I think an important thing to look at when considering water usage of a particular food, is the nature of where the food is being produced. Almonds are largely grown in California, where the aquifers are shrinking, and evaporation can take the water much further away. Meanwhile, dairy cows and their food can be raised in lots of climates, including in water-rich places like Wisconsin.
Used water makes it back into the global water cycle someplace. The concern is when we deplete a local water cycle or destroy habitats in our use of it.
Comparing almond water consumption to cattle water consumption is irresponsible, raising cattle takes orders of magnitude more resources. And California also has a huge cattle industry…
Doesn't do much to help with climate change though, which is a much more serious issue. Sounds more like a rationalization for continuing to drink dairy milk.
Another lens: if I remember right, almond crops are actually one of the most lucrative crops in California per unit of water. So if you looked at it from the perspective of "what crop could I grow to make the most money with the least water", then the math changes substantially once again.
Also, w.r.t water consumption, cows still put back in some water to the cycle via peeing and pooping, something that several studies I've seen don't account for.
Trees don't really give back water, they just consume.
My takeaway is that, for water consumption/concerns, alternative milks aren't really beneficial, especially as you mention in California.
I still do believe they have other benefits though (land use, CO2, nutrition, etc.) which is why I keep buying them.
- Cow breeding isn't inherently bad. It depends how industrialised the process is
- Not all land can grow crop while cow glazes on infertile land.
- The water usage in raising cow does not account for where the water come from. It come from natural rain water if the cow is relatively free-ranged. Growing almond/oat on the other hand definitely rely on irrigation water. California wastes majority (can't remember the percentage) of its precious water on growing almonds
I agree with you that cow breeding isn't inherently bad, at least in its traditional forms. I also agree with you that almonds use so much water that it's incredibly wasteful to use them for milk in California, where they account for a significant percentage of the state's water use.
But in places like California, and the American Southwest in general, dairy farming is not sustainable. In the Colorado River basin, over 50% of the water is used for cows in some fashion (drinking water for the animals, irrigation for food crops, etc). It's just not responsible.
Soy and oats, which are grown in places with lots of water, transported dry and in bulk (i.e. the trucks are not hauling water) and reconstituted locally, are much more responsible. My preference is for soy since it provides a lot more protein.
I'm fairly sure you don't need irrigation to grow oats -- I'm surrounded by oats in Scotland, and I've never noticed any irrigation. On the other hand, the cow watering troughs are definately filled by taps.
Also, that website compares meat to "avocados, walnuts or sugar", 3 foods well known to require lots of water.
The dairy cows that produced the milk you bought at the grocery store, in the USA anyway, were highly unlikely to be eating only grass growing on "infertile land" watered only by the rain. They are eating corn and grain grown on fertile land, probably with irrigation.
Is there even enough "infertile land" in the USA to produce grass to feed enough dairy cows for USA consumption? I doubt it.
So that argument still leads to drastic reduction in dairy consumption required, and in the USA anyway probably much higher dairy prices.
It's not a bandwagon , you're on the popular side here almost everyone in the us consumes dairy and meat. It's actually the other way around people should be more open to alternative milks and meats instead of looking at incorrect reactionary sources
Like just take a look at their meat won't kill you infographic ,it just shows the total daily calories from various sources. It has nothing to do with the actual title ! The whole website got incredibly high production quality but is intellectually bankrupt.
I find the oat milk I drink is like 95% of the way there in terms of being exactly the same taste as regular milk (not oatly, I found that one to be not great). The last 5% is an almost imperceptible "toasted oat" taste, and it's a little on the thick side. I also find that I have to dilute it 1:1 with water if I want it to work right in my coffee.
I think it's a good replacement. Since I eat a lot of _replacement_ foods, you kind of learn that you don't need that 100% to appreciate it for what it is. It's all learned taste.
I usually drink my coffee black, but a long time ago I made the switch to soy milk, and after a while it became natural in coffee. Oat latte's are pretty great too.
Seconded. Of all the milk alternatives, oat milk tastes the best and has great viscosity. (maybe even better than whole milk, certainly better than 2%)
It also serves as a great ingredient in beverages and avoids the allergen & California drought issues of almond milk.
