Like an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population, I don’t digest lactose well, which makes the occasional latte an especially pricey proposition. So it was a pleasant surprise when, shortly after moving to San Francisco, I ordered a drink at Blue Bottle Coffee and didn’t have to ask—or pay extra—for a milk alternative. Since 2022, the once Oakland-based, now Nestlé-owned cafe chain has defaulted to oat milk, both to cut carbon emissions and because lots of its affluent-tending customers were already choosing it as their go-to.
Plant-based milks, a multibillion-dollar global market, aren’t just good for the lactose intolerant: They’re also better for the climate. Dairy cows belch a lot of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide; they contribute at least 7 percent of US methane output, the equivalent emissions of 10 million cars. Cattle need a lot of room to graze, too: Plant-based milks use about a tenth as much land to produce the same quantity of milk. And it takes almost a thousand gallons of water to manufacture a gallon of dairy milk—four times the water cost of alt-milk from oats or soy.
But if climate concerns push us toward the alt-milk aisle, dairy still has price on its side. Even though plant-based milks are generally much less resource-intensive, they’re often more expensive. Walk into any Starbucks, and you’ll likely pay around 70 cents extra for nondairy options.
. Dairy’s affordability edge, explains María Mascaraque, an analyst at market research firm Euromonitor International, relies on the industry’s ability to produce “at larger volumes, which drives down the cost per carton.” American demand for milk alternatives, though expected to grow by 10 percent a year through 2030, can’t beat those economies of scale. (Globally, alt-milks aren’t new on the scene—coconut milk is even mentioned in the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata, which is thousands of years old.)
What else contributes to cow milk’s dominance? Dairy farmers are “political favorites,” says Daniel Sumner, a University of California, Davis, agricultural economist. In addition to support like the “Dairy Checkoff,” a joint government-industry program to promote milk products (including the “Got Milk?” campaign), they’ve long raked in direct subsidies currently worth around $1 billion a year.
Big Milk fights hard to maintain those benefits, spending more than $7 million a year on lobbying. That might help explain why the US Department of Agriculture has talked around the climate virtues of meat and dairy alternatives, refusing to factor sustainability into its dietary guidelines—and why it has featured content, such as a 2013 article by then–Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, trumpeting the dairy industry as “leading the way in sustainable innovation.”
But the USDA doesn’t directly support plant-based milk. It does subsidize some alt-milk ingredients—soybean producers, like dairy, net close to $1 billion a year on average, but that crop largely goes to feeding meat- and dairy-producing livestock and extracting oil. A 2021 report by industry analysts Mintec Limited and Frost Procurement Adventurer also notes that, while the inputs for dairy (such as cattle feed) for dairy are a little more expensive than typical plant-milk ingredients, plant alternatives face higher manufacturing costs. Alt-milk makers, Sumner says, may also have thinner profit margins: Their “strategy for growth is advertisement and promotion and publicity,” which isn’t cheap.
Starbucks, though, does benefit from economies of scale. In Europe, the company is slowly dropping premiums for alt-milks, a move it attributes to wanting to lower corporate emissions. “Market-level conditions allow us to move more quickly” than other companies, a spokesperson for the coffee giant told me, but didn’t say if or when the price drop would happen elsewhere.
In the United States, meanwhile, it’s a waiting game to see whether the government or corporations drive down alt-milk costs. Currently, Sumner says, plant-based milk producers operate under an assumption that “price isn’t the main thing” for their buyers—as long as enough privileged consumers will pay up, alt-milk can fill a premium niche. But it’s going to take a bigger market than that to make real progress in curbing emissions from food.
One thing nobody has commented on - how that article slips in a seemingly positive mention of Nestlé (they own the cafe that uses plant milks). That raised my eyebrows.
Always follow the money. Nobody does journalism for free.
Because lots of people in your country drink it, like it, and even more eat things made from it. Like cheese.
“Two thirds of people can’t tolerate lactose” is utterly fucking meaningless in this context. Most of those are in Asia. Last I checked, it was countries giving out subsidies, not some nebulous world council.
And nearly all farming gets subsidised, because that reduces reliance on external countries. You’ve seen what capitalism did to housing. You don’t want that to happen to food.
Americans are at 36% lactose intolerant. Which is surprisingly, to me anyways, high.
And should corn and cattle get the bulk of the subsidies? If it’s about food alone, maybe not.
My takeaway from this is that Nestle probably doesn’t own any dairy companies, but probably does own a plant that makes oat milk. They keep all the profit in their own ecosystem by buying their supplies from themself and then get to tell us how green and thoughtful they are.
Are you suggesting cow’s milk is more sustainable/ecological than any plant milk?
No, they’re suggesting that Nestle is probably acting in bad faith by attempting to close a monopolistic gap rather than genuinely doing something for the betterment of the world
Moving to plant-based milks would be a net positive for the world, right?
Again, you’re dissenting on something that wasn’t asserted. If that’s your opinion, then that’s your opinion, and that’s fine. But, if there’s a conflict of interest in a study, then we have reason to doubt the results are legitimate. This is what the comment was saying, and that’s drastically far from a total conclusion one way or the other.
Your question also suggests there’s one correct answer, which just plane isn’t true. It makes more ecological sense for some people to consume milk products in favor of plant based just based on location alone.
Your question also suggests there’s one correct answer, which just plane isn’t true. It makes more ecological sense for some people to consume milk products in favor of plant based just based on location alone.
I don’t think that’s ever true.
Transport is a small contributor to emissions. For most food products, it accounts for less than 10%, and it’s much smaller for the largest GHG emitters. In beef from beef herds, it’s 0.5%.
https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
What you eat has a far larger impact on ecology/GHGs than where it comes from.
