In the Middle Ages, the Upper Class Went Nuts for Almond Milk

Re:In the Middle Ages, the Upper Class Went Nuts for Almond ... by devmunchies on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @10:02AM (#15905985)

If you don't have pastures for cows or for the corn/soy then you make it right? Also terrible for the environment.

It's a massive system beyond simply "eating the grass which people couldn't eat". People consume many times more dairy and eat many times more beef than in history.

There's not enough land for all of the cows to free graze. It was estimated we would need something like 7 Earths to feed the world on the Western diet.

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Re:In the Middle Ages, the Upper Class Went Nuts for Almond ... by JoeAltmaier on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @10:41AM (#15906320)

Feedlots feed out with hay/grain, molasses and silage. The grain was (nominally) edible by humans; the rest is not. Over 100 days they eat ~1500kg per head total and gain around 140kg (meat).

So when counting the grain used against the cost of meat, include the dry material as well for a fair comparison.

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Re:In the Middle Ages, the Upper Class Went Nuts for Almond ... by maxerickson on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @10:16AM (#15906107)

Per capita consumption was likely quite a bit higher in the early US:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/how-ameri...

Of course the total consumption has gone up because of the massive increase in population.

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Re:In the Middle Ages, the Upper Class Went Nuts for Almond ... by devmunchies on Tuesday December 12, 2017 @10:24AM (#15906177)

But we hardly ate cheese in the early US. There were only a handful dairies. Now we are the #1 cheese producing country.

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