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Milk alternatives produce up to 4.5x less greenhouse gas emissions as milk
- changoplatanero 4y agoI heard that the trendy thing to do now in coffee shops is to ask for your drink to be made with regular cow milk.
- spamizbad 4y agoAs 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.
- dogma1138 4y agoLactose free milk, cream and many other dairy products are widely available. I’m not lactose intolerant but I do buy lactofree milk I find it to last a bit longer and I see no reason to temp fate as you can become more and more intolerant as you grow older and I do like my cheeses.
- tootie 4y agoI'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.
- madeofpalk 4y agoCafe was out of cows milk one day, so i had oat milk instead. It was fine - it was different but I could get used to it. Prefer cow milk, but just because that's what im used to right now.
- oh_sigh 4y ago"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.
- mbg721 4y agoYes; "milk" with no qualifier is what comes out of the dangly bits of cows. If you order "eggs" at a restaurant, expect something that's been inside a chicken.
- tarboreus 4y agoIn NYC, and this is no longer true or assumed. I think oat milk is the most commonly used now. I have to say cow's milk pretty frequently just to get cow's milk, though I could probably get away with saying "regular milk."
- oh_sigh 4y agoI live in the UWS and this is not my experience
- interviewer0000 4y agoNot your mom, not your milk :)
- russianbandit 4y agoAnd 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).
- joshlemer 4y agoThis really pisses me off, even starbucks charges like a dollar for almond/oat milk.
- vinay427 4y agoThis charge was finally removed a few months ago at their UK locations, so it seems more or less inevitable in the US given that the UK is often a vegan/plant-based testbed for many US chains: https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/starbucks-ends-vegan-milk-upcharge/ https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/starbucks-ends-veg...
- freeone3000 4y agoIt costs more.
- FalconSensei 4y agoThe milk alternatives that can achieve the same foaminess can cost 2x the price of regular milk, so I guess it makes sense
- prideout 4y agoWhich milk alternatives can achieve the same foaminess?
- t3rabytes 4y agoOatly and Califa have barista blends that get close. I've been using Minor Figures for a few weeks and have been enjoying it.
- vineyardmike 4y ago
- zakk 4y agoYou’ll have my mozzarella from my dead hands!
- izolate 4y agoDairy is not going anywhere in your lifetime, you (and I) don't have to worry. Choice is good.
- wittycardio 4y ago
- zakk 4y agoYou look forward to mozzarella? That’s a very good thing to do, probably best food ever! :)
- bitwize 4y agoAfter ridding the world of fossil fuels and plastics, next up on the agenda is industrial-scale animal husbandry.
- silentsea90 4y agoBarely scratched the surface on the first two tbh, but it makes complete sense to do this.
- moralestapia 4y agoThat's nice but it's not milk so ... apples to oranges. I'm not being unreasonable here, some people just won't give up real meat or milk, ever.
- wbsss4412 4y agoI don’t see what your point is… this isn’t an either or thing. It’s not literally milk, but these are clearly milk substitutes, where people use them when they would otherwise use milk.
- moralestapia 4y agoA fake Rolex produces up to 4.5x less greenhouse gas emissions than a real one. Would that matter for collectors? PS. I don't care about watches at all, btw.
- rawrenstein 4y agoIs there some sort of milk collectors guild I don’t know about?
- toomuchtodo 4y agoThere 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). https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jan/06/us-dairy-industry-suffering-americans-consume-less-milk https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jan/06/us-dairy-indust...
- SauciestGNU 4y agoThis is good. Bovine animal husbandry is one of the biggest contributors to climate change, and we as a society should allow the market to kill the industry before it kills us.
- goodpoint 4y ago...and yet taxation does not reflect environmental at all. 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.
- Mikeb85 4y ago> In some countries cow milk is even subsidized Because poor people consume it. Dairy products are also a replacement for meat if you're poor enough.
- em-bee 4y agomy understanding about this is that milk production is not subsidized so that poor people can afford it, but so that farmers can afford to continue producing it. in some places milk production is not profitable and farmers would go out of business without government support. the price they get paid for their milk does not depend on what the consumers would be willing to pay, but on the large milk production companies who buy all their milk and dictate what they are willing to pay, and without subsidies they would simply buy their milk elsewhere.
