germy: organic milk wouldn’t be that way, also most of the main dairy producers now do not give either growth hormones or antibiotics to their herds. And say so right on the labels.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize:
Ick. I was really glad when I stopped having migraines. I think aging did it.
Our building had no hot water last night. It’s back this morning, thank goodness. This happened a few weeks ago too. Maintenance said they were getting new parts.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Yep. There are no easy solutions.
NotMax
@debbie
Home milk and dairy product delivery (and a milkbox on the back porch to keep it cool). Home bread and pastry delivery (Dugan’s trucks). Home soda delivery (Dr. Brown trucks).
Remember them fondly.
germy
@satby:
FDA Tests Turn Up Dairy Farmers Breaking The Law On Antibiotics
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie:
I too remember those days. It was a long time ago.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: mmmmmm. Cabrito.
Al Z.
Has anyone brought up the Netflix docu-series “Rotten” – each episode examines the inner workings of a segment of the food industry.
One episode specifically addresses colony collapse in relation to almond agriculture among other issues with Bee keepers. I think the episode is called “Lawyers, Guns, and Honey”
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
My wife was hoping for the same from menopause. She was disappointed.
satby
@germy: five year old study, ok. This is an analysis that uses data probably from the same 2015 samples, article dated this year, and comparing organic to regular milk.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Yep.
different-church-lady
Fifty years from now will anyone be nostalgic for “the days when brown UPS trucks would deliver fresh toilet paper right and flat screen TVs right to your door each morning!”
zhena gogolia
I know this is OT because I just got up. But last night I saved a NYT article that might be relevant to Karamazov, and this morning I was struck by the juxtaposition of headlines. The article I’m saving is “WHY DO PEOPLE BELIEVE IN HELL?” This morning I noticed that the article next to it is by Bret Stephens and has the headline “OF COURSE BERNIE CAN WIN.” Well, there’s your answer.
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
When I was growing up, Bowman’s was our delivery dairy of choice. A regular M-W-F morning ritual.
And this thought took me back to an Ogden Nash poem (from memory, so I may have a word or two wrong):
The cow is of the bovine ilk,
One end is moo, the other milk.
If it wasn’t for Bossy, Bowman and Borden
Would long ago have crossed the Jordan.
Amir Khalid
@sab:
There’s a song about that, I think.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Baud: I always assumed it stood for jackass but am too lazy to look it up to confirm. I’m just going to keep believing it, because the defining trait of Trumpers is continuing to believe his made up bullshit even after it has been thoroughly debunked.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: the farmer I get my milk from has a home delivery service. Since this is an urban area but close to farms, it can make economic sense I guess.
A big problem with sustainability in agriculture is that we’re entirely too accustomed now to eating foods outside their local growing season / natural area. So besides the industrialization and monoculture of the farms, we should add in the costs and pollution of transportation world-wide.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: Heh.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: That is an odd trade off? Last night I would gladly have paid any price to rid myself of it. Total blinder (right side). But now I am again sanguine and want to be young! And free!?
Immanentize
@germy: We still have a functioning FDA?
jeffreyw
@raven:
Mad libs!
This fellow is a friend and one of THE experts in bee’s _________ in the US.
NotMax
Flash flood warning for Maui just announced as in effect for the next 3 hours, with rains of 2 inches per hour reported measured on Hana Highway.
Am up high enough above sea level and on a slope, so no immediate concern aside from possible roof or window leaking.
ThresherK
CBS Sunday Morning is having a feature about pistachios.
I guess their newfound popularity is just a different-colored take on the same problem as almonds.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
The only dairy substitute I’ve ever tried is soy milk, and it has been well over a decade since I last bought or consumed any. I’ve heard that almond milk is virtually devoid of nutrients. I’ve never tried it because I’ve never been a big fan of almonds. Of the various nuts out there they’d rank well down on the list of ones I’d pick to eat. I even think the humble peanut tastes much, much better.
I have a good friend whose son is allergic to dairy – not just lactose intolerant but has an allergy to it. I’m glad there are alternatives for him but honestly I have no idea why anyone who is OK ingesting actual milk would look for an alternative. But tastes vary.
snoey
@JPL: Here in the Boston area we have boutique goatscapers who come by day with goats and electric fence. Old friend rents her farm to one outfit.
debbie
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Never tasted almond milk, but almond flour is awesome in baking.