Why aren’t you responding to the topic of the thread? What you responded to was not the heart of my comment nor was it the point I was trying to get across to you.
Do you think Nestle is acting in good faith?
You really insisted on steering the conversation toward this study, yet it’s largely flawed. I know I’m taking the bait, but as someone who grew up on a farm in a rural community, several red flags were very apparent. What they are talking about are gross emissions, that’s what’s measured by carbon capture. What these types of measurements don’t consider, is how much CO2 the immediate environment is going to recapture and make use of. Cattle and buffalo before them have been a part of the north American prairies for thousands of years, and the cycle has always been the bovine graze on the grass, which spurs regrowth, aided by the gasses emitted by the bovine after eating said grass.
I believe they’re being selective about where they’re measuring their data as well, because it does not make sense for land use change to be a factor in the vast majority of cases for grass fed cattle. Again, this is why location matters, cattle do well on grassland. It also makes no sense for the emissions of machinery to be coupled in the data with the emissions of cattle. It’s also virtually impossible for the machinery emissions to be that low for wheat and rye specifically, because I know first hand how many diesel tank refills it takes get the seeding done alone, let alone the constant maintenance it takes afterwards. It doesn’t take any machinery to raise grassland cattle there but it sure does take machinery to farm grains, farmers have heavy machinery in their fields constantly. You have to plow the field, disc, harrow, spray herbicide, spray pesticide, seed the crop, spray fertilizer, roll the peas, swath the canola, harvest all of it with a massive machine, all while a cow chills watching from the next field over lol.
My guess is that they’re referring to warehouse cattle, which don’t exist everywhere (outright illegal in Canada I think). This is why it matters where it comes from. Can’t really verify any of their data either since the source studies are behind a pay wall.
I’d also even say there’s far more to ecology than raw emissions. Almond production has been a massive hindrance on California’s water supply, They’re prone to drought already, and they’re still mass producing almonds while in a drought right now. Regardless of emissions, we would be actively contributing to an ongoing crisis if we increased plant milk demand. To do so out of ecological principle would be incredibly ironic. But, that seems to be what encouraging plant based milk over cattle has done.
Third party here, if we want to be fair and acknowledge that some milk supplies are worse than others, let’s also acknowledge that nut milks are notoriously water intensive as opposed to a grain based milk like oat. But I’ll heartily agree that water rights, management, and surrounding legal actions in California are… nuts (bu dum tsss) right now.
My takeaway from this is that Nestle probably doesn’t own any dairy companies,
They probably do, but oat milk is probably not great for making milk chocolate or several other of their food products. Decent coffee also hides less appetizing milks somewhat.
Are there actual studies showing that plant-based alternatives are better for health (for individuals that digest lactose just fine like me) ?
I switched to alt-milks for ecological reason but media keep talking about the negative health effects of «ultra-transformed food», which alt-milk very much sounds like…
Well oatmilk is literally grinded oats with water. How is that ultra-transformed?
With added sugar, flavour and occasionally vitamins and micronutrients.
Not saying it’s necessarily bad though
That’s what most plant milks are. Oat milk requires further additions, because it’s comparatively unappetizing as-is, compared to coconut, almond or soy milk.
Some oat milks have oil added to make it thicker, or to make it froth, but there are plenty here in the UK that are just oats and water.
What is an ultra-transformed food and what makes it bad for you? Generally the things added to foods (sugar, salt, preservatives) are what make them less healthy than fresh counterparts. At least here, the soy milk has added salt putting it at the same salt content as milk, and no added sugar, putting it at 8x less sugar than milk. What it does have is added calcium, vitamin B2, vitamin B12, vitamin D, and a higher protein content than milk. Simply being processed doesn’t make something unhealthy, the things that are changed in processing it can make something unhealthy. That doesn’t apply here.
Agreed, the term and confusion is likely due to over-simplification from media and researchers.
I thought there were added sugar in those alt-milks, as most I tried tasted so sweet…
You can buy it sweetened or unsweetened here. The sweetened soy milk here has almost the same sugar content as milk but still slightly lower (2.5g/100ml for the soy milk, 2.6g/100ml for the milk)
Nutrition differs for other milk replacements as well, but that’s due to the core ingredient being different (e.g., oats have more sugar than soy).
If you can digest lactose, it’s simply much better for you than sucrose. Most objective health sites I’ve seen consider sugar content to overall be a pro of dairy milk over sweetened plant-based milk, but con over unsweetened plant-based milk.
Unfortunately, I can’t digest lactose, and I believe (never found research) I lose some of that benefit when I add lactase to my milk.
Sucrose has a higher glycemic index than lactose but it doesn’t seem to be that much of a difference. I can’t find any objective sources for lactose being better for you other than it having a lower glycemic index, and how much that really matters especially in the relatively low amounts of sugar in milk and sweetened plant milk seems not clear. I’m quite curious to learn about it, do you have any references?
I can’t find any objective sources for lactose being better for you other than it having a lower glycemic index, and how much that really matters especially in the relatively low amounts of sugar in milk and sweetened plant milk seems not clear
The lower glycemic index is a pretty big deal in a vacuum, in regards to insulin-related issues and appetite-related issues. Which you seem to have already agreed with?
As for “there’s not enough”, dunno. Honestly, nobody is trying to say that nut milk is bad for you (except possibly the cancer risk in soy milk, but I tend to put that in the “unlikely” column alongside cancer risk of cow milk). It’s that milk is better for you, if only slightly so.