Oat milk was what got me to drop whole milk (and now ice cream with oat based deserts). That was pretty much the remaining bit in terms of being full vegan. I still eat local eggs and fish maybe once a year. But as a latte drinker, milk had been one of the high carbon impact foods I was still consuming and oat milk made it easy to drop. I was never a big fan of almond milk in my coffee — too rancid when steamed for my taste.
I tried soy and almond and didn't care for them at all. When oat milk was all the rage I wrote it off as hype. Last week I decided to buy a half gallon of planet oat unsweetened original and I was surprised how much I liked it. I actually wound up pouring small cups as a treat and finished the half gallon in a week. I bought the dark chocolate version yesterday to give it a go. It has a pleasant coca flavor without being too chocolaty or sweet. Its like a thin chocolate shake. Dangerous as I drank 2/3 of it already.
Maybe I'm just unlucky with brand/batch but I found the opposite: oat milk I bought that was specifically marketed as being ideal for coffee has a rank, salty taste and frankly I'd rather drink or mix something obviously different but pleasant like coconut or almond milk
Normally I don't like indulging in pedantic things like this, but I think I'm on-board with "we shouldn't call the stuff that doesn't come out of mammals 'Milk?'"
It just doesn't fit with how we seem to most often use words in foods et al, e.g: We call it 'egg substitute' or 'krab' when the thing is not the thing.
The only outlier I can think of here is things like 'Root Beer' and 'Ginger Ale' and we know why those are that way.
Let's see, how about mincemeat, mountain oysters, pork butt, Welsh rabbit, prairie oyster, black pudding, sweetbreads, and (the most delicious of the bunch) beavertails.
There are plenty of names of foods that do not at all describe the actual ingredients in them, and people get along just fine. Nobody believes almonds have tiny mammary glands that are being milked. As long as you clearly label the source ingredient (almond, soy, oat, etc.) for reasons of preference and allergens, nobody's getting confused here.
We've been using "soy milk" for the better part of a century and we all know what it means. I don't see how this isn't more like "root beer" now, even if the etymological story isn't quite the same.
(edit: see below, attested for many centuries -- 'milk' as non-animal milks.)
Given that the title of the post is "Alternative Milks" I think the general usage of "milk" is simply a shorthand for "alternative milks" which would be synonymous with your want to call them milk substitutes.
Not only milky liquids are called "milk", but oily liquids are called "oil" e.g. fish oil (etymologically oil refers only to oil extracted from olives, but already Pliny the Elder used the name "fish oil" and many other oil names for oils extracted from other things than olives) and buttery substances are called "butter", e.g. cocoa butter, even if the bu- from butter means cow (in Greek).
Its as ridiculous as when I see a package in the store labelled “beefless beef.” Why not just call it what it is, which is plant based ground chuck. Beefless beef sounds like something from rick and morty. Lots of things have some references to chicken too.
Nut/Seed drinks are not milks. They're just as much milk as coffee is tea and apple juice is vodka.
It's absolute nonsense to call it milk, just because some "clever" marketing department somewhere decided to name it such in an effort to peddle their product more effectively.
I have recently started drinking almond milk. It does feel like a rip-off because a 1 litre carton of almond milk is approximately 97% water, 2% almonds, 1% thickeners.
Companies charge what they think the market will pay and in this case, consumers (like me!) are willing to pay for almond milk even when it costs more than fresh dairy milk.
But make up your own mind: is almond milk a rip-off given the ingredients? Or a perfectly fine product? Here are the ingredients for two different unsweentened almond milk brands:
- Alpro Almond Milk - 1 litre (Alpro is a popular European brand)
They’ve missed pea milk, which as far as I remember is even more efficient than soy.
Though people are a bit weird about peas; while a lot of meat substitutes use pea protein, they’re virtually never marketed as such. Oat and even soy protein seem to be more consumer friendly.
I've lifted weights recreationally for 20 years and find most of the dogma and heated debate about dairy products fascinating. It's not uncommon to see a fitness enthusiast warning about the dangers of dairy while simultaneously selling nutrition supplements derived from milk as part of a multilevel marketing scheme.
At this point, I think everyone should have the dignity to believe what they want to believe. But personally, I consider all milk substitutes to be a waste of time unless someone has a specific reason (like lactose intolerance) to drink them.
