Do vegan alternatives have environmental problems too?
Summary
No plant food is impact-free, but the comparison isn't close — and it's provable, not just asserted. Animal agriculture uses about 83% of the world's farmland and causes 56-58% of food's greenhouse emissions while delivering only 18% of our calories and 37% of our protein (Poore & Nemecek, 2018, Science) — because routing crops through animals wastes most of their energy (only ~12% of the crop calories fed to livestock return as food; Cassidy et al., 2013). So even the highest-footprint plant foods (almonds, avocados) use far less land and cause far fewer emissions than the animal products they replace — and, compared serving-for-serving with what they actually replace (like dairy), less water too. The biggest "vegan" culprit people cite — soy — is overwhelmingly grown to feed livestock (~77% of global soy), not eaten by vegans. Choosing oat or soy milk over almond trims your footprint further, but the net picture was never in doubt.
Evidence Summary
No food is impact-free, and honest engagement with veganism requires acknowledging the environmental costs of plant-based alternatives rather than pretending they do not exist. ## Water use: the almond question Almond milk has become a lightning rod for criticism. California almonds require roughly 3.2 litres of water per almond, and the state produces about 80 percent of the global supply during persistent drought conditions (Fulton et al., 2019).