- Mikeb85 4y ago> milk production is not subsidized so that poor people can afford it, but so that farmers can afford to continue producing it. Yes, because poor people can't afford to pay the prices required to sustain enough production. And because dairy is a staple, especially in rough times, it's in governments' interest to maintain production.
- em-bee 4y agoaccording to some sources we have overproduction of milk worldwide. so stopping subsidies will not raise the price of milk on the market. it will only put those farmers out of business that don't have a profitable milk production. the choice is between subsidizing farmers to produce milk or paying them welfare checks. the EU is doing this, and they don't exactly have a problem with lots of poor people not being able to afford higher milk prices. more likely higher prices would lead to less consumption even among those that could afford it.
- RajT88 4y agoMilk alternatives probably also reduce gas emissions among the lactose intolerant.
- mbg721 4y agoHaving consumed some of the grain-based alternatives, that's a "nope" from me.
- SirensOfTitan 4y agoQuestions that come to mind: 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?
- bin_bash 4y agoIf it’s not arable then the cow’s food has to come from arable land somewhere else. You can’t just put a cow on a rock and expect it to produce milk.
- Symmetry 4y agoBetween land that gets enough rain for intensive cultivation without draining aquifers and land that's a barren desert there's a wide range and you can still graze cows on most of it, though it takes more land per cow in drier areas.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Reason077 4y agoCows 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.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago- Emmisions related to livestock are 5.8% of _all_ global CO2 and other GHG emissions [0] - Methane leaks from Oil and gas drill sites and abandoned wells alone account for 5.8% of global emissions. [0] Ethically I am aligned with animal welfare but rationally it is a lot more realistically that we force Oil&Gas to clean up their act than to expect everyone worldwide to switch to oat milk. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/09/Emissions-by-sector-%E2%80%93-pie-charts.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/09/Emissions-by-sect...
- Reason077 4y agoI'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!
- tetris11 4y agoIt makes superior hot chocolate as it doesn't burn as it boils compared to regular milk
- falcolas 4y agoWhy are you boiling the milk? Get the milk hot - hot enough to melt the chocolate and sugar. Don't boil it.
- unicornporn 4y agoWhen 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. https://www.gq.com/story/oatly-nutrition-ipo https://www.gq.com/story/oatly-nutrition-ipo
- oh_sigh 4y agoOatly original has 7g of sugar - 1 cup of whole cows milk has 12 g of sugar. So it is still significantly less sugar than cow's milk. I drink planet oat milk, and that only has 4g of sugar and tastes good to me.
- unicornporn 4y agoOatly's primary sugar, maltose, has 2.3 times the blood sugar impact as lactose, the primary sugar in cow's milk. Maltose has a glycemic index of 105, compared to 46 for lactose.[1] [1] https://www.jeffnobbs.com/posts/oatly-responds-in-defense-of-its-ingredients https://www.jeffnobbs.com/posts/oatly-responds-in-defense-of...
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoCow farts are just replacing Bison farts. Nobody accounts tor that in their doom charts.
- cyberlurker 4y agoOat 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.
- Workaccount2 4y agoThe soy thing is if you drink gallons a day for years. I'm not aware of any long term studies that found anything.
- xutopia 4y agoThe fear surrounding soy milk were unfounded. No studies have shown an impact on us but the proposition that it could is very persistent.
- wbsss4412 4y agoThe “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] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoestrogen?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoestrogen?wprov=sfti1
- bipson 4y agoAll our pediatricians strongly advised foregoing soy based alternatives (son had a milk-protein allergy), at least until he is 2, better even longer. The argument from the less concerned was something along: Better safe then sorry, no one can say what larger amounts of estrogen will do to a boy well below 1.
- wbsss4412 4y ago
- unnouinceput 4y agoIs 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.
- morsch 4y agoPresumably you're referring to this report: https://www.resourcepanel.org/reports/global-resources-outlook https://www.resourcepanel.org/reports/global-resources-outlo... "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-extraction-carbon-emissions-biodiversity-loss https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/12/resource...
- fnordpiglet 4y agoThis is why I only drink hamster milk.
- googlryas 4y agoYou can milk a hamster?
- jyounker 4y agoIt's a mammal. You can milk it. It just takes a lot of time and appropriate milking equipment. Fortunately a full automated milking machine fits in a lunch pail. Sadly the equipment only gets you several thimblefuls per hamster-day.
- fnordpiglet 4y agoBut it also horizontally scales and fits in server racks.