Some other truths that people love to debate for some reason: yes dairy is horrible for the environment so it is best to eat it in moderation if you aren't exercising (best to get to it soon though). Yes diary is always more ethical than meat. Yes most nutrition advice post-WWII is propaganda put out to bolster certain big agriculture companies. Yes high cholesterol in the body probably has more to do with genetics and other risk factors than how much cholesterol is consumed.
The fastest way to get healthy that I know of is to go on the gallon of milk a day (GOMAD) diet and hit the gym 3 times per week for 45 minutes or less with no cardio. This is 1970s "technology" but it works.. astoundingly well. I used it in my 20s with great results.
The rest of the hype, eh, I try to tune it out. Avoid dairy to save the planet, that's great. Avoid dairy to save your health and.. your health will probably decline because it's usually something else like poor work-life balance or a sedentary lifestyle that's the culprit.
> One way I tried to do this, was to switch the kind of milk I drink. This also had a secondary impact on reducing my environmental impact.
This is why I'm not hopeful that lab grown meat will be transformational. We already have a handful of sustainable, widely available, and affordable cow milk alternatives right now and people aren't switching over in droves. Getting people to change their habits is hard without a huge incentive. I can't see how lab grown meat is going to be substantially cheaper (soy/rice/oat milk is more expensive than cow milk in the UK still) or much better tasting to make people switch.
I see people saying things like "I'm sure to switch when it's cheaper and tastes the same or better" but I'm not sure how we'll avoid global warming when people aren't willing to really change anything (vs only willing to switch to identical alternatives).
One aspect of environmental impact that may be overlooked here is the use of refrigeration. Some milk requires refrigeration depending on its processing and packaging. There are also cultural norms in play; Americans often believe that milk of any kind must always be kept cold, and American supermarkets often have completely open refrigerated shelving, which I have to imagine is very wasteful.
Very useful resource, but I wonder if emissions (kg) takes into account methane emissions from cows, which tend to have a stronger warming effect than CO2. There are conversions from methane to equivalent CO2, so hopefully that's there already.
In case anyone else got confused about how lactose-free milk somehow managed to have exactly the same macronutritional profile as ordinary milk, it turns out to be because "lactose-free" really means "we added lactase so the lactose is pre-digested", not "we removed the lactose". The sugar is all still there, just in simpler forms.
Where is the oat milk getting it's extra calories? Using the usual 9kcals per gram fat and 4kcals per gram protein and gram carbohydrates, I get the expected 120ish amount for cow milk but only 71kcal for oat milk (listed at 100kcals). I guess the table is missing non-sugar carbohydrates?
The water usage metric is a joke. Do you think dairy cows in Normandy or England lack any water, or that anyone is impacted by said water usage? Just visit there, you'll see what I mean.
The carbon metric is also a joke, for a different reason: cows raised on mostly grass can have a negative impact. Cattle fed corn is another story, but the problem here is not the cows or the milk but industrial agriculture.
Next we have land usage. I just came back from a hike in the mountain. Saw plenty of cows munching on ski slopes, they make excellent cheese. What kind of food could be produced there instead? Certainly not rice or almonds or whatever.
Finally the nutriments is all dependent on what you make of fats. Ansel Keyes and his followers have been claiming saturated fat was bad for your heart, in the mean time France has the highest butter consumption in the world by far and we also happen to have among the best heart health numbers (and no, it's not red wine).
[+] [-] goda90|4 years ago|reply
Used water makes it back into the global water cycle someplace. The concern is when we deplete a local water cycle or destroy habitats in our use of it.
[+] [-] femiagbabiaka|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ambolia|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] twoslide|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nbadg|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vlovich123|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ljhsiung|4 years ago|reply
Trees don't really give back water, they just consume.
My takeaway is that, for water consumption/concerns, alternative milks aren't really beneficial, especially as you mention in California.
I still do believe they have other benefits though (land use, CO2, nutrition, etc.) which is why I keep buying them.
[+] [-] throwaway_2047|4 years ago|reply
Quick summary based on hazy memory
- Cow breeding isn't inherently bad. It depends how industrialised the process is
- Not all land can grow crop while cow glazes on infertile land.