ThresherK
@SiubhanDuinne: Wasn’t Gail Borden’s canned milk a boon to big-city infants in the mid-19th century? The food given to cows in cities was not the best, there was no refrigeration to get milk from country cows distributed, etc.
In an era when people castigate the poors for getting TANF and having refrigeration, maybe Borden could have held on just a little longer until the beyond-end-times.
different-church-lady
@satby: Almond milk: the margarine of milks.
PsiFighter37
@p.a.: I have typically only drank cow’s milk (skim), but I am going to start trying out oat milk in my protein shakes going forward. The little I have had doesn’t taste terrible, and oats seems to be by far less energy- and water-intensive than either cow’s or almond milk, from what I have seen. Since I don’t expect protein shakes to taste great anyways – I am drinking them for nutritional value – it seems like a fair tradeoff. The only downside, naturally, is that oat milk (or any of these substitutes) are more expensive than your no-name generic cow’s milk.
joel hanes
@satby:
If you ask your doctor, your doctor is likely to tell you that the substitutes do not have health benefits, and that skim milk should be part of the diet of people who are not lactose-intolerant.
Immanentize
@debbie: And how can one make a great Linzer Torte without crushing almonds. Yum!
joel hanes
@evodevo:
Walnuts are closer to sustainable, and probably better for you, if only because walnuts are more often eaten raw. I like a handful thrown into the oatmeal along with the raisins when I start to cook it.
joel hanes
@germy:
The Orange Man is bad.
Fractally bad: bad in every respect, at every scale.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: We’re spoiled and we don’t want to give it up.
ETA: and speaking of this, I should give a plug to Barbara Kingsolver’s
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Kristine
My takeaway from the article was that a supposedly green alternative to dairy isn’t all that green, with an indirect inference that monoculture of any type isn’t a good idea.
ThresherK
@evodevo: I knew the boom in almond cultivation was bad news for an agricultural area with chronic and seasonal water limits, but, a gallon a nut? Wow.
Is there someplace which gives this information for all the nuts? (I’m allergic to walnuts, pecans, and hazelnuts, but just want to know.)
OzarkHillbilly
@ThresherK:
You poor poor child.
joel hanes
My 30-year-old, granddaughter, who gets her health advice from social media, TV, and her friends, put half a gallon of hemp milk in the refrigerator. I don’t think she much likes it; it’s been there for a while.
HinTN
@Booger:
I’m glad to see that others struggle with this infernal technology.
Immanentize
@ThresherK:
For a good run down of milk versus alternatives, check out the link in SATBY’S comment above:
@satby:
ThresherK
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, and did I mention sunflower seeds?
I don’t miss sunflower seeds or walnuts, but have to watch so many labels. “12 grain” bread usually has damned nuts in it!
I do miss pecans (pecan pie and pralines, thanks to a Southern woman I dated) and hazelnuts (Ferrero Rocher, also Nutella).
I’m a bit late in life to be acquiring more food allergies, but if my system turns on me and starts rejecting peanuts, I will have a biiiiig problem.
FlyingToaster
I’m allergic (as in breaking-out-in-hives) to cow’s milk, so I’ve had either soy milk or goat’s milk my entire life. I don’t really drink it anymore; I’m used to Silk Creamer in my coffee, but if that’s being sourced from Brazil rather than here, I’ll have to see if there are alternatives. When I was growing up, soybeans were grown in the Missouri valley, so I’ll admit, I assumed that’s where Silk was getting their beans from.
I’ve been getting honey for decades from local-to-Eastern Massachusetts farmers at the farmers’ markets. A lot of the historical estates have attached farms with bees (&/or goats, sheep, chickens, pigs/rabbits), so my postage-stamp garden depends upon Gore Place’s bees for pollination.
Citizen_X
Though I’ve never tried them, I’ve heard their knees are wonderful.
laura
@debbie: no, I haven’t baked with oat milk because I haven’t been doing any baking of late. I have a quart of buttermilk that is in a race against time fresh wise and will split between ranch dressing and gingerbread today if the day goes according to plan. Honestly, I’ve been on a chai jag of late – a steamy, creamy, hot and really spicy chai latte is what I crave on the regular between about midmorning to midafternoon. It cuts through a cold day like a fresh towel out of the dryer.
