Almond Milk Is Even
More Evil Than You Thought
New York Magazine,
by
Madeleine Aggeler
Original Article
Posted By: MissMolly,
1/9/2020 4:43:40 PM
In the past five years, almond milk consumption in the United States has exploded over 250 percent. The lower-calorie, vegan milk alternative is a staple in grocery stores and coffee shops across the country now, but its booming popularity comes at a heavy environmental cost. According to a new report from the Guardian this week, the titanic and growing demands of the California almond industry are placing a huge strain on the hives of bees used to pollinate their orchards, wiping out billions of honeybees in a matter of months.
“My yard is currently filled with stacks of empty bee boxes that used to contain healthy hives,”
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Proud Texan 1/9/2020 5:05:36 PM (No. 283701)
I am not a fan of fake milk, but letting bees work with pollen is killing them?! What a load of B.S. An "NO!", I am not wasting my time reading an entire article in New Yawk Magazine!
I think Fake milk containing so much progesterone is a lot of the problem with a lot of people having such bad eyesight that they can't see what is between their legs.
12 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Catherine 1/9/2020 5:08:09 PM (No. 283707)
Oh please. Bees can pollinate millions of acres of fruits, vegetables and flowers. A few extra almond orchards won't hurt them.
10 people like this.
I think the thought of drinking almond milk is what’s evil. I did read the article and left a comment that is sure to make a few vegan and other whacko heads explode.
6 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
WV.Hillbilly 1/9/2020 5:15:02 PM (No. 283716)
They shouldn't even be allowed to advertise it as milk.
It's nut juice.
That just doesn't sound so good.
19 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
DVC 1/9/2020 5:30:18 PM (No. 283730)
And what does the California Bee Union say about all this?
9 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
RuckusTom 1/9/2020 5:30:31 PM (No. 283731)
These are not normal, wild bees. These are bees taken by bee keepers from field to field to field to pollinate farmers' crops. They're like carrier pigeons. You bet they can be overworked. The mass bee die offs you hear about are ones being used commercially - not the wild ones.
3 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
GoodDeal 1/9/2020 5:36:52 PM (No. 283736)
What a bunch of bull. Is this just jumping to conclusions to drive some hidden narrative? At first, I thought it was going to blame man-made climate change like we just saw as the media claimed talking point driving force behind the Australian brush fires. Don't bees catch diseases and have natural enemies? Is this a hit job on almond growers?
3 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
hurricanegirl 1/9/2020 5:41:15 PM (No. 283739)
Hey, anything that pits the nuts against the nuttier's is fine by me. Let the bee wars begin!
4 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
bad-hair 1/9/2020 5:42:08 PM (No. 283740)
Somebody had to crank out 2000 words a day to get paid. They're bugs for gawd's sake. A short level above house plants.
4 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
raspberry 1/9/2020 5:48:25 PM (No. 283753)
Strange article. Worker bees work themselves to death in a season. That is what they do.
6 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
watashiyo 1/9/2020 5:50:46 PM (No. 283757)
Liberate the bees from Bee Boxes. These Bees work their butts off for their masters and don't get paid. Slave labor! Unionize!
10 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
KTWO 1/9/2020 5:58:01 PM (No. 283761)
I know nothing about the nutrition, health, or environmental arguments of almond milk. But if you decide to try it then sip just a little at first. I tried a full glass and never had such a stomach pain in my life. It lasted about six hours. There were no other symptoms. And eating almond nuts never bothers me.
4 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
earlybird 1/9/2020 6:00:18 PM (No. 283765)
So the UK Guardian via New York Magazine is going envirowacko over California’s honey bees. The bees are simply working too hard. At least that is what one beekeeper has decided.
Some of the stuff we are expected to swallow as fact is abolutely ludicrous...
3 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
earlybird 1/9/2020 6:02:02 PM (No. 283768)
Re #6 maybe these bees don’t like being hauled around in boxes rather than just being allowed to roam free like normal bees.
FREE THE BEES!!!!!
6 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
planetgeo 1/9/2020 6:12:13 PM (No. 283778)
Not only that, but just imagine how degrading it must be to have all those almond milking machines attached to those tiny almond nipples on cold mornings. #beetoo
24 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
MommaTeePee63 1/9/2020 6:23:04 PM (No. 283788)
#16...thanks for the laugh!
9 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
snowoutlaw 1/9/2020 6:50:26 PM (No. 283810)
Not a word about the invasion of killer bees that are less able to handle harsh times like winter. My guess is any winter die off is caused by killer bee genes.
1 person likes this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
erod111 1/9/2020 6:56:19 PM (No. 283819)
Those poor overworked hive denizens might get rundown and develop cold symptoms leading to bees sneeze.
7 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
anniebc 1/9/2020 6:57:07 PM (No. 283820)
Bees don't have souls.
1 person likes this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
Pete Stone 1/9/2020 6:59:10 PM (No. 283824)
For those of us who are lactose intolerant and don't want to load up on phytoestrogens from soybeans, almond milk is great. I usually don't drink it, but it goes on my cereal and into my baked goods.
