Almond milk: more harm than good?

Is your morning coffee costing the lives of billions of bees?

There's no denying it- plant-based milk is everywhere. In 2018, there was uproar in the US as a shortage of the popular oat milk brand 'Oatly' broke out, due to sales growing faster than even the company expected.  Demand for cow's milk is falling as people begin to choose alternative milks such as coconut, soya and even pea. However, this isn't without causing some controversy, of course. One plant milk in particular has come under fire recently, due to claims that its production is causing the deaths of billions of honey bees.

Now, I'm not saying that we should just give up and switch back to drinking cow's milk. The 2018 University of Oxford study shows that dairy milk produces almost three times more greenhouse gasses than any milk alternative available. So whichever plant milk you choose, it's still so much better for the environment than dairy. But if you're an almond milk lover and are concerned about the harm to bees, it might be worth swapping to a different dairy alternative.

Oat milk latte? Yes please.

When I first tried out plant-milk a few years ago I was both blown away by the amount of choice and slightly hesitant to give them a try. I had no idea which, if any, would be to my liking. The only way to find out was to try them all, putting my pre-conceived ideas about them aside. Soya milk sounded like liquid tofu, and in my mind, coconut milk belonged in curries, not my coco pops. Oat milk wasn't such a big deal when I tried them out (now one of my favourites), so I settled on soya and almond milk. So when I recently read online that almonds were causing the mass extinction of bees, I knew I had to do some more digging to find out what really is the truth.

When it comes to almonds, the problem is that they are not self-pollinating like some crops. As demand for almonds continues to grow, so does the pressure on the honey bees used for the  pollination process. The billions of bees used in almond pollination are kept in such close quarters that sickness spreads like wildfire. Another cause of sickness for the bees is the fact that many of the almonds grown in California (which accounts for over 80% of the world's supply) are treated with pesticides. These can be toxic for the bees and weaken their immune systems. Even if they do survive whilst pollinating the almonds, they may take substances back that cause whole colonies to become poisoned over time. During the winter of 2018-19, it's been estimated that over a third of managed honey bee colonies were lost in the US, which amounts to around 50 billion bees.

If you're a fan of almond milk but are worried about the treatment of honey bees, then don't worry! There's so many other plant-based milk options to try that I'm sure you'll find one you like just as much, if not even more. Personally, I drink Oatly Barista (when it's on offer!) but most of the time soya milk is my go-to because it's cheap and has less of an environmental impact than other milks such as rice, and of course cow's. If it's the nuttiness of almond milk that you're after, then hazelnut milk might be right up your street. Hazelnuts are wind-pollinated, meaning no bees are harmed in the production process.

Next week- Avocados: is the water consumption worth it?