OzarkHillbilly
@ThresherK: I love walnuts and pecans (my wife loves hazelnuts which I just like) and bake with them all the time. A brownie without nuts isn’t worth eating. Same for chocolate chip cookies. Unfortunately my oldest granddaughter has nut allergies, tho not peanut thank dawg.
JPL
@sab: Well that’s interesting because son and DIL got a quote from the goat renter. I’ll let him know.
OzarkHillbilly
@Citizen_X: Ouch, 60 lashes with a wet noodle for you.
O. Felix Culpa
I’m lactose intolerant so had to move to alternative milks for my morning oatmeal. I’ll give oat and hemp milk a whirl, if I can find them.
sab
@JPL: The goats I rented wouldn’t touch the ivy. Their owner told me they wouldn’t and they didn’t. However, lots of articles on the internet says they do. So who knows?
chopper
@Citizen_X:
also their hooves.
J R in WV
@Booger:
Can anyone translate this comment into English, so I can understand what he is trying to talk about? I understand all the words, but the sentence makes no sense!
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Wait til you get to the next thread: Let’s Re-Litigate votes on the Iraq war from nearly 20 years ago!
OzarkHillbilly
@J R in WV: Booger already did just a few comments down.
WaterGirl
@germy: Oh my god, that would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I think that was a typo. You meant to say year 14, didn’t you?
WaterGirl
@debbie:
Does it taste different? Like almonds? Or is it the texture you like for baking?
J R in WV
@J R in WV:
OK, Honey yields sense from the sentence!
I was violently allergic to milk of all sorts at birth in late 1950. Mother’s milk, cow milk, goat milk, nothing worked, violent digistive upsets, eczema, etc. My life was saved by the concurrent introduction of soy-based infant formula, Mul-Soy IIRC.
However, I now do not tolerate soy-based milk, tofu, etc, as it all seems quite nasty to me. And milk and cheese (and ice cream) make up a large part of my diet, as the allergy went away by the time I remember eating and drinking.
Personally, I don’t think something should be called milk unless it is produced by a mammal, and should be named for the mammal which produced it. Other milk-substitutes should be called soy-beverage, Oat-beverage, or some such descriptive name. But it isn’t milk, which is produced by mammals, exclusively.
I find it unbelievable that the milk industry has trouble fnding the courts to protect their name! We are talking about the definition of mammalian species here, after all ~!!~
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Both. The flavor is very, very subtle, but the texture! It’s great for all kinds of tortes and cookies.
WaterGirl
@debbie: So it’s better for baked goods that should be dry, rather than moist? Like a crispy cookie but not a moist cake or a chewy cookie?
Kathleen
@NotMax: Kroger carries it, for Juicers who live in Kroger territory.
Kathleen
@JPL: A BJ commenter got some goats for the lawn a few years. I don’t remember who it was (I keep thing it was sab but I’m probably wrong).
StringOnAStick
@ThresherK: Sounds like you are allergic to tree nuts, so all tree nuts will produce that reaction. Fun fact: coconuts are not actually nuts, they are drupes so coconut milk should be ok for you. Peanuts are legumes and not actually nuts either.
I don’t drink milk anymore but I do eat over dairy products. The only nut milk I like is unsweetened macadamia nut milk, though it is expensive. It’s more like a milkshake treat. All these sweetened milk substitutes are jammed packed with sugar, so no thanks.
As a kid in the 1940’s my dad went to Henry Ford’s school for the kids who had parents at the Dearborn facility. He told me last week that Ford was experimenting with soy milk back then but he remembers it tasting terrible.
The Pale Scot
@OzarkHillbilly: IIRC, a worker bee’s lifespan is about 6 weeks. Of course there’s an incredible body count.
Maybe winter is different. But IIRC in cold climates the queen alone makes it thru the winter.
The Pale Scot
@OzarkHillbilly: The theory behind Neonicotinoids effects is that it reduces bee’s immunity to disease. Along with navigation disorientation (it’s a neurotoxin). O small number of bees fall victim to disease and mites and they become carriers into the hive
Fair Economist
@Baud: You can get unsweeted soy milk, but often not at a particular place.