- jyounker 4y agoGiving a new definition to server farms. :)
- denimnerd42 4y agoMilk 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. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63647-8 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 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/106/2/597/4557638 may be related to IGF-1: https://www.nature.com/articles/1601948 https://www.nature.com/articles/1601948
- candiddevmike 4y agoDo we need big kids? Milk has a ton of calories and could be contributing to childhood obesity: https://nutritionfacts.org/2017/03/16/how-milk-may-contribute-to-childhood-obesity/ https://nutritionfacts.org/2017/03/16/how-milk-may-contribut...
- wyager 4y agoKids aren't getting fat off milk. We can a priori expect milk satiety response to be well calibrated.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y agoIf we go purely on factors contributing to obesity, plant milks may not necessarily be better. Many plant milks are carb heavy with not much in the way of fat or protein, so it won’t make you feel as full as milk.
- lancesells 4y agoI'm not a milk or milk alternative drinker but when I've looked at things like Oatly they seem to have at least as many calories and sugar as something like skim milk.
- schroeding 4y agoAt least the oat milk brand I like to drink (Alpro) has exactly the same amount of calories as normal cow milk, which makes kinda sense, as they use additional oil to get to the identical fat content :D So replacing it will not change anything in that regard, we just must be aware that (any) milk is (liquid) food and not a drink. Same problem as with softdrinks or fruit juices. Anecdata: I regularly drank (cow) milk as a child and now I'm over 2 meters in height. But of course correlation with n=1 is not causation, and I'm sure many people here are equally large without a drop of milk. :D
- twobitshifter 4y agoIs 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. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#/media/File%3AThe_Global_Methane_Budget_2008%E2%80%932017.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#/media/F...
- silentsea90 4y agoWould 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.
- gorgoiler 4y agoI 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? 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 4y agoThankfully, 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.
- gorgoiler 4y agoThanks for the input. I thought about it some more, and gave the article another spin, and the thing that really impacted me was the environmental hazard of cattle — eutrophication to use the technical term. Bio diversity, while not quite the same risk as climate change, is another hazard well worth focusing on. What’s the point of tackling greenhouse emissions if we live in a Speaker for the Dead biological dead-end with only a handful of ubiquitous species?
- ajross 4y agoThis 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. Per this link, "fluid milk" is only 24% of dairy usage: https://www.progressivedairy.com/news/industry-news/how-is-the-nations-milk-utilized 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 4y agoThanks 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.
- petermcneeley 4y agoKeep in mind this is using "Carbon dioxide-equivalents". This is because of methane aka cow farts. https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane
- Darmody 4y agoChanging their diet with some kind of algae reduces metane emisions by a lot. I don't have a source at hand right now but you can look it up.
- sudden_dystopia 4y agoAs far as almond milk goes, how much water do almond trees consume in places that are already water scarce? I really enjoy the new ultrafiltered cow milk that have come out recently. Half the sugar, no lactose but all of the protein.
- givemeethekeys 4y agoLet'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. I'm sure I'm missing a lot. Sources: - https://albertamilk.com/ask-dairy-farmer/what-do-dairy-cows-eat/ https://albertamilk.com/ask-dairy-farmer/what-do-dairy-cows-... - https://dairy-cattle.extension.org/how-much-milk-does-the-average-dairy-cow-produce-in-a-year/ https://dairy-cattle.extension.org/how-much-milk-does-the-av... - https://thelivestockexpert.com/how-much-water-does-a-cow-drink/ https://thelivestockexpert.com/how-much-water-does-a-cow-dri... - https://informedfarmers.com/how-much-grass-does-a-cow-eat/ https://informedfarmers.com/how-much-grass-does-a-cow-eat/ - https://www.derthickscornmaze.com/interesting-about-corn/how-much-water-does-it-take-to-produce-an-ear-of-corn.html https://www.derthickscornmaze.com/interesting-about-corn/how... - https://www.answers.com/Q/How_many_almonds_are_in_a_pound https://www.answers.com/Q/How_many_almonds_are_in_a_pound - http://anniekateshomeschoolreviews.com/2011/10/shelled-vs-unshelled-nuts/ http://anniekateshomeschoolreviews.com/2011/10/shelled-vs-un... - https://www.openfit.com/how-many-nuts-are-in-an-ounce https://www.openfit.com/how-many-nuts-are-in-an-ounce - https://www.answers.com/Q/How_much_water_does_it_take_to_make_1_gallon_of_gasoline https://www.answers.com/Q/How_much_water_does_it_take_to_mak... - https://www.freightwaves.com/news/how-much-weight-can-a-big-rig-carry https://www.freightwaves.com/news/how-much-weight-can-a-big-... - https://www.motorbiscuit.com/how-many-miles-per-gallon-do-semi-trucks-get/ https://www.motorbiscuit.com/how-many-miles-per-gallon-do-se... - https://askinglot.com/how-much-water-does-a-farm-use-per-acre https://askinglot.com/how-much-water-does-a-farm-use-per-acr... - https://otonomic.com/how-many-bales-of-hay-per-acre/ https://otonomic.com/how-many-bales-of-hay-per-acre/
- citilife 4y agoI'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.
