Comparing dairy milk; almond milk; soy milk; and oat milk
November 19, 2022 7:57 AM   Subscribe

 


Thanks! This is helpful.
posted by humbug at 8:51 AM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]


Starting to think the only responsible move is to chop down every almond tree in California
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:07 AM on November 19, 2022 [4 favorites]


Starting to think the only responsible move is to chop down every almond tree in California

At least the almond milk doesn't involve chopping down the South American rainforest, like the soy milk does...
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 9:15 AM on November 19, 2022 [4 favorites]


An idea I am often told and have repeated myself from time-to-time: land that is suitable to grow grass that can serve as pasture for cattle is unsuitable for growing vegetable crops, or presumably almonds, soy, and oats. You can’t just convert grazing land to an almond orchard. That means that the land use comparisons like the ones made in the video are overly simplistic. I never, ever see the pasture vs farm land comparison taken into account in these environmental analyses and I don’t know what to make of that.

My sense has also been that, while beef cattle are often fed animal feed late in their lives, dairy cattle really just eat grass, because it’s cheap and feeding them corn or whatever would be cost prohibitive. But I don’t know. It seems like environmental analyses of meat and dairy production are not really connected to what I hear from agriculture people.

Meanwhile I have mostly switched to soy milk because the low saturated fat is appealing for health reasons. Soy milk has lost a lot of shelf space to oat and almond, and there’s one product on the shelf here that doesn’t have lots of added sugar.
posted by chrchr at 9:20 AM on November 19, 2022 [12 favorites]


I’ve just gone back to mostly drinking black coffee, alas. I LOVE a latte as a treat but I’ve cut vastly down on dairy for personal and environmental reasons, and especially at a coffee shop, every plant-based milk option is highly processed and I don’t want to bother a barista with detailed questions about what brand they’re using or whatever. It’s easier to just get an americano instead.

This all boils down to, industrialized capitalist food systems are entirely broken and inherently cruel, and it’s just so dispiriting. I do what I can to buy locally/sustainably but frankly I do not have the time and energy to make it happen 100% and there are few easy choices.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 9:31 AM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]


An idea I am often told and have repeated myself from time-to-time: land that is suitable to grow grass that can serve as pasture for cattle is unsuitable for growing vegetable crops, or presumably almonds, soy, and oats. You can’t just convert grazing land to an almond orchard. That means that the land use comparisons like the ones made in the video are overly simplistic. I never, ever see the pasture vs farm land comparison taken into account in these environmental analyses and I don’t know what to make of that.

If I'm understanding you correctly, then, no? ... No. Definitely not always true.

Counterexamples off the top of my head. Slash & burn. Destroying the Amazon to fuel the meat and dairy industry. The Tulare wetlands in California. Forests converted to pasture in New Zealand.

Counterexamples in the other direction: Las Gaviotas. The Great Green Wall.
posted by aniola at 9:57 AM on November 19, 2022 [6 favorites]


Soil quality and water availability are definitely things that need to be taken into consideration (eg. why “oh, we’ll just move agricultural production farther north” is a bogus anti-climate/semi-climate change-denialist argument). But in practice, as aniola notes, there is so much land that could be used more productively that is currently being used for grazing or growing cereal crops to feed cows - and land whose soil is in the process of being degraded due to such uses but which could be rehabilitated - that while we may not necessarily be able to pointwise sub out any specific acre of land used to support dairy cows for some other agricultural use, it does make sense to talk about such substitutions in the large, collective scale.
posted by eviemath at 10:24 AM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


Also also, in practice land convertibility is in the context of current techno-social profitability, which changes tremendously over time but is absolutely dominated for almost all farmers by the need to pay off a mortgage. (It’s a rare, rare farm that never borrows against the land for a bad weather year, or healthcare, or retirement.)
posted by clew at 11:06 AM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]


Following up on box, I’m pretty sure that answering this question on a webpage uses less CO2 than answering it on YouTube.
posted by clew at 11:09 AM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]


My day job has me researching this area (climate-specific VC looking to invest in companies that reduce emissions from agriculture, amongst other areas). There's a short answer, a long answer, and an event longer answer.

Short answer: plant-based milks are better than animal-based milks, for most definitions of "better".

Buy one that suits your taste and don't worry about it. Also eat less red meat.

Long answer: The open access research paper that the article is based on is Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers by Poore. But that's one paper from 2018.

A more recent summary of research is Dairy vs. plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts? from Our World In Data. Summarising five more years of research, plant-based milks are clearly better than dairy, where better means lower land use, lower emissions, lower freshwater use, and lower eutrophication (pollution into freshwater). How much better varies - almond milk definitely uses more water than other plant-based milks but still less than dairy. Still, don't worry about it. Better is better.

