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Milk's impact on the planet dairy, soya, rice, oat and almond compared

alsoknownas said:
Sadly I'm assuming it means from cows that have just been eating grass and not all other kinds of shit, but I don't know the details (and am a bit worried about further investigation). As a reference, only one widely available product claims to be 100% grass fed, as far as I could tell :(.

eta: Kerrygold btw.
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Kerrygold butter is absolutely delicious.
 
Well...I tried oat milk today.
It was perfectly fine in cereal and coffee. Expensive though. ...And had to come from Sweden so there's a carbon footprint there but I think I would get it again.

I've not eaten beef in a month and am eating chicken once a week and fish once a week. Some bacon products once a fortnight. Other days are vegetarianish as in no meat. Still need eggs and cheese but cutting back on cheese to the weekends only.
I'm sure I could do this every week. Hopefully.
 
Lupa said:
Well...I tried oat milk today.
It was perfectly fine in cereal and coffee. Expensive though. ...And had to come from Sweden so there's a carbon footprint there but I think I would get it again.

I've not eaten beef in a month and am eating chicken once a week and fish once a week. Some bacon products once a fortnight. Other days are vegetarianish as in no meat. Still need eggs and cheese but cutting back on cheese to the weekends only.
I'm sure I could do this every week. Hopefully.
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Yes! This is exactly why the words vegetarian and vegan are so clumsy. If everyone who ate meat did this, it would be excellent. But saying 'I halved/quartered my meat/dairy intake' doesn't sound like much of a lifestyle choice. But it is!
 
alsoknownas said:
Long article in Guardian, with some history snippets thrown in:

White gold: the unstoppable rise of alternative milks
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Interesting background -
We are all born milk drinkers. Babies’ guts produce the enzyme lactase, which breaks down lactose, the sugar in breastmilk (and cow’s milk), into the simpler sugars glucose and galactose. But for the majority of humans, production of the enzyme lactase plummets after weaning. “From a human perspective – no, to go further than that, from a mammalian perspective – the norm is to be able to tolerate your mother’s breast milk, and then as you get past infancy, to stop producing lactase and become lactose intolerant,” said Adam Fox, a consultant paediatric allergist at Guy’s and St Thomas’s hospitals, and one of the UK’s leading food allergy experts. “Then you’ve got a small group of humans that have a mutation which means they maintain production of lactase into adulthood. Northern Europeans, the Masai [in east Africa], some Arab groups as well. But that’s the exception, not the rule.”

That schism between milk-drinkers and the rest – actually a series of independent genetic mutations – appears to have occurred about 10,000 years ago, around the time humans were domesticating farm animals. It is the reason that in countries such as the UK, Sweden and Ireland, more than 90% of adults can drink milk without suffering any ill effects, but worldwide, more than two-thirds of all adults are considered lactose intolerant. For lactose-intolerant people, a glass of milk can induce bloating, stomach pains and diarrhoea. (Lactose intolerance should not be – though often is – confused with cow’s milk allergy, an immune response to the proteins in cow’s milk that affects around 1% of UK adults.)
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alsoknownas said:
Long article in Guardian, with some history snippets thrown in:

White gold: the unstoppable rise of alternative milks
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Interesting. And whilst I am now trying a few plant milks, reading that article has actually put me off bothering with any more as it seems to me that it's all just the usual dietary snake oil.

Both Silk and Alpro contain just 2% almonds. “It’s actually a water-based emulsion that you’re adding oils, a lot of sugar and gums to, and then just adding a couple of nuts on top,” Elmhurst’s Cheryl Mitchell said. “As a business model, it’s great – any time you can sell water, right? That’s essentially what they’re doing.”
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I liked the Oatly Barrista and so that will come into my life as a regular thing but I will still have some cows milk. The almond milk I am trying right now doesn't work for me - I find it bitter and thin and it actively makes my coffee taste bad IMO - and reading that article has made me question why I'm even bothering. There's no health benefit for me in drinking plant milks so it's about animal welfare/environmental impact and cutting down on meat and dairy will help with both of those and I'm doing that anyway. Taking up drinking different plant milks helps neither as far as I can see and seems to have no clear health benefits either.
 
Mrs Miggins said:
Interesting. And whilst I am now trying a few plant milks, reading that article has actually put me off bothering with any more as it seems to me that it's all just the usual dietary snake oil.



I liked the Oatly Barrista and so that will come into my life as a regular thing but I will still have some cows milk. The almond milk I am trying right now doesn't work for me - I find it bitter and thin and it actively makes my coffee taste bad IMO - and reading that article has made me question why I'm even bothering. There's no health benefit for me in drinking plant milks so it's about animal welfare/environmental impact and cutting down on meat and dairy will help with both of those and I'm doing that anyway. Taking up drinking different plant milks helps neither as far as I can see and seems to have no clear health benefits either.
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The devastating environmental impact and abject cruelty of the milk trade is enough reason to make me try to reduce my dairy intake but some alternatives are healthy enough:

Cow’s milk, the researchers say, is still the most complete and balanced source of protein, fat and carbohydrates. Soy milk, a popular alternative option for more than four decades, was found to be the most comparable to cow’s milk in terms of overall nutrient balance. It’s also the highest in protein of all the alternative milk options studied, with about 7 to 12 grams (and about 95 calories) per 8-ounce serving.

