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!
Same - not veggie but switched to oat milk (despite not liking it much at first) and now strongly prefer the taste, texture, and all of the other benefits like fridge longevity, lack of smell if I leave a thermos with a latte for a few days, etc.
When it comes to Oatly... It tastes good, but that's because it contains plenty of sugars. You'll notice the difference when you make your own oat milk from oats. It's tastes quite terrible actually.
Oatly adds enzymes to break down the starches to sugar.
Yes, longer fridge life is a nice benefit. I have some heavy cream for baking, but use soy milk fine in most sweet recipes.
There's more variation in alternative milks, even within one type, than cow milk. We're mostly soymilk (bean milk, the kids call it), but it took a little while to find one that didn't feel chalky or weird. Happily it's the store brand that's $2 a half gallon. Settled on soy creamer, which is not as thick as dairy creamer but next best thing among non-dairy that tastes good.
With you on cheese! It's what makes plant burgers taste good.
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.
Milk should be the beverage of choice for growing kids who do not have contraindications. 3.25% milk is recommended up until 2 years of age, and to continue into older age if there are no issues with obesity.
As I understand, the reason why children are encouraged to drink milk is mostly about calcium. Many milk alternatives now have the same or more calcium per litre as cow's milk. When you say "growth" is this about bone (calcium) or muscle (protein) growth? In my experience, protein per litre is generally lower for milk alternatives.
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.
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.
100% this. These dairy cows aren't magically unlocking some deeply seated fossil carbon and farting it into the atmosphere. Nature already has a carbon cycle that works in harmony between plants and animals, let's try and work with it and emulate it rather than use even more energy and other resources to produce these highly processed goods. If you are vegan go for it, if you care about the environment stick with milk made from cows which graze on open grass land.
This is talked about literally daily. Unfortunately your message comes off as whataboutism in disguise. Let's focus on the fact that milk alternatives are good and cow farming is problematic in this thread.
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).
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.
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.
I personally wouldn't be surprised if the soy, oat, almond industry are pushing these studies.
Actually we haven't evolved to digest milk after childhood that well:
While most infants can digest lactose, many people begin to develop lactose malabsorption—a reduced ability to digest lactose—after infancy. Experts estimate that about 68 percent of the world’s population has lactose malabsorption.1
Lactose malabsorption is more common in some parts of the world than in others. In Africa and Asia, most people have lactose malabsorption. In some regions, such as northern Europe, many people carry a gene that allows them to digest lactose after infancy, and lactose malabsorption is less common.1,2 In the United States, about 36 percent of people have lactose malabsorption.1
While lactose malabsorption causes lactose intolerance, not all people with lactose malabsorption have lactose intolerance.
Soy milk is hundreds of years old. I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that the hormone drop is caused by soy milk. American bison digest far better than cows and don't produce methane. What is natural about millions of cows in factories producing milk? Additionally these cows are being fed enormous amounts of gmo monocrops in order to produce. Almond milk is indeed a wasteful product, but the misallocation of scarce water due to regulation is not the same thing as greenhouse gases.
Most soy is AFAIK used as food for farm animals. I wouldn't worry about it, many cultures were eating soy products since millennia and they were fine the whole time. Tofu is just solid soy milk.
Almond milk contains almost no almonds (and tastes horrible IMO, but YMMV, may also just be the brand I tried), I would assume that it's not that big of a chunk of the global almond production.
But in any case, oat milk should be safe, right? It's just a very watery porridge, isn't it? :D
Soy is not exactly a new thing in the history of humans. In fact some of the most populous regions on earth have been eating it widely for a very long time so it seems pretty low down on the list of fertility risk factors to be honest.
Soy milk hasn't been the favored alternative for a decade or more. Vegetable products are going to make more sense than adults breast-feeding from animals they don't even know.
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.
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.
Can't wait until such "real milk" replacements are broadly, cheapish-ly available, so we can get "real" vegan cheese, butter, cream and curd. IMO all current options there suck big time (but YMMV, of course) :D
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.
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.
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.
Thanks for pointing this out, I agree that the article should have mentioned this! I bet this varies widely from country to country too. (e.g. the French probably have a higher cheese-to-fluid ratio than other countries)
Even though it doesn't represent the majority of milk usage, maybe we shouldn't dismiss fluid milk entirely, since it's an easy first step.
As a lactose intolerant person personally I love the fact that there is now a wide proliferation of non-diary creamers that aren't gross french vanilla coffee mate stuff. I used to drink my coffee black because that stuff always made me feel sick. Now I can enjoy it with some almond or oat milk.
"Milk" still means "cows milk" at every coffee shop I've been to, and I would be embarrassed to say "cows milk", as if I'm importing some internet culture war into the real world. Literally everyone will know what you mean if you say "with milk", unless you are at some specifically vegan coffee shop.
