According to what estimates? I'm seeing various numbers but they're suggesting a bit under 2000 gallons of water to make a pound of both almonds and beef. The almonds do have more calories, but that's a really unimpressive number for both.

The reason we talk about almonds is because both of those are wasteful, and both of those are enormous uses of california water, but california has 6% of the country's cattle and 80% of the entire world's almonds.

I can't find a good estimate for milk.