@satby: You don’t have to worry about California water consumption. The state regulates the amount of water that goes to agriculture and ag will get exactly that much regardless of what they choose to grow. There’s nothing any consumer can do to affect how much water Cali ag uses. What is grown with the water is an economic decision, and almonds (and arid nut crops in general) are a good use of the limited water.
Aleta
At Maria Popova’s site Brain Pickings, she’s showing 23 of the illustrations from Sylvan Musings, or, The Spirit of the Woods by Rebeccas Hays, an encyclopedia of trees in Britain, 1849.
Redshift
I’m lactose intolerant. When I figured that out, i tried lactaid milk and the non-dairy milks, but I mostly decided I just don’t care much about drinking milk. I already didn’t drink it straight up and rarely had cereal any more.
I can still have a bit of ice cream or cheese with lactaid. Cabot lactose-free cheddar is great; I wish I could find more lactose-free cheeses.
I have oat milk, almond milk, or coconut milk in coffee, but only when I’m getting it at a coffee place, which isn’t often. I tried almond milk eggnog once, and it was extremely nasty.
Aleta
@Aleta: Forgot the link: https://www.brainpickings.org/2020/01/06/sylvan-musings-hey/?mc_cid=0c6d63fe26&mc_eid=1585075cae
Goes to Maria Popova’s site Brain Pickings.
satby
@Fair Economist: thanks, but the bottom line for me is that most milk substitutes don’t taste like milk. I’m spoiled by the raw, unhomogenized milk I get straight from the farm. And am aware that there’s risks in drinking unpasteurized milk that make it not a choice for most people.
Martin
@Baud: I’ve read a fair bit about how the bee industry works, and it’s a bit of a race to the bottom situation. They have to move their bees to California because there’s so much money it in, and that’s causing commercial bee operations to become unprofitable without the California excursion.
We also have a real problem of bee theft – ship your hive here and have someone come along and steal them in the night. Californias agricultural sector is so massive, they could be moved hundreds of miles away and you’ll never find them again.
The reason we move them around is that there’s no part of US agriculture that is sufficiently diverse to allow bees to do their thing year round at the kind of scale that agriculture needs. So, they move with the pollination windows. That movement also makes it very difficult to pin down sources of colony collapse, particularly when damn near the entire US bee industry gets packed up and moved to California in one throw.
joel hanes
@WaterGirl:
It tastes different. Much richer than grain flour, because of the fat and protein content. It does not, to my mind, notably taste of almonds. I would advise experimenting with replacing a portion of the wheat flour with ground almond, and perhaps adjusting down the oil/fat in the recipe. Maybe try 1/3 almond at first.
My favorite Christmas cookies are about half ground nuts. They’ll work with walnuts or almonds, but we prefer pecan for the cookies.
BTW, pecans mostly grow where it naturally rains, so are probably not as environmentally destructive as almonds.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: I’ll have to give that a try. I love pecans, by the way!
The biggest/best pecan grower in Illinois comes to our farmer’s market about once a month, and the are SO good.
Did i notice in a recent comment the you used to live in Champaign, or go to the University of Illinois?
joel hanes
@WaterGirl:
Champaign
Nope; my brother-in-law was a professor of journalism there for almost forty years, so I’ve visited many times.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: Got it. I think maybe you mentioned something about it, maybe in a thread with raven, but I obviously didn’t track the details. thanks
J R in WV
@satby:
Late to the thread, but we kept a dairy cow for quite a while many years ago. We controlled cleanliness, boiled all the tools, chilled the milk quickly, had a refrigerator just for milk. Wow it was good, cream floating on top, and we essentially had an infinite amount, gallons every day.
We left the calf with her mom most of the time, but the calf couldn’t drink nearly all the link produced. We fed fresh milk to the chickens and the pigs, and cooked with it, made butter, etc. It was blissful, but a huge amount of work. Bringing in hay and feed, washing the tools, rinsing the buckets with boiling water, etc.
But oh, my, was that milk good! Long time gone past now…
Miss Bianca
@The Dangerman: Oat milk definitely tastes better than the other milk alternatives. I have had lattes made from it that are almost as good as whole milk ones.
That said, I probably wouldn’t put it on my oatmeal. ; )