I'm not a vegan and I'm not lactose intolerant, but I'm 100% convinced that oat milk in coffee tastes much better than other options. It smoothes out the acidity and adds a mild nutty aroma. Almond milk and soy milk are good too, but oat is the best.
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.
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.
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.
Cows emit a lot of methane, and are in fact the single largest source of agricultural GHG emissions globally. As I understand it, there's a fair bit of research going into how to reduce emissions from cows, but it would also be good to reduce the number of cows if possible.
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).
As a badly lactose intolerant person, I get that oatmilk is 2x the cost. But please, you are putting in 15 cents of oatmilk, and charging 0.75 to 1.00 extra for it.
A small cup of black coffee with oatmilk for $3.50. Please.
There's still a rather significant cost difference between the two. In my local market, a one gallon container of whole milk is $3.89 retail, while the barista-blend of Califa Oat Milk is $4.39 for a one quart container (or $4.99 for a half gal of Oatly).
Not really super surprising— the volumes are way lower and there's less subsidizing going on. On a grocery store shelf here in Ontario, you can get 4L of 2% regular milk for $5. But the Earth's Own products, which include oat and soy milk? Those are more like $6 for a single litre.
Beyond the cost from the supplier, perhaps because there is a greater overhead associated with supplying that milk to a minority of customers. If everyone was drinking oat milk by default I don't think there would be a $1 upcharge.
There is a death spiral that can occur when demand for dairy milk declines below a level where the supply chain can no longer support itself economically. Milk consumption is down 40% from the 70s in the US, 2730 dairy farms went out of business between 2018 and 2020, and if I had to hazard a guess, younger folks are going to prefer non dairy alternatives (for a variety of reasons).
And how many people are those "some people?" If it's less than 100% of all current milk drinkers, there is some benefit to be had, and the more people that are comfortable with milk substitutes more often, the greater that benefit. The point is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not get to 0, which isn't possible with milk alternatives either.
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.
Don't have the time to investigate the data, however, I have suspicion that they are neglecting the additional meat production from raising cattle.
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.
Not only that, as per article:
> 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).
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.
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.
"The extraction and processing of natural resources has accelerated over the last two decades, and accounts for more than 90 per cent of our biodiversity loss and water stress and approximately half of our climate change impacts."
This includes farming, as well as extraction of fossil fuels, minerals etc. In fact, the climate change impact of farming (biomass extraction) is about the same as fossil fuel extraction, according to that study.
Thankfully, this isn't the only think people are trying to be better about. I think it's good to try and tackle a problem from multiple angles.
I also don't think anyone is trying to (realistically) take away your milk. It is useful though to inform people about the impacts of their choice, and let them make an informed decision.
"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.
I'm sure the "but my brand" crowd will disagree based on the subjectivity of their lack of taste but they'll be wrong.
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...
same thing for artificial meat or even soy protein--easily more expensive than regular pork/hamburger/chicken...
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.
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.
The “soy can mess with hormones” meme comes from the fact that soy contains weak estrogen like compounds, and the internet has blown up about it (particularly in health and fitness circles where there’s a good deal of concern about maintaining one’s manliness).
What gets left out is the fact that phytoestrogens are ubiquitous, found in many plant foods. [0]
Most oat milk people are drinking have half its calories from processed vegetable oils. There have been many threads on HN about the unhealthy issues with these oils. Get the ones that are just oats and water, but they won't be "creamy" like milk without fats.
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.
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.
Let's for a moment assume that an almond tree serves no other purpose than to produce almonds (for almond milk), and a dairy cow serves no other purpose than to produce milk.
The average dairy cow produces 2320 gallons of milk per year.
Dairy cows drink 40 gallons of water per day, which is about 14600 gallons per year.
A grown dairy cow eats about 30 pounds of food per day - 50% grain and 50% grass, so about 5475 pounds of grain per year.
It takes 127 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of maize.
Not counting the water requirements for grass, and assuming that our cow only eats maize, we'll need 695325 gallons to of water to feed the cow.
It takes 22000 gallons of water to irrigate an acre of land. Each acre produces 2 tons of hay, so we'll need 11000 gallons per ton of hay or 11 gallons per pound, which is 60225 gallons of water for grass.
Total water consumption of 1 cow per year for grass + grain + drinking water = 770150 gallons.
That brings us to needing 770150 gallons of water to produce 2320 gallons of cow milk.
So, about 331 gallons of water to make 1 gallon of cow milk.
They say that each almond requires 1.1 gallons of water.
1 pound of shelled almonds = 3.63 cups of almonds.
There are 416 almonds in a pound. So, about 26 per ounce, and 208 per cup.
There are 16 cups in a gallon.
To make almond milk, we mix 6 cups of water for each cup of almonds, which will yield us about 6.5 cups of almond milk.