And if you note, I said lactose is much better, not dairy milk is always much better (though I think it’s better in almost every way, health-wise). It was in a direct reply to the near-match sugar content from your previous note.
If they taste sweet, at all, they are definitely sweetened with added sugar. One of the biggest cons of plant-based milks is that they are either completely devoid of sweetness, or have lots of sugar and are higher carb than dairy milk.
The sweetened plant milks taste excessively sweet to me and the plant-based ones taste right. It depends a bit on the specific milk though, I think pea milk is pretty devoid of sweetness for example.
Interesting! For some reason, all the unsweetened ones taste horrible to me, like bitter dirt. But drink lactose-free cow milk normally, and the lactase enzyme increases the perceived sweetness by just a tiny bit. I love tofu in its raw form, so I remain shocked that I can’t stand unsweetened soymilk.
You can’t find unsweetened soymilk around me because nobody will buy it. Ditto to a lesser extent in other unsweetened milks. Usually, the unsweetened ones are also the unfortified ones around me, too… which means nutritionally inferior.
One of the advantages to cow milk is that it is probably the lowest carb content for that “sweet enough” milk balance. Unsweetened plant milks are just lacking that, and the plant milks sweetened to compete are too high-carb. But yeah, I wouldn’t call any plant milk ultra-transformed. The term “processed food” is way too large an umbrella for reasoned conversation.
What it does have is added calcium, vitamin B2, vitamin B12, vitamin D, and a higher protein content than milk
Per the Mayo Clinic, it’s tough to beat dairy milk for balanced nutrition. These heavily fortified alt-milks aren’t terrible, but the body doesn’t digest those nutrients as well. Doesn’t mean it’ll kill ya. I know people who eat a giant pastry for breakfast every morning, but it’s points against. If the only thing you care about is nutrients and not being dairy, the answer is definitely unsweetened Soy Milk if it’s available where you are.
I’m lactose intolerant, and for years I thought lactaid wouldn’t for for me. The sweetened soymilk I drank definitely contributed to some weight gain back then, but it was hardly the main or only cause.
The phrasing in the Mayo Clinic article is weird to me. The pros and cons outlined in that article (skim milk versus soy milk), skim milk has:
- slightly more protein (8g over 7g)
- potentially easier to absorb calcium
- more sugar in the form of lactase
- less healthy fats
- lactase which most adults cannot process
The conclusion that milk (even skim milk) is better for you than soy milk does not seem self-evident to me. I would rather have less sugar (regardless of whether it’s added or not) and more healthy fats than slightly more protein. There are many good sources of protein but avoiding sugar in your diet enough to stay under the recommended limit is really difficult.
Interesting. From those bullet points, it does seem self-evident to me. But then, those bullet points are not the whole description either.
It’s not just “slightly more protein”, it’s “slightly more of a better protein” (which, admittedly, the article doesn’t dig into). It’s not just calcium that’s easier to absorb. That’s just the topic they were responding to in that line.
The “form of lactose” (not lactase. lactase is the enzyme people like me lack). Lactose is decently healthier than sucrose gram-for-gram, if you can digest it (and while I doubted elsewhere, I don’t see how adding lactase enzyme to it would make it any less healthy).
“less healthy fats” is actually worded weird here. Soymilk and almond milk has higher fat (which I didn’t think they had higher fact), but it’s a slightly healthier fat. The fats in cow milk are perfectly fine if kept to under 7% of your calories - and it only accounts for <2% of the calories in the milk. Meaning you can’t drink enough milk for it to be a major reason you’re having too much saturated fat.
Finally, they are comparing soymilk intentionally fortified with nutrients to plain-ol cow milk. And cow milk wins. It’s still fine to have fortified soymilk if you really want… (OR fortify cow milk to get the best of both worlds.) Fortified foods are ok, though their absorption levels are sometimes lower or sometimes uncertain, but that’s just a matter of how much more time we’ve had to study the nutritional effects of milk. It is still slightly better to have dairy milk, and definitely not worse to have dairy milk, if you can.
Ultimately, the article clearly articulates that dairy milk is healthier than plant milks, but plant milks are still ok as long as you know what you’re drinking. Whether you boil it down to those bullet points or read the article, that’s what the article says, and manages to defend.
I can’t speak to health, but here’s some thoughts on the ecological reason.
All the studies (that I have found at least) look at global carbon emissions and land use in production of milk. This is an important distinction.
The US, for example, is the #2 milk producer in the world (arguably #1 if we’re only talking about cow milk). It’s also the #1 beef producer in the world. The US’s livestock methane footprint is barely a blip on the Global Warming Radar (6% of total methane from all sources). There are even ways to reduce the carbon footprint of cow milk further, but it’s important to note we are very much in the range where we could easily take action to fund offsets and make the dairy industry 100% carbon neutral in the US. You may not be from the US, and that’s not the point. The point is that a lot of European countries that consume milk are in the same boat, and countries that are not as efficient as that could be with some regulatory changes and technological improvements.
Flip-side. As others have said, alt-milks are a lot less “ultra-transformed” than you might think. It’s like calling chicken broth “ultra-transformed”. You could make your own oatmilk or almond milk. It’s not hard or “weird”. They’re just oats and water, or nuts and water.
