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Comment by lmm | Hacker News Reader

For people who want to reduce meat consumption for environmentalist reasons, being strictly vegan would sometimes do more harm than good (e.g. almond "milk" involves more CO2 emissions than milk). So the concept of a meal that doesn't include large amounts of meat, without necessarily being vegan, is a valuable one.

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No Vegan believes that everything they do is always the best for the environment - I just believe over the course of being a Vegan, I will end up reducing CO2 emissions overall.

I'd imagine Almond milk is a miniscule part of a Vegan's diet compared to how much meat someone would eat anyway.

This argument really annoys me because it seems like you're trying to discredit vegans and justify the act of eating meat to yourself.

I honestly do not care if people eat meat, but I do care when those people try and use mental gymnastic s to tell me (without any scientific evidence) that what I'm doing is somewhat worse.

The example in the parent comment is also wrong. Almond milk produces way fewer emissions than dairy. It just uses a surprisingly large amount of water, which is still roughly half that of dairy.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46654042

Are you aware of how the carbon cycle works?

https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/biogenic-carbon-cycle-a...

If methane from cattle was truly something to be concerned about, surely we'd be seeing an increase in the same carbon isotope as that in cattle methane in the atmosphere, except that's not what's happening.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00312-2

Not all sources of CO2 are concerning, and neither are all sources of methane.

The data doesn't back you up - https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impact-milks

You’re thinking of _water_ usage, not CO2, there. Though, even then the numbers are… dubious, and this factoid usually relies on comparing the worst-case for almonds (California, basically) with the best case for cows (un-irrigated pasture, little supplemental feed).

> (e.g. almond "milk" involves more CO2 emissions than milk)

No it doesn’t.

Perhaps water confused the poster, but that claim seems spurious as well - as meat production requires at least 1 did crop that also requires water.

You're saying that vegan people have to use milk alternatives like almond milk. Which is certainly not the case. What a non-argument.

Also, the problem with milk is not necessarily CO2 but CH4.

> You're saying that vegan people have to use milk alternatives like almond milk. Which is certainly not the case.

For vegans it certainly is the case. Vegans don't eat food that comes from animals. Milk is one such product. So vegans will definitely use milk alternatives.

You're forgetting that not everyone drinks milk or milk substitutes.

Or... that almond milk is generally not great (IMO), and there are alternatives like oat milk which are really amazing. Oat milk also doesn't go rancid like cow milk... I've never had oat milk "go bad" before using it up, even after 10+ day vacations, so the waste can only be much less than cow milk, I imagine.

Also if you spill some somewhere your house doesn't smell like rotting bodily fluids (ok, probably getting a little extreme here but who likes the smell of rotting milk?)

Only downsides to plant milks, is they are harder to steam for lattes, they don't make cheese like we expect from animal milk (tho this has changed a lot and we're just about there now with some amazing brands), and they do have a unique flavor profile that is sometimes desired (for stuff like homemade egg nog for example).

Mammals don't need to drink milk from other animals. So no, it isn't the case.

Some people do drink almond milk of course, also meat eaters btw.

A lot of mammals also eat meat, and most herbivores will not pass up the opportunity to get meat/eggs/fish into their diet, so...

Those are really edge cases. What is certain is that if everyone were vegan, our CO2 emissions would be way way lower

you got a source for that claim, chief?

More fun factoids:

https://imgur.com/a/d9m4VWU

This is a broad claim, please put some citations.

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