- digisign 4y agoSoy 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.
- giulianob 4y agoActually 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. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/lactose-intolerance/definition-facts https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-disea...
- scythmic_waves 4y agoI 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. [1]: https://perfectday.com/ https://perfectday.com/
- schroeding 4y agoCan'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
- scythmic_waves 4y agoYeah I've tried a few and haven't found any to my liking. Other plant-based products like meat alternatives I've found to be OK, but dairy not so much. Also if you read this Perfect Day, I don't eat much icecream but I'd buy vegan whey protein powder from y'all in a heartbeat.
- RedBeetDeadpool 4y agoDon'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.
- prvc 4y ago"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.
- chrisweekly 4y agoI'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.
- bobm_kite9 4y agoI think the best ice-cream is dairy-free. 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.
- jyounker 4y agoI 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.
- lern_too_spel 4y agoHere's the math: https://mrdrscienceteacher.wordpress.com/2019/09/21/bison-vs-cow-greenhouse-gas-emissions/ https://mrdrscienceteacher.wordpress.com/2019/09/21/bison-vs...
- jyounker 4y agoThere weren't just Bison though. Before humans came to North America there were vast herds of many other megafauna species out there too.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago> This is an issue being pushed with the intention of distracting from the real issue: fossil fuel use. This part is still horribly true though. Emmisions related to livestock are 5.8% of _all_ global CO2 and other GHG emissions [0] In comparison Transport emissions are 16.2%. [0] The steel industry as a single industry accounts for 7.2% of emissions.[0] Methane leaks from Oil and gas drill sites and abandoned wells alone account for 5.8% of global emissions. [0] Sure we need to look into all fronts but before we guilt people into oat milk shouldn't we, via policy, enforce leak cleanup of abandoned Oil&Gas drill sites? [0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/09/Emissions-by-sector-%E2%80%93-pie-charts.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/09/Emissions-by-sect...
- Volundr 4y agoDo we have to do these things in a specific order? Can't we do them in parallel? I suspect you'll find the cross section of people who want to reduce agricultural CO2 emissions and those who want to clean up gas and oil leaks to be quite large.
- willnonya 4y agoI 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.
- Tronno 4y agoNutritionally 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.
- em-bee 4y agoone 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)
- gmuslera 4y agoMeanwhile 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.
- karmakurtisaani 4y agoThis 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.
- tmitchel2 4y agoCan you explain why cow farming is bad?
- karmakurtisaani 4y agoMethane emissions and ethical reasons (if you care about such things). Edit: also they take a lot of land to feed. Soy grown in where Amazon rainforest used to be and so on.
- tmitchel2 4y agoIf you eat meet which has been raised on ground where trees have been felled for the sole purpose of creating that meat then yes the amount of carbon released is going to be insane. Here in the UK (nearly?) all the meat we consume is grown nationally, i.e. doesn't originate from places like the Amazon. And on the methane front, they eat the carbon in the grass which has literally just captured a bit of carbon from the atmosphere. They fart it up and then it comes back down in a reasonable period of time and goes back into the grass they are grazing upon. The cycles and definitely complex and opaque but we need to get better at working with nature rather than engineering new ways to ignore the real issues.
- jaredcwhite 4y agoI 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.
- dgeiser13 4y agoThey produce their greenhouse gas emissions as milk? Well isn't that ironic.
- RappingBoomer 4y agoi 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
- voisin 4y ago> no surprise, seeing as how most of eco-leftism is really just propaganda aimed to increasing profits. Maybe, or maybe the incumbent products are massively subsidized.
- enjikaka 4y agoCows 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.