Actually, found this quote about the health of milk. “if we’re looking at like the nutrient density versus cost, cow’s milk is always going to win”. TO BE CLEAR, the expert in this article is saying “plant-based milk is just fine”, and she agrees that some plant-based milks are comparable to cow milk if less balanced. She has a long explanation of “you really need to know what you plan to get out of milk”, pointing out that most plant milks are too low in protein, but that it doesn’t matter if you’re just using it to remove acidity from your coffee… but that for a vegan they’re just fine.
barely a blip on the Global Warming Radar (6% of total methane from all sources)
6% of all methane is not a blip, are you kidding? There isn’t one single easily solvable source of methane worldwide. There are many smaller sources and most of the larger sources are hard to replace.
we could easily take action to fund offsets and make the dairy industry 100% carbon neutral in the US
Offsets are a scam, and offsetting would require more subsidies or make cow’s milk more expensive. Instead of offsetting something that we can easily replace with something less polluting, we can offset the things that are much harder to replace.
nutrient density versus cost, cow’s milk is always going to win
Is it though? I live in the Netherlands, and in Europe we have really high milk subsidies. As far as I can tell we have essentially no soy milk subsidies. We have the third highest milk consumption as well, with a long history of production and plenty opportunity for efficient production ar scale.
Despite that, home brand skim milk is €0.99/L with a cheaper brand available at €0.85/L versus €0.89/L for home brand (fortified and unsweetened) soy milk.
6% of all methane is not a blip, are you kidding?
No, I’m not kidding. Methane is a moderate contributor, and we are one of the lowest contributors per-calorie, per person, whatever. Also, it would arguably be cheaper to just go carbon neutral with current cattle (which the cattle industry intends to do within 20-30 years) than to retrofit our entire grocery economy and re-educate (force) people away from it. Finally, it’s STILL a band-aid. US’s methane impact is only 20-30% higher than pre-colonial days (due to reduced populations of naturally-occuring animals like buffalo), and a mass-culling of cattle will be “helping out” by us merely having a lower-than-natural methane impact.
Offsets are a scam
In your words “are you kidding?”. But I’m going to explain instead of being shocked. Carbon gasses are a closed system. If I buy a large area of non-arable dead land, keep cows in part of it and coerce a forest out of the other part of, I’ve created a carbon neutral arrangement. Hell, much less natural, I merely need to fund a carbon-sequestering operation to the same amount as the gas production and I’ve fully become carbon neutral. Genuinely carbon neutral. We could hypothetically go full coal if we could find a way to sequester an equal amount of emissions (but unlike meat, that would be a disgusting waste of money and the coal companies have no intention to do it. The meat industry absolutely wants to go carbon neutral, so that vegans can stop trying to make eco claims about them.
nutrient density versus cost…
subsidies
I can’t speak for the Netherlands, so maybe you have it different… In the US, dairy subsidies are generally a bit of a scam but so are most of their detractors. A large percent of farmers never see a penny (or sometimes have to pay in, see next paragraph). The price you see a gallon of milk on the shelf for is likely not going to go up much (if at all) if those subsidies go away. Executive bonuses will be cut.
The biggest scam of them I’m aware of in the US is the feed subsidy that makes up most of the complaints about dairy being subsidized. The fund is paid for in a large part by fees/taxes paid by farms on their meat/dairy production (people often miss that many farm subsidies are actually paid by farm-specific taxes), but only a few large cattle operations see any of them… and many of those large cattle operations have loopholes to themselves avoid the feed subsidy taxes.
Despite that, home brand skim milk is €0.99/L with a cheaper brand available at €0.85/L versus €0.89/L for home brand (fortified and unsweetened) soy milk.
Nice. I can’t get either for less than twice that in the US.
“if we’re looking at like the nutrient density versus cost
the cost is massively subsidized for the benefit of large ag businesses in small states
So we should cut off our nose to spite our face? My point is true in a vacuum, not just true subsidized. That a small number of large corrupt businesses fuck the little guys is not a good reason to kill them all.
As you admit, those subsidies benefit large ag businesses, who then sell their products for the same price that mom-and-pops farms do, pocketing the margins.
The piece that was left out is much of those subsidies are paid in taxes and fees that are charged to… the same industry. Ask any small-town cow or dairy farmer how he/she feels about feed subsidies. That particular subsidy is taxed to the farmer (almost like they do with alcohol) on the first-sale of the cattle/milk. It is one of the largest big ag subsidies, and it is used to punish meat and dairy farmers… and they still can afford to bring milk to your fridge at these prices.
So here’s a deal for you. We both go after big ag together for a less corrupt world. The side-effect is that the cost of dairy might go down.
Dairy has been implicated in everything from heart disease to certain cancers, osteoporosis (ironically the more dairy you consume, the more bone loss you get), autoimmune diseases, and even reproductive disorders. They also contain casomorphins, which are addictive opioids.
As far as plant foods go, plant milks are not particularly beneficial, other than being a convenient choice for suring up a micronutrient deficiency or two that vegans might be missing (most commercial plant milks are fortified with multivitamins). It’s more that dairy is so bad that virtually anything is a better choice.
https://nutritionstudies.org/smart-parents-guide-to-why-kids-should-not-have-dairy-products/
https://nutritionstudies.org/dairy-consumption-weight-loss-claims/
Full disclosure, the site you linked offers a non-accredited certificate in vegan nutrition. The “expert” they cite in the crazier claims in your links is the founder and president of the group, and those claims are generally either rejected, or merely “not accepted due to lack of evidence” by the scientific community.
Honestly, to a neutral observer, if you took the vegan propaganda off the site and stripped it to text files, both of them still read like bogey-man anti-meat articles. Between the un-cited claims that contradict the studies I find in a google search and the broad-stroke accusations, I wouldn’t be able to take it seriously in a vacuum.
I’d go into details, but if you read the articles it will be obvious to you. If it’s not, hit me up and I’ll point out just a few of the parts of those two gossip-mag articles are the worst offenders to scientific thinking.
