For the Environment: Cow or Soy Milk?!
For the Environment: Cow or Soy Milk?
Would it be more environmentally sustainable to drink soy milk that was grown and produced in another country, with the possibility that it was grown on deforested rainforest land, or to drink organic cows’ milk from a cow that could have possibly been subjected to the factory farm industry?
Keep it realistic- think of the products you can buy at your local Whole Foods…
Answers:
Complicated Rice Milk, Fancy Rice Milk, Horchata, Mexican Rice Milk, Plain Rise Milk, Plain Almond Milk, Almond-Oat Milk, Alternative Sprouted Oat Milk Plain Oat Milk, Sprouted Oat Milk, Plain Soy Milk, and Tofu Soy Milk are delicious and can all be made at home. Just select one.
Here is a recipe to start you off. Make your own rice milk!
4 cups water
1/2 cup uncooked rice (white or brown may be used) or 1 cup cooked rice (white or brown may be used)
1 vanilla bean or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cook rice, vanilla bean or extract and water until very soft. Let cool, remove vanilla bean (if using) and put mixture into blender or food processor. Blend until very smooth. Let stand for at least 45 minutes, then strain through cheese cloth.
Soy milk.
I've done some figuring for my own use, and I've come up with Soy for sure.
Plus Cow poop=methane gas emmissions.
I have made the choice to drink soy milk or an alternative milk.
Horchata
4 servings
1 quart soy milk
1 quart water
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix milk, water and sugar together very well for 2 minutes. Add cinnamon and vanilla and mix well.
If you like rice milk you need to try out this recipe. Schuyler
A cow needs land, water and food (plus the water and land used to grow that food).
A soybean (or other protein used for a vegetarian/vegan milk) just needs the land and water.
It's sad, but people totally get their facts mixed up over the environmental impact of the soy eaten by vegans/vegetarians.
70,000 sq km of Amazonia has been destroyed in part to grow soya... FOR ANIMAL FEED. So many people are not told the final part of that fact. The soy isn't been grown for human consumption- it's grown and then flown back to the West to fatten up our animals. I recently had a conversation with someone who insisted everyone being vegan/vegetarian wasn't eco friendly!!! "there isn't enough land", they say, rather foolishly.
An area of land the size of five football pitches will support 2 PEOPLE ON MEAT, 10 PEOPLE WITH MAIZE, 24 WITH GRAIN or 61 WITH SOYA.
1 KG OF WHEAT REQUIRES 1,000 LITRES OF WATER
1KG OF BEEF NEEDS 100,000
Farming animals for food purposes is destroying the earth, stealing water and screwing up our bodies.
Besides, as people have mentioned, you can make milk at home from a bag of soy beans or a bag of nuts or rice. It doesn't need to be flown over.
I prefer not to have hormones, blood and pus in my tea, thanks.
Personally, I like soy milk better then I like cow's milk, but I lived on a farm when I was growing up. We sold half of what we grew and ground the rest for animal feed, we never bought any feed for our animals, and if the parent animal rejected the baby, we would milk another mother and put that milk into a bottle to feed the baby. Health wise, if you want to drink cows milk, go to a farm where they don't use machines and grow there own feed, you would be suprised how many there are in the country. If you want soy, try finding some where the beans and such were grown in this or another country where rain forrests or other places where endangered animals live.
Raw milk from grass fed cows is best for the environment and for you.
Check out www.realmilk.com it has a lot of info on it.