It'll take 2.46 cups of almonds to make 1 gallon of almond milk, so 512 almonds, so 563 gallons of water.
Things we're not accounting for in the above comparison:
The water cost of producing pesticides, fertilizers.
The water cost of producing health treatments for cows.
The water cost of producing diesel to transport grains to the cows.
The water cost of producing electricity and packaging.
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.
Reason077|3 years ago
etrautmann|3 years ago
unicornporn|3 years ago
Oatly adds enzymes to break down the starches to sugar.
https://www.gq.com/story/oatly-nutrition-ipo
jkestner|3 years ago
There's more variation in alternative milks, even within one type, than cow milk. We're mostly soymilk (bean milk, the kids call it), but it took a little while to find one that didn't feel chalky or weird. Happily it's the store brand that's $2 a half gallon. Settled on soy creamer, which is not as thick as dairy creamer but next best thing among non-dairy that tastes good.
With you on cheese! It's what makes plant burgers taste good.
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
tetris11|3 years ago
denimnerd42|3 years ago
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63647-8 see the references
height difference found:
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/106/2/597/4557638
may be related to IGF-1:
https://www.nature.com/articles/1601948
candiddevmike|3 years ago
xattt|3 years ago
(1) https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/assets/info/nutrition/i...
throwaway2037|3 years ago
unknown|3 years ago
[deleted]
mtgx|3 years ago
[deleted]
gmuslera|3 years ago
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.
tmitchel2|3 years ago
karmakurtisaani|3 years ago
citilife|3 years ago
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.
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.
I personally wouldn't be surprised if the soy, oat, almond industry are pushing these studies.
giulianob|3 years ago
greenonions|3 years ago
schroeding|3 years ago
Almond milk contains almost no almonds (and tastes horrible IMO, but YMMV, may also just be the brand I tried), I would assume that it's not that big of a chunk of the global almond production.
But in any case, oat milk should be safe, right? It's just a very watery porridge, isn't it? :D
captainbland|3 years ago
candiddevmike|3 years ago
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1...
digisign|3 years ago
scythmic_waves|3 years ago
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.
[1]: https://perfectday.com/
schroeding|3 years ago
ajross|3 years ago
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.
Per this link, "fluid milk" is only 24% of dairy usage: https://www.progressivedairy.com/news/industry-news/how-is-t...
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.
prideout|3 years ago
Even though it doesn't represent the majority of milk usage, maybe we shouldn't dismiss fluid milk entirely, since it's an easy first step.
changoplatanero|3 years ago
spamizbad|3 years ago
oh_sigh|3 years ago
tootie|3 years ago
zakk|3 years ago
izolate|3 years ago
wittycardio|3 years ago
[deleted]
chrisweekly|3 years ago
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.
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.
bobm_kite9|3 years ago
I've always been a huge ice-cream fan so the fact that it's been retooled in a more addictive form is very concerning.
SirensOfTitan|3 years ago
1. What percentage of land use for dairy cows is arable?
2. What percentage of water consumed by dairy cows is recycled (eg from rain water), how does that compare to something like almonds?
3. What percentage of greenhouse gas emissions are added to the environment over already existing in the environment and just being moved?
BobbyJo|3 years ago
Pretty much all of it. It's either being used directly for grass, or indirectly to grow grains which are fed to the cows.
> What percentage of greenhouse gas emissions are added to the environment over already existing in the environment and just being moved?
I think the number itself is the amount over what already existed.
Reason077|3 years ago
bin_bash|3 years ago
bobthepanda|3 years ago
tootie|3 years ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/amazon...
This is more about beef than milk, but the situation is likely very similar.
wellbehaved|3 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdrhpThqlCo
russianbandit|3 years ago
FalconSensei|3 years ago
Workaccount2|3 years ago
A small cup of black coffee with oatmilk for $3.50. Please.
t3rabytes|3 years ago
Mikeb85|3 years ago
The fact that it's more ecological to produce doesn't translate to lower prices for many reasons.
mikepurvis|3 years ago
oh_sigh|3 years ago
freeone3000|3 years ago
honkycat|3 years ago
Sure we're burning down the planet and allocating massive amounts of water to feed and maintain livestock during drought conditions.
BUT! The ranchers need their 5th house and the proles need their artificially cheap meat that is blocking their arteries.
( not a vegan just annoyed by mis-allocation of resources )
micromacrofoot|3 years ago
joshlemer|3 years ago
moralestapia|3 years ago
I'm not being unreasonable here, some people just won't give up real meat or milk, ever.
wbsss4412|3 years ago
It’s not literally milk, but these are clearly milk substitutes, where people use them when they would otherwise use milk.
toomuchtodo|3 years ago
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jan/06/us-dairy-indust...
lern_too_spel|3 years ago
wittycardio|3 years ago
twobitshifter|3 years ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#/media/F...