One true statement comes out of it. Drinking cow milk does not seem to be a contributor for weight gain OR loss in a vacuum.
That “non-accredited” education program is eligible for a variety of continuing education credits.
That orgs assertion that dairy doesn’t cause cancer is suspicious at best when there is evidence of cancer risk, multiple cancers, and when that same organization appears to be largely an industry frontend.
Lastly I trust wfpb dietary patterns because they work so well, any person can find out for them self. Join any active wfpb community and you see people routinely shedding lbs, lowering their blood cholesterol levels to miraculous lows, managing their autoimmune symptoms or even in some cases to the point of remission, and overall feeling better and having more energy than they have in their entire lives.
People who follow more animal-centric diets on the other hand, routinely die faster and more miserably.
That “non-accredited” education program is eligible for a variety of continuing education credits.
So? I deal with con-ed regularly at a professional level. That’s NOT a big win. You can get con-ed in some healthcare fields going to vegas and sitting through a speech about how to raise wages in the field.
That orgs assertion that dairy doesn’t cause cancer is suspicious at best when there is evidence of cancer risk, multiple cancers, and when that same organization appears to be largely an industry frontend.
First, “evidence of cancer risk” is why you can’t buy a cup of coffee in California without a cancer warning. That is a very specific term that means “we have not shown that it causes cancer”. One of your links is a statistical analysis that admits only to controlling for soy, in over 52,000 people. The other took a bunch of pubmed studies and found very slight correlation with prostate cancer risk, with a “may increase” conclusion.
None of your links are “causes cancer” or even “likely to cause cancer”. They’re about as strong as the “soy causes cancer” or “artificial sweeteners cause cancer” or (yes) “coffee causes cancer”.
Second… I have NEVER heard anyone call Cancer Research UK a shill charity. They are quite literally a cancer research charity that is, yes, backed by companies that treat cancer and save lives. I mean, how exactly are you disputing them over that?
People who follow more animal-centric diets on the other hand, routinely die faster and more miserably.
Ahhh yes. “Plant Chompers”, a propaganda vid. You just HAD to change this from a dairy vs plant milk health discussion and go full Vegan Or Die. Here’s my equally controversial anti-vegan answers:
Eating less Meat won’t save the Planet. Here’s Why
Vegan diets don’t work. Here’s why
You won’t agree. I don’t care. You just linked me to “Plant Chompers” as part of your argument.
For health? Probably nothing definitive either way. The article is mainly just arguing the ecological implications being better for us
Another misleading title then.
also, milk is just bad for most people. some people need the high fat and protein content, but most of us, including children, would be much better off not drinking milk at all.
Low fat milk has existed for decades, plus doesn’t modern research support the idea that carbs are worse than fat? And I don’t understand why protein is bad, unless you are eating only protein.
Milk is actually very good for children, just because it replaces other liquids that are worse and it has calcium and vitamin D.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/dont-forget-dairy-part-childs-healthy-diet/
It sounds like you just don’t like natural milk.
First of all, I fucking love milk, you do not fucking know me.
Second of all, you really want to get in a battle of links?? https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/dairy-health-food-or-health-risk-2019012515849
deleted by creator
The average Joe has some say in it. When people buy factory farmed milk, they
directlyfinancially support the treatment of animals at these places. Imo people should learn in schools (or look for themselves) at footage from factory farms and slaughterhouses from their country to be informed about living conditions so they can make an informed choice if that’s worth it.and if they don’t buy the dairy farmers get their subsidy anyway. like yeah i can make myself poorer buying unsubsidized milk, but kinda sucks you’re putting the problem on me.
When people buy factory farmed milk, they directly financially support the treatment of animals at these places.
that’s not even true.
deleted by creator
I wouldn’t say it’s delicious… it’s meh-lk
Can you make cheese out of almond milk? If I’m doing my math right, 75% of milk is made into cheese.
Yes, there are almond and oat milk cheese alternatives. Ben and Jerry’s has been selling almond milk ice cream for a long time.
Also please consider reading about how supply for cheese is currently outpacing demand.
I don’t see why dairy should be subsidized but some plant milks aren’t exactly environmentally friendly either. The best can be said is they’re better than dairy, assuming the same land could be used for both. But they can be devastating in their own right. E.g. to grow 1 almond (i.e. one kernel) takes over 3 gallons of water. Other crops used to make milk like oats have lower water consumption.
The almond example is frequently brought up, but this is still half of what dairy milk requires, without taking into account the difference in land use too
the sources of the water are vastly different though. the totals for dairy milk include the rainwater that grows the grass but otherwise is inaccessible to humans. the almonds, by contrast, are irrigated. not to mention the potable water that goes directly into the final product.
You think most dairy cows are fed on naturally watered grass?
I don’t know exactly what dairy cows are fed, but I do know that most cows eat mostly grass for most of their lives.
Most cows where? In the wild, sure. The meat we eat? Hell no
you don’t know what you’re talking about.
they do start eating grass but most cows end up getting fed stuff like corn, grains, alfafa etc.
They can be, in NZ there are is a huge amount of land that has been converted to dairy through massive irrigation schemes which has caused massive problems for the rivers that flow naturally through these places… I imagine there are other places in the world used for dairy that wouldn’t be suitable if not for irrigation?
Like I said better than dairy but still awful. Moreso because almonds are grown in places like California where water is being depleted.
It’s better for the environment for us just to die off…
There must be a middle point though
You’re referring to old news buddy, https://www.drought.gov/states/california
The environmental problems of growing plants isn’t because of the individual plants, it’s because the farming practices used are bad (conventional industrial ag, synthetic fertilizers, monoculture, etc). In a well designed polycultural system, almonds can have their place too. But there is no way to make animal ag sustainable, and since that has both deep ethical and health problems as well - why bother?
