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People insist in considering almond milk (and many other vegetable based milks for that matter) as a mere substitute for cow milk, and not for a kind of food in
by chicob 9y ago
People insist in considering almond milk (and many other vegetable based milks for that matter) as a mere substitute for cow milk, and not for a kind of food in its own right.
Where I live, with the exception of oat milk, all soy, rice or almond milk comes with tricalcium phosphate and sometimes sugar, some flavour and even vegetable fat. Same for yoghurt.
This tendency to add stuff (particularly sugar and fat) to food is becoming more frequent in bread and other vegetable products that were healthier once.
- maxerickson 9y agoHere in the land of corn syrup we have 2 national brands of almond milk that have at least 4 varieties, combining plain or vanilla with sweetened or unsweetened. Similar for other vegetable milks. They have calcium and thickeners added though.
- emodendroket 9y agoWell, isn't that because the biggest consumers are people who've gone vegan or dairy-free but still want something milk-like?
- jdavis703 9y agoSure, it's not the same as dairy milk, but I don't get this whole "don't call plant-based milk 'milk'" meme. What about Milkweed, or the white oozing "milt" that comes out of a dandelion stalk? Can those also not be called milk? Maybe if there was a good word that quickly described what rice, soy, or oat milk was it would be OK. But simply calling them "juice" seems to be even more of a culinary misnomer.
- LunaSea 9y agoThey should really call almond milk: "drought inducing almond juice" to fully reflect the consequences of that choice.
- TrisMcC 9y agoWhat would you call cow's milk then? It takes more water to make cow's milk than almond milk.
- neaden 9y agoTo be fair though, the milk I drink comes from Wisconsin, which isn't have a drought, while the almonds I eat/drink come from California which is having a drought. Unfortunately we can't grow almonds in most of the parts of the country that have plenty of water, but we can raise cows.
- TrisMcC 9y agoThere are plenty of farm animals in California. That contributes more to the drought of California than almonds. http://veganstart.org/wp-content/uploads/vs-graphic-truthordrought-CAwaterusechart.png http://veganstart.org/wp-content/uploads/vs-graphic-truthord... Sourced PDF: http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/ca_ftprint_full_report3.pdf http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2013/02/ca_ft...
- devmunchies 9y agoDrought inducing? Are you forgetting that feeding cows is much more inneficient than growing crops? They drink lots of water and eat lots of corn/soy, and that corn and soy requires lots of water to grow. AND you have to feed the calf a milk substitute because we're stealing it's meal. If you must have milk, drink dairy substitutes if you care about drought.
- JoeAltmaier 9y agoDepends on whether you already have pasture for cows. They ate grass in the middle ages, which people couldn't eat. Even today, they eat grass for the bulk of their lives. They are 'finished' with corn/soy to add marbling.
- 9y ago
- nnq 9y agoit's not about what you call it... it about not adding s to it to make it more like "cow milk" now that you call it milk like in, "look, kids are eating this for breakfast, we need to fortify it vitamins and stuff to prevent deficiencies"... nevermind that those extra vitamins will just increase the risk of cancers or stuff in adults. it's becoming hard to find the "un-enhanced" sortiments of many products.
- athenot 9y agoWhile I'm generally a fan of leaving foods as untouched as possible, I have not seen any link between vitamin D3 in the dosage applied to milk and cancer. Conversely, vitamin D deficiency is a population health problem (widespread), so the tradeoff is warranted.
- nnq 9y ago> vitamin D deficiency is a population health problem (widespread) ...despite the study that got very popular on HN lately this is far from a clearly agreed upon theory. There's still only retrospective data and with enough confounding factors to make drawing any inference on the causality of things very very hard. Until we all start wearing blood-analyzing implants for a generation or so, >50% of nutrition related studies will continue either being bullshit or not meaning what we think they mean,
- lawlessone 9y agoIn fairness if we're reading hacker news we're probably D3 deficient.
- chicob 9y agoOf course, I forgot vitamins. Who needs doctors when we have corporate nannies telling us how to eat healthily. I don't know about cancer, but food additives aren't always a good idea. Extra calcium is not really absorbed without vitamin D3 (more specifically, calcitriol), but I imagine that if one has a kidney condition one would have to avoid such food additives. Even the addition of iodine to salt is not without consequences.
- chicob 9y agoThere was a time in the US margarine had to be dyed pink, so that consumers wouldn't take it for butter. Of course no one would confuse the two: it's just a disingenuous way of using antitrust law against the very competition it's supposed to protect. The same thing happens here: soy yoghurt is 'soy dessert', soy/rice/* milk is '* beverage'. I'm not sure this is actually enforced, or brands are just covering their asses.
- calvano915 9y agoI don't get this whole "don't call plant-based milk 'milk'" meme I'm on both sides of this. I think it should be called milk, and the public should understand that the nutrition is very different, but perhaps for public interest not calling it milk is better because cow milk does offer more bang-for-buck and nutrition (particularly protein and vit D fortification) and the public could easily overlook this. I lean toward not calling it milk, because everyone who wants almond milk knows what to buy or can figure it out quite easily, even if it's not called milk any more.
- ousta 9y agoalmond milk is water and almond + sugar