I was wondering about that. Not sure what the breakdown is between feed for livestock vs veggies, fruit, nuts, etc.
Our World in Data has good data about this, although it's not specific to the Colorado River. Nuts do need a lot of freshwater to grow, but have a very low carbon footprint, land use footprint, and eutrophying emissions footprint.
Animal products, especially cow/lamb meat, and dairy have a very high environmental footprint in all categories (and prawns in all categories except land use), whereas peas and pulses have one of the lowest footprints in all categories.
@katlin I'd say the lowest water footprint of any seed for protein is pumpkin. You get not just a low water needing seed, but a whole big fruit to go with it! That's substantial to me.
Look - compared to animal products - just about anything has a low footprint, but that's a really low bar to set.
If we look at nuts - it depends how it's grown that counts as much as the need. There's dry farming - but the issue is that it just doesn't produce much. There's non-bee pollination but same issue.
I see nuts as a great source of nutrients but they can't be the main source of protein in a sustainable diet. For this we need beans, lentils, peas, and seeds!
My reasoning is based on both the anti-nutrients you already mentioned as well as the large water consumption of large-scale nut production in water-stressed regions. There are nuts which can be harvested in regions which are not water-stressed, but can this be scaled up to meet national or global demand as a main source of protein? I just think logistically it would be much more challenging than beans, lentils, peas, and seeds, but I would be happy to be proven wrong!
@katlin well it's also allergens. However, beans are also full of anti-nutrients and are allergenic. It also depends upon the nut and bean.
@katlin well in say california - there's native walnut trees - so they're adapted to the environment. Just collecting the nuts could keep more walnut trees from popping up - thereby decreasing water stress levels, especially due to wildfires.
The issue is that the almond industry uses them as rootstock - knowing how well walnuts work.
Large-scale nut production is due to demand - people want almonds. This leads to unnatural, water-stressing conditions.
However, trees - while they use a whole lot of water, also have a role in conserving and bringing it forth. They hold water, to decrease erosion, as well as topsoil degradation from droughts drying it up.
A native plant will be adapted to its surroundings. You just don't see many people taking up on acorns - they go rancid and need leaching. I get it.
Black walnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts - to get pine nuts from siberia because california won't take up upon what they have is madness.
Walnuts are a great source of omega 3 - yes, I get that soaking helps, but you can eat them as-is. Same with hazelnuts.
Lentils and peas - I don't see them as native. Lentils are adapted for desert conditions, peas can grow in vertical farms. Chia is a small plant. Beans aren't that nutrient dense. It's better to grow spirulina or grass (like barley grass) than them.
I think grass leaves and microbes are much easier to grow, but it's not the whole story.
Trees create their own microclimate - so they provide nutrients to other plants to bring forth more food. So just looking at the water usage of trees is not the whole picture.
Legumes contribute to the soil and its microbiome with nitrogen fixing b12 bacteria.
I've picked beans from a farm myself - and foraged nuts. Trees are harder to move, but provide a whole lot.
Protein is more than just protein - our body makes its own from amino acids - and uses carbs to help form proteins from that. Nuts have a decent level of protein and carbs, much like all the other you mention.
Sunflower seeds are easy to grow - I can understand, but if nut trees are already around - it would be greater effort to plant sunflower seeds.
It's all relative.
Now there is 1 that is the exception: pumpkin seeds - they are the most water-efficient protein I've seen - and gives a whole lot of a vegetable to go with it. Watermelon seeds and poppy too (although both aren't native to california - the ones that are eaten of course).
California's water stressed because I read how most of the state was flooded and then it got drained for fertile soil. I bet if it didn't get drained - trees would be able to survive it, so the draining might've been for the small seed providing plants, but we'd never know would we?
Good points! The nuance is often overlooked.
GaryRLundberg
Crystal Zenith