Except almonds. Almonds are terrible water wasters, and mostly grown in California where they can least afford the water.
Still more efficient on resource utilization than animal agriculture. If you hate almond milk for that reason, you should want the dairy industry completely abolished.
Shit, you should want all animal agriculture banned.
Based and correct.
Eh, there are plenty of use cases where certain land types aren’t really arable. Ruminants fill that niche easily.
The catch is that like 80% of the land used for livestock currently could also use crops instead.
Fwiw US dairy plans to be carbon neutral by 2050.
The bigger catch is that 70% of all crops we grow go to our livestock.
We wouldn’t need to use those lands if we just ate less meat.
deleted by creator
The bigger catch is that 70% of all crops we grow go to our livestock.
this isn’t true
Livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land, while supplying only 18% of calories and 37% of protein.
I feel like trying to compare a water intensive crop grown in a place known for drought to crops that can be grown in many places where water is far more readily available is being a bit disingenuous. You’re not comparing apples to apples.
I mean, you could say that we shouldn’t be wasting resources on animal agriculture anywhere, but especially in the same places that don’t have enough water for crops.
Feeding food and giving water to other “food” will always be far less efficient than just providing a fraction of that water to plant-based foods. Animal agriculture is a waste.
So you’re saying almond milk drinkers could end up going to hell someday?
/s -The Good Place reference
I don’t want it gone but I don’t want it subsidized. I’m not planning on being vegan but I’m cutting out a ton of animal protein from my life. I make it a special thing.
Almond is the worst of the nut milks, but it’s STILL way better for the environment than dairy.
I see soy/oat/rice milk as their own thing, instead of a direct cow milk substitute/replacement.
There are many, many dairy product that are important as food or ingredients to other foods such as butter, yogurt, ice cream, cream, infant formula, and various cheeses that cannot be replaced directly by plant based alternatives.
And also, if you don’t like milk, try getting one of those unhomoginized milk in glass bottles that’s usually directly bottled by local farms. You have to shake a lot to get the cream on top dissolved again, but there is nothing that’s quite like an ice cold cup of that.
As someone who lives entirely on plants, those ingredients are all easily replaced. Everything cow tit juice can do, plants can do better.
Nah that’s just not true. You need milk for baking, vegan bakeries are shit. Milk/Cream is also very important for creamy soups and sauces
infant forumlad
Telling on yourself Margot.
Oh bugger off, mate, we all make typos sometimes.
I just thought it was funny and potentially apt.
Jokes don’t land some time, and that’s OK.
No worries, forumlad.
Like an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population, I don’t digest lactose well, which makes the occasional latte an especially pricey proposition.
Bring that complain to the producers of “oat milk” and similar products. Producing a gallon of oat milk has ingredience costs of about 20ct. You know what you are paying for it in the supermarket. Go figure who gets rich on people who are looking for “alternatives”.
They meant “pricey” as in going to the bathroom a lot more than usual
Producing a gallon of oat milk has ingredience costs of about 20ct
To them, in bulk. Making your own oat milk is about an 80% savings over retail cost (about $0.50-$1/gallon), about the same as the money saved making your own yogurt.
This isn’t about rich people getting richer specifically on plant-based milks. There’s just several levels of markups. Oat Milk company passes on a markup on the oats they purchase, then they pass another markup to the wholesaler. Then the wholesaler passes a markup to the retailer. Than the retailer passes a markup that averages around 30% but generally goes from 15% to 75%, usually larger markups for products that sell slower to justify their investment in them.
This is arguably why capitalism is failing us, but nothing is unique about it with Oat Milk. Right now, milk cost of production is high (enough that farmers are losing money), but that’s temporary and wholesalers have the leverage to pay prices that are below cost (which is why farmers are losing money). Then, there’s one fewer step in markups.
So let’s say your 20c figure is right (it’s not. Oat prices are fairly high right now). They’re paying more like 30-40c for the ingredients, then they sell it to wholesalers for over $1/gal (which is arguably justified, which is already in range of the $1.50/gal farm milk costs hit. Then, yes, wholesalers and retailers each mark oat milk up a bit higher because it moves slower.
First: The 20ct figure is quite on the spot, actually, your recipe uses far more oat than the industry uses, and the 20ct figure even includes vegetable oil (to make ich more creamy) and chemicals (to bind fat and water based ingredients). On the other hand, I wonder where you $1/gal comes from - that would be dirt cheap in comparison to the prices I see in the supermarket.
First: The 20ct figure is quite on the spot, actually, your recipe uses far more oat than the industry uses
Fair enough, though I cannot seem to find solid figures anywhere. Obviously it’s cheaper to make than almond milk, and they retail around the same… But I still dug into number using the $0.20 figure.
On the other hand, I wonder where you $1/gal comes from - that would be dirt cheap in comparison to the prices I see in the supermarket.
That came from the cost per gallon of oat milk being paid by the wholesalers to the manufacturers. Often, supermarkets and other retailers do not purchase directly from manufacturer, but from a wholesaler or distributor. Note also the $1.50 figure farmers are paid by wholesalers. I live in a region with dairy farms and we’re paying 3-4x that number by the time it hits the grocery store register.