- The water usage in raising cow does not account for where the water come from. It come from natural rain water if the cow is relatively free-ranged. Growing almond/oat on the other hand definitely rely on irrigation water. California wastes majority (can't remember the percentage) of its precious water on growing almonds
edit: https://www.sacredcow.info/helpful-resources contains some infographics of those quick facts
[+] [-] jefurii|4 years ago|reply
But in places like California, and the American Southwest in general, dairy farming is not sustainable. In the Colorado River basin, over 50% of the water is used for cows in some fashion (drinking water for the animals, irrigation for food crops, etc). It's just not responsible.
Soy and oats, which are grown in places with lots of water, transported dry and in bulk (i.e. the trucks are not hauling water) and reconstituted locally, are much more responsible. My preference is for soy since it provides a lot more protein.
[+] [-] CJefferson|4 years ago|reply
Also, that website compares meat to "avocados, walnuts or sugar", 3 foods well known to require lots of water.
[+] [-] jrochkind1|4 years ago|reply
Is there even enough "infertile land" in the USA to produce grass to feed enough dairy cows for USA consumption? I doubt it.
So that argument still leads to drastic reduction in dairy consumption required, and in the USA anyway probably much higher dairy prices.
[+] [-] wittycardio|4 years ago|reply
Like just take a look at their meat won't kill you infographic ,it just shows the total daily calories from various sources. It has nothing to do with the actual title ! The whole website got incredibly high production quality but is intellectually bankrupt.
[+] [-] 0-_-0|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chomp|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msdrigg|4 years ago|reply
Those are my two main uses for milk so I dont really buy regular milk anymore unless I need it to cook with or something.
[+] [-] jmkr|4 years ago|reply
I think it's a good replacement. Since I eat a lot of _replacement_ foods, you kind of learn that you don't need that 100% to appreciate it for what it is. It's all learned taste.
I usually drink my coffee black, but a long time ago I made the switch to soy milk, and after a while it became natural in coffee. Oat latte's are pretty great too.
[+] [-] screye|4 years ago|reply
It also serves as a great ingredient in beverages and avoids the allergen & California drought issues of almond milk.
[+] [-] gdubs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] serverholic|4 years ago|reply
For example, Oatly has 7g of added sugars, rapeseed oil and a few other additives.
[+] [-] jszymborski|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vineyardmike|4 years ago|reply
Try brands/packaging explicitly made for baristas. I find them perfect for coffee. It even works for frothing and steaming if you're into that.
[+] [-] MisterTea|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notahacker|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrm4|4 years ago|reply
It just doesn't fit with how we seem to most often use words in foods et al, e.g: We call it 'egg substitute' or 'krab' when the thing is not the thing.
The only outlier I can think of here is things like 'Root Beer' and 'Ginger Ale' and we know why those are that way.
[+] [-] armoredkitten|4 years ago|reply
There are plenty of names of foods that do not at all describe the actual ingredients in them, and people get along just fine. Nobody believes almonds have tiny mammary glands that are being milked. As long as you clearly label the source ingredient (almond, soy, oat, etc.) for reasons of preference and allergens, nobody's getting confused here.
[+] [-] caturopath|4 years ago|reply
(edit: see below, attested for many centuries -- 'milk' as non-animal milks.)
[+] [-] greenpizza13|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrian_b|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kazoomonger|4 years ago|reply
> Of milk-like plant juices or saps from c. 1200.
[+] [-] nerdponx|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kjkjadksj|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] antisthenes|4 years ago|reply
Nut/Seed drinks are not milks. They're just as much milk as coffee is tea and apple juice is vodka.
It's absolute nonsense to call it milk, just because some "clever" marketing department somewhere decided to name it such in an effort to peddle their product more effectively.
[+] [-] sideshowb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vanilla-almond|4 years ago|reply
Companies charge what they think the market will pay and in this case, consumers (like me!) are willing to pay for almond milk even when it costs more than fresh dairy milk.