Soy milk also contains phytonutrients known as isoflavones, which have been shown to have cancer-fighting properties. It’s not a perfect substitute, though; some people complain about its “beany flavor,” the authors wrote, and some scientists have expressed concerns about “anti-nutrient” substances naturally found in soy, like phytic acid, which can make it harder for the body to absorb and digest important vitamins and minerals.

“It is quite clear that nutritionally soy milk is the best alternative for replacing cow’s milk in human diet,” they concluded in their paper. They acknowledge, though, that more people may enjoy the flavor of almond milk. Those who choose the latter should make sure they’re getting enough essential nutrients, like carbs and protein, through other sources in their diet, they write.

http://time.com
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editor said:
The devastating environmental impact and abject cruelty of the milk trade is enough reason to make me try to reduce my dairy intake but some alternatives are healthy enough:
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I agree. I'm just not sure that these alternatives are the right route for me given I don't like them, I will gain nothing healthwise and are they basically water plus sugar plus thickeners.

It seems to me it's just another highly processed food that will need to be carted about on trucks to deliver it.
 
Actually had 2 veggie meals this week. One home cooked burritos which was lovely, the other was a veggie chilli apparently made with Quorn whilst at work.

The latter was utterly vile. That stuff is foul. Awful texture and taste.

Not tired the oat milk yet but will do at some point.
 
editor said:
That's really not true at all.
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Really? Look, I've got no problem with the products themselves or the people who choose to drink them. I am looking to reduce my meat and dairy intake because of the animal welfare and envirnomental issues and I really don't think plant milks are for me. I will just find ways to use less of both.

I'd rather start buying better quality tea that doesn't need milk and get used to that for instance.
 
I'm not saying that the above is a bad thing. I'm just saying that it's also not a particularly special thing. And is mostly water, sugar and thickeners.
 
Mrs Miggins said:
Alpro Almond Milk
INGREDIENTS
Water, Almond (2.3%), Sugar, Calcium (Tri-calcium phosphate), Sea salt, Stabilisers (Locust bean gum, Gellan gum), Emulsifier (Sunflower lecithin), Vitamins (Riboflavin (B2), B12, E, D2), Natural flavouring
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Yes, that one particular almond milk does have sugar in it. But I can point you in the direction of plenty of alternatives that don't have sugar in them and to claim that all of them are "basically water plus sugar plus thickeners" is, as I said, plain wrong.

e.g. Things we make - dairy free range - almond
Silk Unsweetened Vanilla Almondmilk
Alpro | Foodservice | unsweetened
 
Mrs Miggins said:
I'm not saying that the above is a bad thing. I'm just saying that it's also not a particularly special thing. And is mostly water, sugar and thickeners.
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They do it unsweetened too. It's low calorie and fortified with lots of important vitamins. Not saying they are super nutritious, but I'm not aware that there's anything in the unsweetened ones that's unhealthy either.
 
Mrs Miggins said:
Alpro Almond Milk
INGREDIENTS
Water, Almond (2.3%), Sugar, Calcium (Tri-calcium phosphate), Sea salt, Stabilisers (Locust bean gum, Gellan gum), Emulsifier (Sunflower lecithin), Vitamins (Riboflavin (B2), B12, E, D2), Natural flavouring
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That's quite interesting - I looked at the nutrition profile last time I had some, but not the percentage of almonds.
Maybe "thickened water with calcium and chemically-synthesized vitamins" would be a more informative product description.

I still quite like it in tea, but if it's almost entirely water, it would seem better environmentally to sell it in a condensed form.

Was also interested to see that they are predicting a market peak in 3 to 5 years.
 
8ball said:
That's quite interesting - I looked at the nutrition profile last time I had some, but not the percentage of almonds.
Maybe "thickened water with calcium and chemically-synthesized vitamins" would be a more informative product description.
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You are aware that there are plenty of sugar free alternatives yes?

Like this one

Which is why we’ve made this tasty almond dairy free from only three simple ingredients: roasted almonds, spring water and a touch of sea salt. No stabilisers, no gums, no funny business.
Things we make - dairy free range - almond
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8ball said:
Where did I mention sugar? :confused:
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You quoted the sweetened almond milk ingredients, mentioned nutrition and referred to it as "thickened water with calcium and chemically-synthesized vitamins," so silly me thought that was the one single almond milk out of many that you wanted to talk about. If you want to talk about almond milk in general, perhaps you should look at the alternatives that don't fit your damning dismissal.
 
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