A lot of arguments see to be that it tastes better. I don’t want to argue subjective tastes. However, in terms of economics, the better taste would mean that there is no need to subsidize it. The market would bear the additional cost if the taste and utility of milk is there. The question posed is still relevant: why do we subsidize it? Everyone arguing how much better it is than the alternatives are just proving the point that we shouldn’t be subsidizing it.
it’s just a century long marketing scam that is now so big it would cause an economic recession to dismantle it over night. It will take a few decades for the subsidies to be lowered, and probably will never go to zero.
A taxpayer funded subsidy is a form of wealth redistribution. It takes a little bit of money from everyone and makes a tasty foodstuff more affordable for everyone. Forcing the poors to drink nasty nut juice isn’t exactly what I consider an improvement for society.
This is too narrow. Why do we subsidize food at all? America is supposed to be free market capitalists, right? Subsidies don’t fit that definition?
(in reality, farmers need some sort of support system, I believe, as do we all, but subsidies don’t fit the free market capitalism narrative.)
We’ll you’re pointing out how ridiculous it is to believe in a free market. Because one has never existed. What ought we subsidize though? Obviously foods that are better for our environment, climate, health, economy and for animal welfare.
Dairy, meat and egg coalitions have known for years that subsidies and marketing are things they need to pursue for greater success, they’ve used tactics similar to tobacco companies with their marketing and they’ve used lobbying tactics similar to oil and gas giants as well. It’s clear we need to stop subsidizing them.
We’ll you’re pointing out how ridiculous it is to believe in a free market.
Yep! That was my point.
What ought we subsidize though? Obviously foods that are better for our environment, climate, health, economy and for animal welfare.
Yeah, if we must subsidize something, then sure, those sound good.
Subsidies only benefit the big “farms” (industrial operations) and encourage producing the subsidized crop regardless of its value. The incentives are so perverse that farms end up dumping their milk because there is no market for the amount produced.
Personally am in favor of eliminating all food subsidies. Making food valuable could eliminate so many of our other societal problems - poor health, destruction of natural resources, overpopulation.
There are very obvious negative side effects to making food more expensive.
you can just subsidize food generally if that’s the worry
You can… But we’ve chosen to subsidize farming since that tends to be the raw ingredients. So in a way all food is kinda subsidized.
I can come up with my own, but what are some of the side effects you’re thinking of? Right now food is so cheap that most people’s only metric is price, with no consideration for quality, nutrition, environmental impact, etc. Most of what we are eating isn’t really food, just an engineered combination of four or five heavily subsidized crops.
Right now food is so cheap that most people’s only metric is price
This makes no sense to me - people can choose healthy or unhealthy options because food is so cheap generally. Do you think that if food becomes expensive people will buy more healthy food for… reasons?
Most of what we are eating isn’t really food, just an engineered combination of four or five heavily subsidized crops.
This is pure bullshit.
Maybe you don’t live in the US. At least here, people spend a smaller portion of their income on food than any society at any time in history, but the most on health care. Not getting into the many reasons health care is so expensive, the fact that food is an afterthought has clearly led to major health issues. So what I am suggesting is that if we had to give more weight to decisions around food it could lead to better choices for our health. My bias is that I’m against the direction our society is heading tech-wise, so in my scenario people would be spending more time with their families and communities and less time and money rampantly consuming products.
Regarding your second comment, how would you describe the majority of products in grocery stores if not what I claimed they are?
So what I am suggesting is that if we had to give more weight to decisions around food it could lead to better choices for our health.
You think making food more expensive is going to make people make better choices about what food they buy? I don’t think you live in the US, I think you live in fantasy land.
My bias is that I’m against the direction our society is heading tech-wise, so in my scenario people would be spending more time with their families and communities and less time and money rampantly consuming products.
🙄
Regarding your second comment, how would you describe the majority of products in grocery stores if not what I claimed they are?
“Food”.
Something something corporate lobbyist reaping benefits at the cost of public taxed $
Farming is risky business and people need food. You don’t want one bad season ruining a bunch of farmers who then stop farming. Subsidies help reduce that risk so that we have a more stable food supply.
Like an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population, I don’t digest lactose well,
That number, like all world population numbers is heavily skewed by just how many people are in China. The mutation that causes adults to continue to produce the enzyme to digest lactose is less common among those of Asian descent.
(Globally, alt-milks aren’t new on the scene—coconut milk is even mentioned in the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata, which is thousands of years old.)
…and there are medieval European recipes that call for almond milk, and tofu is made from soy milk and there are written sources referencing it roughly a thousand years old. You’re right, none of these are really new on the scene, aside from maybe oat milk.
A 2021 report by industry analysts Mintec Limited and Frost Procurement Adventurer also notes that, while the inputs for dairy (such as cattle feed) for dairy are a little more expensive than typical plant-milk ingredients, plant alternatives face higher manufacturing costs.
I feel like your first paragraph completely ignored this aspect. You squeeze milk out of a cow. Nut and bean milks require grinding the stuff up with a lot of water, mixing it thoroughly, then squeezing the wet pulp through a fine filter (for small batches something like a cheesecloth) to separate the milk from the pulp.
Commercial oat milk requires further processing, because just pulping, mixing with water and straining oats does not produce anything appetizing at all.
In the United States, meanwhile, it’s a waiting game to see whether the government or corporations drive down alt-milk costs. Currently, Sumner says, plant-based milk producers operate under an assumption that “price isn’t the main thing” for their buyers—as long as enough privileged consumers will pay up, alt-milk can fill a premium niche. But it’s going to take a bigger market than that to make real progress in curbing emissions from food.
That’s not a bad assumption on their part - people who are deeply concerned with the emissions involved in producing their food tend to be richer, in no small part because poor folks are going to put price first, because they have to think about how food fits into their budget more.
