I'm not vegan or anything, but I've found oat milk not only tastes great on cereal etc, but it also keeps fresh for much longer in the fridge. I've pretty much given up buying cow's milk now days, unless I have a specific recipe or something that calls for it. Cheese, on the other hand, I can't see myself giving up any time soon!
Milk alternatives don't have any benefits in children. Milk drinking in children is thought to induce growth. You can't overdo it though as it interferes with iron absorption.<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63647-8" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63647-8</a> see the references<p>height difference found:<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/106/2/597/4557638" rel="nofollow">https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/106/2/597/4557638</a><p>may be related to IGF-1:<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/1601948" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/1601948</a>
Meanwhile 100 million oil barrels are extracted (each producing 0.5/0.7 ton of CO2 equivalent), 23 millions of tons of coal, and 365 thousand million of cubic feet of natural gas are consumed. All those numbers each day, and without counting leaks.<p>And we are talking of fossil fuels, carbon that wasn't in the ecosystem for maybe many millions of years, compared with the relatively short lived and recycled methane that emits living things. There is a big elephant in the room that nobody dare to talk about.
I'm curious the long-term side effects on the body. I'm not sure it's better, we're something like 10,000 years into developing the ability to drink milk. I'm not sure we know what the effects of high soy intake is (only 10-15 years into mass consumer adoption -- we do see massive drops in sex hormones; possibly related, it is correlated).<p>Also, I really dislike how these studies are conducted. They often don't account for the fact _something_ will be produced on land and _something_ will be consuming it. There used to be millions of American Buffalo roaming the plains. I'm not sure relatively normal behavior is something to be concerned about.<p>The pollution IMO we should be concerned about are the chemicals in production of industry and food which are not natural. For instance, giant mono-crops of soy, which then go to factories where they are heavily processed, might be in-effect worse for the ecosystem as a whole. Another example is almond production. It takes far too much water to produce almonds and to make milk is insane.<p>I personally wouldn't be surprised if the soy, oat, almond industry are pushing these studies.
I didn't see it discussed in the article, but I'm very excited about possibilities like Perfect Day [1]. They provide "animal-free" milk. Unlike other alternatives, this product contains actual milk proteins derived from microflora. So it has more of the texture, taste, and nutritional content you expect from milk, but animals are not involved in the manufacturing.<p>I'd love to see how animal-free protein products stack up against these other alternatives. I think including it in the comparison may do something to assuage the "but it's not milk, so..." objections.<p>[1]: <a href="https://perfectday.com/" rel="nofollow">https://perfectday.com/</a>
This isn't really giving enough context. It's absolutely true that per volume, plant products are going to beat dairy handily in resource usage. But, they aren't remotely 1:1 products. Basically, almond milk is a good "per volume" replacement for low-fat milk products for applications like pouring on cereal or mixing in coffee. And... not much else.<p>The bulk of dairy production isn't for "milk" at all, it goes into derived products (mostly cheeses). And while there are a few plant based alternatives in that space, they aren't "oat milk" or whatever.<p>Per this link, "fluid milk" is only 24% of dairy usage: <a href="https://www.progressivedairy.com/news/industry-news/how-is-the-nations-milk-utilized" rel="nofollow">https://www.progressivedairy.com/news/industry-news/how-is-t...</a><p>Basically, this article is doing the "paper straws" thing and addressing the wrong part of the problem. If you want to talk about dairy cow impact you need to get people off of ice cream and yogurt, not milk.
I'm not vegan but my teenage daughter is, and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it's been to remove most dairy from my diet. I was extremely skeptical when it came to things like ice cream, but Ben and Jerry's has non-dairy versions of a bunch of their best flavors, and I now actually prefer them. When it comes to liquid milk alternatives, IMHO Califia original unsweetened almond milk is the tastiest option, but Oatly makes good stuff too.<p>I heard a convincing argument (tho citation needed, I guess) that veal meat is usually sourced from dairy cows' male offspring. And the idea of keeping dairy cows in a state of perpetual pregnancy is kind of off-putting too.<p>YMMV, but for my family, the health benefits, and animal welfare / humane farming concerns, and viable (tasty!) alternatives, were enough to make the switch an easy decision. Adding climate change impact and I feel even better about it.
Questions that come to mind:<p>1. What percentage of land use for dairy cows is arable?<p>2. What percentage of water consumed by dairy cows is recycled (eg from rain water), how does that compare to something like almonds?<p>3. What percentage of greenhouse gas emissions are added to the environment over already existing in the environment and just being moved?
And yet coffee shops that claim to be organic, eco conscious and fair trade still penalize you for opting for a milk alternative (by charging extra, like up to $1).