RedBeetDeadpool|3 years ago
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.
Not only that, as per article:
> A liter of dairy milk is not comparable to a liter of plant-based milk in terms of its nutritional profile.
jyounker|3 years ago
This is an issue being pushed with the intention of distracting from the real issue: fossil fuel use.
lern_too_spel|3 years ago
unnouinceput|3 years ago
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.
morsch|3 years ago
"The extraction and processing of natural resources has accelerated over the last two decades, and accounts for more than 90 per cent of our biodiversity loss and water stress and approximately half of our climate change impacts."
This includes farming, as well as extraction of fossil fuels, minerals etc. In fact, the climate change impact of farming (biomass extraction) is about the same as fossil fuel extraction, according to that study.
Here's a guardian article about the report (but the official summary is also very readable): https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/12/resource...
bitwize|3 years ago
silentsea90|3 years ago
petermcneeley|3 years ago
https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane
Darmody|3 years ago
I don't have a source at hand right now but you can look it up.
gorgoiler|3 years ago
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?
madeofpalk|3 years ago
I also don't think anyone is trying to (realistically) take away your milk. It is useful though to inform people about the impacts of their choice, and let them make an informed decision.
prvc|3 years ago
willnonya|3 years ago
I'm sure the "but my brand" crowd will disagree based on the subjectivity of their lack of taste but they'll be wrong.
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.
RappingBoomer|3 years ago
same thing for artificial meat or even soy protein--easily more expensive than regular pork/hamburger/chicken...
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
voisin|3 years ago
Maybe, or maybe the incumbent products are massively subsidized.
cyberlurker|3 years ago
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.
wbsss4412|3 years ago
What gets left out is the fact that phytoestrogens are ubiquitous, found in many plant foods. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoestrogen?wprov=sfti1
Workaccount2|3 years ago
xutopia|3 years ago
reducesuffering|3 years ago
interviewer0000|3 years ago
Tronno|3 years ago
I appreciate the sentiment, but getting people to switch seems as futile as converting a steak lover to strict veganism.
enjikaka|3 years ago
RajT88|3 years ago
mbg721|3 years ago
jaredcwhite|3 years ago
sudden_dystopia|3 years ago
I really enjoy the new ultrafiltered cow milk that have come out recently. Half the sugar, no lactose but all of the protein.
givemeethekeys|3 years ago
The average dairy cow produces 2320 gallons of milk per year. Dairy cows drink 40 gallons of water per day, which is about 14600 gallons per year. A grown dairy cow eats about 30 pounds of food per day - 50% grain and 50% grass, so about 5475 pounds of grain per year. It takes 127 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of maize. Not counting the water requirements for grass, and assuming that our cow only eats maize, we'll need 695325 gallons to of water to feed the cow.
It takes 22000 gallons of water to irrigate an acre of land. Each acre produces 2 tons of hay, so we'll need 11000 gallons per ton of hay or 11 gallons per pound, which is 60225 gallons of water for grass.
Total water consumption of 1 cow per year for grass + grain + drinking water = 770150 gallons.
That brings us to needing 770150 gallons of water to produce 2320 gallons of cow milk. So, about 331 gallons of water to make 1 gallon of cow milk.
They say that each almond requires 1.1 gallons of water. 1 pound of shelled almonds = 3.63 cups of almonds. There are 416 almonds in a pound. So, about 26 per ounce, and 208 per cup. There are 16 cups in a gallon. To make almond milk, we mix 6 cups of water for each cup of almonds, which will yield us about 6.5 cups of almond milk. It'll take 2.46 cups of almonds to make 1 gallon of almond milk, so 512 almonds, so 563 gallons of water.
Things we're not accounting for in the above comparison:
The water cost of producing pesticides, fertilizers.
The water cost of producing health treatments for cows.
The water cost of producing diesel to transport grains to the cows.
The water cost of producing electricity and packaging.
I'm sure I'm missing a lot.
Sources:
- https://albertamilk.com/ask-dairy-farmer/what-do-dairy-cows-...
- https://dairy-cattle.extension.org/how-much-milk-does-the-av...
- https://thelivestockexpert.com/how-much-water-does-a-cow-dri...
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goodpoint|3 years ago
In some countries cow milk is even subsidized.
Edit: cow milk is actually less healthy than alternatives and there is no reason to encourage it.
denimnerd42|3 years ago
Mikeb85|3 years ago
Because poor people consume it. Dairy products are also a replacement for meat if you're poor enough.
em-bee|3 years ago
dgeiser13|3 years ago
fnordpiglet|3 years ago
googlryas|3 years ago
silentsea90|3 years ago
kevin_thibedeau|3 years ago
mbg721|3 years ago
sbarker|3 years ago