Also cheese - you can’t make cheese from plant milks. Well, you can try, but that’s basically how you make tofu, and performing a similar process on other plant milks creates something closer to tofu than cheese.
Further processing? You mean a tiny amount of added sweetener. That’s all that really needs to be added to oat milk.
Plant cheeses are entirely doable, there’s an entire industry of nut-based artisan cheeses. Plants can be fermented as easily as dairy, the only things they’re missing is the highly addictive opioids, osteoporosis (dairy = bone loss), heart disease, and possibly even things like endometriosis and autoimmune diseases.
Further processing? You mean a tiny amount of added sweetener. That’s all that really needs to be added to oat milk.
I mean, many recipes for home creation also include adding amylase to help keep it from having that slimy texture, and potentially either adding nut milk or adding pulverized nuts to the oats to add some creaminess, and also sweetening it.
Plant cheeses are entirely doable, there’s an entire industry of nut-based artisan cheeses.
You can make plant-based cheese analogs, but they are never so simple as “take milk, add coagulant, stir, separate curd from whey, press curd”, which is the basic process for cheese (and for soy milk produces tofu and for many plant milks produces something analogous to tofu).
is the highly addictive opioids,
Casomorphins occur in milk at 200-500 nanograms per liter. For comparison, the most powerful opioid we use (fentanyl) has a standard effective dose of 1000-2000 nanograms per kilogram weight of the patient, and that’s 100 times more powerful than morphine. So, if the opioids occurring in milk were as powerful as fentanyl you would need to drink 2-5 liters per kilogram of weight to achieve a dose, which is such a volume compared to, you know, the size of the human digestive tract as to be absurd (especially when you consider that the opioid peptides naturally occurring in milk are not remotely as powerful as fentanyl).
It does have a higher concentration in cheese, mostly because going from milk->cheese is about a 10:1 ratio by weight, but not all the casomorphins from the milk make it into the curd (some are left in the whey), and not all the casomorphins in the curd survive the process (brining, aging, etc as appropriate for the cheese in question). So at the very highest, if you started from the high end of casomorphins in milk, managed to capture all the casomorphins in the curd, lost none of them in processing, and casomorphins were as powerful as fentanyl you’d only have to eat… 20% of your body weight in cheese to achieve a dose.
There aren’t a lot of drugs that do anything meaningful to an adult human in the quantities that casomorphins are present in milk given the amounts of dairy humans typically consume. We’re talking a scale where the things to compare it to in terms of dose are things like LSD microdosing and botulinum poisoning.
In other words, there’s a reason we don’t use a dairy-rich diet as a replacement for methadone and it’s not that the pharmaceutical industry can’t patent dairy.
osteoporosis (dairy = bone loss),
Do you have any good, reputable studies on this one? Because most studies out there I’ve seen suggest either no effect or exactly the opposite. By comparison, plant milks tend not to be as high in calcium.
Hey, just so you know, that whole lactose intolerance is just hundreds of years of the west drinking milk a lot.
And you can make cheese without milk. Obviously with a different process but Gouda is one of the cheeses that is already replicated very well.Oat milk does not need much processing btw. You can make really good tasting oatmilk at home.
Hey, just so you know, that whole lactose intolerance is just hundreds of years of the west drinking milk a lot.
Like any genetic trait, frequency of lactose tolerance is entirely about selection pressures on your ancestors. Being able to tolerate milk to use it to supplement the diet was more important for survival in Europe and Africa than elsewhere historically. The more your ancestors needed to lean on milk for calories, the more likely the ones who couldn’t didn’t make it, the more common that mutation is in later generations. Same reason why sickle cell is much more common in black folks - having the sickle cell trait also confers a degree of malaria resistance and malaria is historically a bigger pressure on African populations than on many other regions.
Oat milk does not need much processing btw. You can make really good tasting oatmilk at home.
If you’re really careful about how long it’s in the water, how much it’s been blended, and/or you add some amylase to make it less slimy, maybe some nuts to make it creamier, and probably sweeten it a bit. It’s still more involved than “blend nuts with water, pour in filter, press”, which in turn is more involved than “pull on nipple.”
I’m explicitly not hating on plant milks here, but they aren’t a fill in in all applications and for basically any case where the chemical or physical properties of milk are relevant in which case they often need some extra steps involved and even that is assuming the flavor is OK (which depends on the context they are being used in). For example, I find that coconut milk works really well in a lot of dishes from or inspired by food from east Asia or India, but I wouldn’t try having it over a bowl of cereal, and I suspect it wouldn’t work great in coffee or tea either (though I haven’t tried and I find almond milk is pretty OK in coffee but definitely not as good as actual dairy in a strong black tea).
Milk, cream, cheese (most of what milk ends up as), and butter, are all delicious, despite the corrupting economic and political arrangements. Is the quantity consumed appropriate? The US diet is demanding.
The article sort of glosses over the input required to grow plant-based milk products effectively at scale, and the fact they don’t constantly produce like cows, the ways the crops can be destroyed and what’s required to protect them. A byproduct of dairy farming is manure, often used to fertilize vegetable crops, but the nitrogen fixation used in synthetic fertilizers requires a lot of energy input as well.
They are being effectively grown at scale and are still insanely less resource intensive.
The article doesn’t really differentiate what alt-milks are being grown at scale or factor in locations where this is possible. Certainly oats, soy, and coconut are grown at scale (palm plantations are their own environmental disaster). Nut-milk from almonds or nutsedge aren’t really mentioned. The “insanely less resource intensive” is basically because plants don’t output constantly like cows, so they are absolutely less resource intensive simply because they only produce once a season all at once.