That's nice but it's not milk so ... apples to oranges.<p>I'm not being unreasonable here, some people just won't give up real meat or milk, ever.
Is this including methane in GHG emissions? Looking at the following chart, we’re much closer to a balance with methane than CO2. Shifting fossil fuel use could put us into a balance.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#/media/File%3AThe_Global_Methane_Budget_2008%E2%80%932017.png" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#/media/F...</a>
Don't have the time to investigate the data, however, I have suspicion that they are neglecting the additional meat production from raising cattle.<p>Dairy is only a fraction of the overall cattle industry, and an even smaller part of supplying the protein needs of people necessary to live healthy lives.<p>Not only that, as per article:<p>> A liter of dairy milk is not comparable to a liter of plant-based milk in terms of its nutritional profile.
I think the focus on cows is kind of ridiculous. Our world's natural balance before humans included vast numbers of ruminants over vast expanses of the world. (e.g. huge populations of forest buffalo in Europe, vast Mammoth and Bison herds in North America).<p>This is an issue being pushed with the intention of distracting from the real issue: fossil fuel use.
Is this another story in the big oil agenda to throw dirt on anything else, see what sticks and keep the eyes off of their dirty doings? Remember folks, over 50% of pollution is done by fossil extracting industry.<p>How about start heavily invest in clean, or at least cleaner, energy production instead of getting this crap on HN front page. Flagged this crap.
Keep in mind this is using "Carbon dioxide-equivalents". This is because of methane aka cow farts.<p><a href="https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane</a>
I really like milk. Why is it anywhere near the front of the list of things we have to be better at, to save the planet?<p>Sorry for the grump take. It feels very silly to be “what about” ish about this. Couldn’t we just tax plane fuel a bit more first or something?
"Milk alternatives" (i.e. products marketed as such) are only so in the same sense that any food is a milk alternative, namely that they can both provide nutrition. That's about as far as the similarity goes.
I don't drink much milk but when a do there is little better than cold milk in a chilled glass. My experience with the alternatives is that at best they tend to taste like they were strained through a used sweat sock. At worst they're like drinking latex paint.<p>I'm sure the "but my brand" crowd will disagree based on the subjectivity of their lack of taste but they'll be wrong.<p>In the end if we believe that milk is a driving force I'm climate change we might as well just start hoping for a giant asteroid to end it all now.
i am gonna guess that oat milk costs a lot more than milk...
yep, $5.19 for a quart at walmart....as for milk? $3.50 for a gallon...<p>same thing for artificial meat or even soy protein--easily more expensive than regular pork/hamburger/chicken...<p>no surprise, seeing as how most of eco-leftism is really just propaganda aimed to increasing profits...and this propaganda is always aimed to young people who are willing to spend more money to send a signal to others about their conscientiousness...and also easily manipulated by propaganda
Oat milk tastes pretty good and from the charts it’s a good balance between land and water use and emissions given. I keep a smaller carton of milk next to a similar sized oat milk one these days.<p>My only concern is if some studies will come out in a few years showing oat milk health effects similar to what is being discovered about soy. I don’t have all knowledge on this, but apparently soy can mess with hormones. It’s not going to kill nearly anyone, but it’s worth being aware of.
Nutritionally and chemically, oat and cow milk are completely different. Cow milk has 4x more protein, 2x more fat, and 1/2 the carbs. Oat milk contains 50% more sugar. It also doesn't produce the same results when used in, for example, baking.<p>I appreciate the sentiment, but getting people to switch seems as futile as converting a steak lover to strict veganism.
Cows graze land that is not able to be farmed, and the globalized trade of plant material is dependent on Russian fertilizers. Plant based milk ofc comes out better when you don't count the complete lifecycles.
I like oat milk in coffee/chocolate scenarios, and almond milk's my preference for cereal. Also I sometimes suffer from tooth sensitivity and I've found almond milk particularly soothing in that context.
As far as almond milk goes, how much water do almond trees consume in places that are already water scarce?<p>I really enjoy the new ultrafiltered cow milk that have come out recently. Half the sugar, no lactose but all of the protein.
...and yet taxation does not reflect environmental at all.<p>In some countries cow milk is even subsidized.<p>Edit: cow milk is actually less healthy than alternatives and there is no reason to encourage it.
one interesting argument that i read was that without meat and dairy production we would not have enough natural fertilizer and we would have to resort to chemical fertilizers instead. i haven't been able to verify this, but if true then organic vegan food production may not be possible without livestock. (unless we change how human waste is being collected)
Would be interesting to see how many people enjoy their meat and animal products if taken to a facility where said animals are kept, fed, killed etc. Wouldn't be surprised if cruelty to animals is the current generation's cigarette excessive smoking / genocide / rape and pillaging in wars etc. i.e. how could humans ever do this.