There's nothing wrong with honey bees going to work in February in any place that's got a mild enough climate for almond trees to grow. In northern California you see bees foraging everywhere around St. Valentine's Day.
This article is a hit piece, plain and simple. (It may have been paid for by the soybean and dairy industries.)
10 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 1/9/2020 7:02:42 PM (No. 283827)
This reminds me of all the stories of the bees dying out. Are the stories related? The article blames pesticides. Is there anything like a bee friendly pesticide? Has there been any drop in almond production? The almond farmers need the bees.
1 person likes this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
Sandpiper 1/9/2020 9:26:07 PM (No. 283914)
So what’s with all the hit pieces on almond milk lately? I have read several.
Yes, almond trees take in a lot of water. So do walnut trees, and I’ve never read any complaints about walnuts. And should we start talking about rice as an agricultural crop in California? Fields are flooded for weeks at a time, acres of open water in the hot Central Valley with all that water being lost in condensation ... never ever once have I read anything negative about rice, so spare me any concerns about how much water almond trees, or anything else, needs. And, the calculations about the amount needed daily never seems to remember that much of the water is drawn up by the plant itself out of the ground ... our heavy clay soils are very good at retaining water. Irrigation does not provide for all of the plants’ needs.
Bees working to death? They are bees, called WORKER bees, working is what they do. Now bees in CA lately have been subject to a number of diseases and parasites so those things can affect hive health. Concerns about pesticide use on almonds could have some validity since bees are susceptible to neonicotinoids, a type of pesticide commonly used agriculturally. Neonicotinoids have the effect of slowly killing bees, so they would live for a few months before dying. However, almonds are hardly the only crop in the Central Valley that uses pesticides - grapes and citrus and peaches and cherries and on and on and on - pretty much everything that is grown there has pesticides applied. So why pick on almonds?
Well, nut milks ARE killing the dairy industry. Wonder if there is any connection between the powerful CA milk lobby and negative press about almond orchards? Things that make you go hmm ....
3 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
padiva 1/9/2020 9:48:53 PM (No. 283934)
Wasn't it just last year that the experts were saying that the bees are dying because of all the towers for cell phones and internet usage?
2 people like this.
In reading the article, are we talking about almonds or the pesticides used on almond trees ? Hard to believe CA allows pesticides.
1 person likes this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
Rubinski 1/9/2020 10:50:50 PM (No. 283983)
If you read the article, you would see that bees pollinating almonds have a high mortality rate for a couple of reasons. The high mortality rate among bees who pollinate almonds, beekeepers believe, is due in part to the enormous quantities of pesticides used on almonds — far more than any other crop in California..... What’s more, almond pollination is especially demanding for bees, because they need to wake up from their annual period of winter dormancy one to two months earlier than usual to begin. Then, once they start, massive numbers of bees are concentrated in small geographic areas, making it easier for diseases to spread among them.
1 person likes this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
Safari Man 1/9/2020 10:51:05 PM (No. 283984)
Udderly nutty!
1 person likes this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
DVC 1/10/2020 1:44:48 AM (No. 284075)
Hmmm. NY Mag......never a reliable source. No kind of fan of fake milk, I drink real milk. Given the sources.....makes me want to try some almond milk. But I will resist the urge to automatically do the exact opposite of what NY Mag says is good, since I don't do fake milk.
0 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
Trigger2 1/10/2020 2:17:54 AM (No. 284085)
Almond milk is the holy grail of demonrats to get rid of cows. The fact that its destroying honeybees is of no consequence to them. It's collateral damage.
0 people like this.
looks like a market opportunity for suppliers of domesticated bees - markets
shift equilibrium all the time - nothing to get one's undies in a twist
0 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
kono 1/10/2020 10:15:47 AM (No. 284366)
It's not so much the pollinating work that taxes the bees, it's the repeated moving of the boxes that serve as their 'hives' from field to field to field to field to field that stresses them.
The unrelenting campaign against cow's milk has gotten through to consumers and claimed a huge trophy with Borden Dairies going out of business last week. Maybe allowing almond-derived-drink sellers to call their beverage "milk" was a mistake. I still want to see where the almonds are lined up to have their little almond teats squeezed to get their "milk" before being put back into their little stalls. "Milk", my a--.
0 people like this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
TXknitter 1/10/2020 12:50:47 PM (No. 284527)
The dairy and soy industry do hit jobs on alternative “milks” whenever they can. Almond “milk” is selling wonderfully because
a lot of people cannot tolerate dairy. I make my own and have for years. Its just delicious to me.
1 person likes this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
Pete Stone 1/14/2020 5:19:43 PM (No. 288609)
Not being an expert on nut tree culture, I may be wrong, but: I doubt very much in the way of insecticides is being applied to almond trees during the blossom period (which is February). And, by the way, honeybees are already awake and working hard during February in northern California.
One thing is common to any large monoculture: the almond pollen may or may not be a balanced diet for bees. That could be equally true for rose fields, apple orchards, or tomato fields. If the bees are on an exclusive diet of one kind of pollen, it may be bad for them. Of course, after a few weeks the beekeepers move their hives to a different region with a different crop -- pears in March, then apples and stone fruit, then squash and beans, etc.
0 people like this.
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