Agree that meat is very inefficient. But…
Dairy animals concentrate the calories on land that can’t be mechanically farmed, converting them into human-usable nutrition.
Even dairy animals on a conventional dairy farm upcycle calories - just searched and learned dairy farmers can boost a cow’s low-quality straw diet with cottonseed meal (high protein). Humans don’t eat cottonseed meal.
I’ve known people with a single dairy cow, or a few dairy goats. I don’t think “nut milk” works without a nut milk factory.
You are mistaken.
Take 20-100g of any nuts (or oat flakes, or cooked rice/potatoes, what have you), 1-2 dates (or a pinch of sugar), 1 litre of water, and put it in the blender. Filter it through a sieve.
You've got milk, no factory needed !
Milk is heavily subsidized, nuts are not. We could integrate (nut) trees into our agricultural fields, it would help with local temperatures, water retention, soil erosion, biodiversity, nutrition availability, the list is endless ... and the price of nuts would go rapidly down.
> require a gasoline to be transported to places that are quite close to actual cows
https://ychef.files.bbci.co.uk/1600x900/p0c41fcj.webp - Emissions (in kg CO2e) from the food supply chain – the climate impact of food miles is often a small proportion (Source: Our World in Data/Poore and Nemecek, Science, 2018)
> that thing you described does not sound like milk
That is a universal recipe for a plant based milk (lookup some recipes on the net if you don't believe it).
Yes Almond Milk does contain Vitamine D, but not as much. Cows milk is way more nutritious while Nut based Milk frequently contain added vitamin D, calcium, and protein.
Cows live where I live. They spend most of the year outside. They definitely dont take 75% of fields for themselves, most of fields are for crops of various kind.
> That is a universal recipe for a plant based milk (lookup some recipes on the net if you don't believe it).
Factually, it is rice + nuts. I can take apple juice and call it non-alcoholic wine, but it wont be wine.
> Planting a lot of means changing local biodiversity for the artificially create one
People have been deforesting (fires etc.) the land for the last 10000 years or so, maybe even longer. So what you see, what you're accustomed to, is already a changed, artificial environment.
> ... cows ... spend most of the year outside. They definitely dont take 75% of fields for themselves, most of fields are for crops of various kind.
Yes, they do take as much.
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-g...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p...
> apple juice and call it non-alcoholic wine
Let it sit for a while and you'll have an alcoholic apple wine :)
And no, cows where I live don't take 75% of the fields. And people here do drink quite a lot of milk, most of it local. Maybe elsewhere cows they do take huge amount of space, but not here.
Also, quite a lot of what is pasture is a place unsuitable for crops. That is why it is used for pasture.
A billion pounds of California almonds stranded at US ports
https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9442683/a-billion-pounds-...
And sorry, but california farms are not forests. A monoculture from horizon to horizon is bad practice not only for the grains, but for the trees also.
For example, if done right they wouldn't need to water / deplete ground water reservoirs and hoard bees from around the country every year.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-permaculture-f...
With a national, concerted effort I think you could slowly make headway on milk at least. Subsidies, convert flavoured milks first, UHT if possible. In theory that is. In reality, not going to happen in a hurry.
I wonder if pricing will eventually influence the meat side. Patties and sausages become non-meat first, steaks increasingly become a luxury. As it is, I'm not confident budget sausages are quality so it wouldn't take much to take them down.
When for production of 1000kJ of food you need 120m2 of land to produce beef vs. 1m2 of land to produce beans/peas, the unsubsidized market would take care of the problem. Let the capitalism work for us for once ;)
We could do that if we'd only replace cow's milk with nut milk and significantly reduce our (egregious) meat consumption. Then we could reforest upto 75% of our fields and it would sure help repair the water cycle / climate instability (among other good things).
If we don't do it, things will get so bad, even west will weep. Good news - it's something even we as individuals can influence. Simply choose plant based food when you can, and help reduce our agricultural impact.
Btw, our fields are not nature - we have too many of them, they are in fact green deserts, it's all deforested land, they don't influence the weather / water cycle in a good way, they destroy biodiversity, they poison everything, even most people have pesticides in their bodies. Our current agricultural / dietary practices are killing the earth.
Sorry, need sleep, so no sources, but somebody has to say it - study it yourself.
Edit: wow, 2 downvotes in less than 1 minute. Let it rain, burger chompers ;)