Almonds and Water Use – What’s The Scoop?

There’s an article in Mother Jones today about almonds and water consumption in California. It states some alarming facts, like how a single almond requires a gallon of water. That seems like a lot! But is it?

There are plenty of other interesting statistics and facts shared in the piece:

almonds have become more popular than peanuts

Americans on average eat 2 pounds per year

almond milk is now outselling soy milk

80% of all almonds come from California

70% are exported, China, who has the greatest demand

almonds are the third biggest food produced in CA, after grapes and the top product, dairy

72% of almonds are still grown by family farms

almonds use up to 9% of all water for agriculture in California

And to compare water use, the article also lists the following examples (per gallon):

0.7 (gallon) per pistachio

1.6 per toilette flush

4.6 per walnut

8 for a dishwasher

25 in a 10 minute shower

41 for a load of laundry

Water use in California is a major concern, and this article highlights many of the issues..but are almonds really the culprit?

Telling us that one almond requires a gallon of water isn’t actually very helpful.

About 377 almonds make up a pound. (At 1.2g per almond, according to multiple sources including this calculator.) Conveniently, 377 almonds mean 377 gallons of water are used in that pound. How does that stack up to other foods? Here’s a handy chart of California water use, thank you Farmscape (unfortunately no relation to a favourite sci-fi series, Farscape):

Suddenly, almonds don’t look quite so bad. Animal products are significantly worse nearly across the board. (And plant foods much better.)

Here’s another look at it from our friends at TruthOrDrought.com:

But what about almond milk? According to the first graphic, a pound of cow’s milk requires only 90 gallons, but a pound of almonds demands 377 gallons of water. Doesn’t that make almonds worse?

Well, not at all. You don’t need a pound of almonds to make a pound of almond milk. (That would be very thick milk!) According to another article from the same author at Mother Jones, it’s alluded that there are 28 grams of almonds (about 24 almonds) in a 48oz bottle of Califia almond milk, which weighs 3 pounds. So 8 almonds are required for 1 pound of almond milk, or 8 gallons.

That 8 gallons per pound puts commercial almond milk in another league, compared to cow’s milk, which is 90 gallons per pound.

Homemade almond milk is bit of a different story. Recipes average around 1/4 cup of almonds per cup of finished almond milk (about 25 almonds per 1/4 cup), so a pound of homemade almond milk consumes around 50 almonds. Which means 50 gallons of water, and isn’t really wonderful, but it’s still nearly half that of cow’s milk. (Obviously commercial practices extract a lot more from the ground almond!) It’s also worth highlighting that the remaining almond pulp can be used in baked goods like cookies and other meals like nut burgers, extending the almonds use. And given that most simply purchase almond milk, this isn’t a great concern.

Almonds consume a lot of water, but there are much greater concerns when it comes to water use and agribusiness. The author describing his preference for kefir and bypassing the impacts of animal agriculture is a catastrophic oversight when critiquing water consumption.

UPDATE (Jan 15): The documentary Cowspiracy also illustrates this nicely.

UPDATE 2 (Feb 16): More thanks to this Cowspiracy blog post highlighting this New Republic article, which states that “livestock feed accounts for half of California’s water usage.” That’s just livestock feed, and doesn’t include other uses like the water they drink, or used for cleaning.

UPDATE 3 (Mar 10): We’ve discovered there’s a campaign called TruthOrDrought (Facebook page) focused on this issue as well, here’s their petition on the issue to educate Californians on the significance of animal agribusiness.

Update 4 (Apr 6): Added the graphic from TruthOrDrought, plus The Daily Kos posted a great column on this issue as well, one of the few articles actually talking livestock: “Almost half of the average Californian’s water footprint is due to consumption of meat and dairy”

Update 5 (Apr 8): Another informative story from Gizmodo, who have also spotted the trend from Mother Jones (see below): “Seriously, Stop Demonizing Almonds“. Also, check out this really informative blog from The Vegan Junction – packed with great resources: “Almonds Use More Water Than Beef?!“

All said, I’m happy to learn more information about almonds and the resources they consume. Perhaps we ought to try and be mindful to consume less almonds when there’s a major drought in California, but the real question might be:

Why is Mother Jones author Tom Philpott out to get almonds? ;)

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