But make up your own mind: is almond milk a rip-off given the ingredients? Or a perfectly fine product? Here are the ingredients for two different unsweentened almond milk brands:
- Alpro Almond Milk - 1 litre (Alpro is a popular European brand)
Water, Almonds (2.3%), Calcium (Tri-Calcium Phosphate), Sea Salt, Stabilisers (Locust Bean Gum, Gellan Gum), Emulsifier (Lecithins (Sunflower)), Vitamins (B2, B12, E, D2)
- Asda Almond Milk - 1 litre (UK supermarket own brand)
Water, Almonds (2%), Emulsifier (Sunflower Lecithins), Calcium Phosphate, Stabilisers (Gellan Gum, Carboxy Methyl Cellulose, Xanthan Gum), Salt, Potassium Iodide, Vitamins (B12, D2, B2)
Prices:
- Alpro: £1.80 ($2.50, 2.10€)
- Asda: £0.85 ($1.15, 1.00€)
[+] [-] rsynnott|4 years ago|reply
Though people are a bit weird about peas; while a lot of meat substitutes use pea protein, they’re virtually never marketed as such. Oat and even soy protein seem to be more consumer friendly.
[+] [-] zackmorris|4 years ago|reply
https://www.smh.com.au/business/entrepreneurship/csiro-brews...
I've lifted weights recreationally for 20 years and find most of the dogma and heated debate about dairy products fascinating. It's not uncommon to see a fitness enthusiast warning about the dangers of dairy while simultaneously selling nutrition supplements derived from milk as part of a multilevel marketing scheme.
At this point, I think everyone should have the dignity to believe what they want to believe. But personally, I consider all milk substitutes to be a waste of time unless someone has a specific reason (like lactose intolerance) to drink them.
Some other truths that people love to debate for some reason: yes dairy is horrible for the environment so it is best to eat it in moderation if you aren't exercising (best to get to it soon though). Yes diary is always more ethical than meat. Yes most nutrition advice post-WWII is propaganda put out to bolster certain big agriculture companies. Yes high cholesterol in the body probably has more to do with genetics and other risk factors than how much cholesterol is consumed.
The fastest way to get healthy that I know of is to go on the gallon of milk a day (GOMAD) diet and hit the gym 3 times per week for 45 minutes or less with no cardio. This is 1970s "technology" but it works.. astoundingly well. I used it in my 20s with great results.
The rest of the hype, eh, I try to tune it out. Avoid dairy to save the planet, that's great. Avoid dairy to save your health and.. your health will probably decline because it's usually something else like poor work-life balance or a sedentary lifestyle that's the culprit.
[+] [-] seanwilson|4 years ago|reply
This is why I'm not hopeful that lab grown meat will be transformational. We already have a handful of sustainable, widely available, and affordable cow milk alternatives right now and people aren't switching over in droves. Getting people to change their habits is hard without a huge incentive. I can't see how lab grown meat is going to be substantially cheaper (soy/rice/oat milk is more expensive than cow milk in the UK still) or much better tasting to make people switch.
I see people saying things like "I'm sure to switch when it's cheaper and tastes the same or better" but I'm not sure how we'll avoid global warming when people aren't willing to really change anything (vs only willing to switch to identical alternatives).
[+] [-] oftenwrong|4 years ago|reply
Photo of what I'm referring to: https://www.newhope.com/sites/newhope360.com/files/styles/ar...
[+] [-] shin_lao|4 years ago|reply
If you look at calories and sugar, you could think that oat milk is equivalent to cow milk.
First calorie measurement is imprecise at best, and then, there's how what you eat influences your metabolism.
These two articles might help you make up your own mind:
- Death of the calorie - https://www.economist.com/1843/2019/02/28/death-of-the-calor...
- Oatly: The New Coke - https://every.to/almanack/oatly-the-new-coke-821556
[+] [-] twoslide|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Smaug123|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jhickok|4 years ago|reply
https://www.ripplefoods.com/healthy-environment/
[+] [-] gniv|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tgb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] himinlomax|4 years ago|reply
The carbon metric is also a joke, for a different reason: cows raised on mostly grass can have a negative impact. Cattle fed corn is another story, but the problem here is not the cows or the milk but industrial agriculture.
Next we have land usage. I just came back from a hike in the mountain. Saw plenty of cows munching on ski slopes, they make excellent cheese. What kind of food could be produced there instead? Certainly not rice or almonds or whatever.
Finally the nutriments is all dependent on what you make of fats. Ansel Keyes and his followers have been claiming saturated fat was bad for your heart, in the mean time France has the highest butter consumption in the world by far and we also happen to have among the best heart health numbers (and no, it's not red wine).
[+] [-] Ambolia|4 years ago|reply
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/a1-vs-a2-milk
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] chapium|4 years ago|reply