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- Jun 4, 2012
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Thanks to almond milk there are 10,000 less dairy cows in California. ![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
America's Love of Almond Milk is Driving Dairy Farms Nuts
Milk, the kind from cows, is still Americans’ favorite complement to a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. But it’s feeling the heat from milk, the kind from almonds.
You can tell by the trash talk.
“You can’t get milk from an almond,” said Chris Galen, a spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation. “You have to add a lot of other ingredients to make it look like milk.”
Galen’s correct, of course, as anyone who’s ever attempted to milk an almond can attest. Almond milk usually contains only 2 percent almonds, with a lot of water, vitamins and gelling agents mixed in. But the numbers don’t lie. U.S. sales of almond milk rose 4.2 percent last year to within sniffing distance of $1 billion, according to IRI data. At the same time, while Americans are drinking more organic and full-fat cow’s milk, low-fat varieties are plunging, with skim milk consumption down 13 percent from a year ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s June data.
Swapping Cows
But the real blow to dairy is the widespread replacement of cows for almond groves...
America's Love of Almond Milk is Driving Dairy Farms Nuts