Longer answer: Food systems are complex and so are the environmental impacts. Hence this is an area where there is plenty of ongoing research to understand and compare the impacts, plus certification schemes to prove the impacts, plus social narratives that are fundamentally about prioritising impacts. The answers depend upon local conditions and by "answers" I mean consumer behaviour (what people start buying when they move away from animal-based dairy) and and farmer behaviour (how market demand changes result in changes to agricultural production).

I'm most familiar with Aotearoa New Zealand. A huge chunk of our greenhouse gas emissions is dairy exports from grass-fed cows, plus our rivers are declining in health due to run-off from dairy farms. That industry is arguing against alternative milks, because of couse they are.

One argument is that plant-based milks are much lower in protein than animal-based. That's true, kinda. Here's the data from Our World In Data. If you compare emissions per unit of protein, then rice milk has 10x the emissions of cow milk. So if people were to shift from cow milk to rice milk and then drink enough of that to get the same amount of protein then emissions overall would go up. But that's not a valid comparison, as people aren't going to start drinking 10x the amount of rice milk. Instead, people hardly change the amount of milk that they drink and they'll just get less protein from milks and more from other sources. And if people shift to oat milks, then those have lower emissions per unit protein than cow milk, about a third lower.

Another argument is that the NZ farmers with land that's good for dairy farming can't shift to rice or almonds. Again, that's true enough for industry lobbying, ie not very true. NZ's not warm enough to grow rice, but cattle farming land is good enough for growing grass, which means it's mostly good enough for growing crops. Oats used to be a big crop especially down south. Farmers shifted to cattle coz they could earn more per hectare. Some are starting to shift back to oats coz the growth of oat-based milk is increasing demand and thus prices for oats, as well as farmers themselves realising the environmental impacts of animal-based agriculture.

So in our particular set of local conditions (industry, environment, market, consumers), we're ready for a rapid transition away from animal-based milks. Oat milks will be more available, affordable, and popular here than in overseas markets. And the faster we transition to plant-based agriculture, the faster our emissions decline and the sooner our water quality improves.
posted by happyinmotion at 11:16 AM on November 19, 2022 [39 favorites]


they'll just get less protein from milks and more from other sources

great comment but this bit seems less than an entirely trivial “just”
posted by atoxyl at 11:45 AM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]


If you compare emissions per unit of protein, then rice milk has 10x the emissions of cow milk.
While CO2 is appropriately a huge consideration, there are others, as well. The environmental impact of agriculture is not limited to carbon.

While i don't have the tools to do the analysis, I suspect that growing rice in a water-rich region like Vietnam, and paying the carbon costs to ship it to the US would be better environmentally than growing the rice in California's central valley, where there are huge strains on the water system.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:48 AM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


Starting to think the only responsible move is to chop down every almond tree in California

Not quite as bad as it appears. Trees sequester carbon as wood and transpire water to the local climate, and shade is better for ground effects. Almond husks are also used as animal feed, not put in the equations. Almonds are also major trade balancing commodity with Asia, usually eaten not drunk, which preserves their fiber and nutrients. A crop replacement could be worse, as alfalfa might be next, or not even sell, because almonds enjoy a near-monopoly in California. Those converted milk products are also excessively trucked, and sit in refrigerators with short expiration dates using expensive packaging. The nut itself is on par with most other nuts.
posted by Brian B. at 11:49 AM on November 19, 2022


Following up on box, I’m pretty sure that answering this question on a webpage uses less CO2 than answering it on YouTube.

Sure, but there are people who you can only communicate with by video. They just won't read articles. How much CO2 is the author of the video saving if they reach people who wouldn't otherwise be reached?
posted by aniola at 12:04 PM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


Though I like oat milk, every time I drink it I imagine my dead Scottish relatives laughing at me for wasting good money on porridge-water.
posted by scruss at 12:05 PM on November 19, 2022 [21 favorites]


... but box's article is good and I liked it. I kept going "oo and also this..." in my head, and then the article would then cover whatever I had been thinking of.
posted by aniola at 12:05 PM on November 19, 2022


In response:
great comment but this bit seems less than an entirely trivial “just” - I suspect most people in the West eat far more protein than they need. I haven't seen a credible analysis of this. It's more of an issue in poorer nations where all nutrients are less affordable. Cheap sources of protein are valuable there but it's a big leap to say "therefore we have to increase expensive dairy production to make protein to feed poor people overseas", which is another NZ dairy industry argument. What the world needs is more cheap protein. Instead of growing plants containing protein to feed to cattle to make beef, it makes way more sense grow to grow plants containing protein for people to eat.

[water use by agriculture in California] - California's climate is arid to Mediterranian. Growing rice there is dumb. This only happens because agriculture in California pays far less for water than all other users, orders of magnitude less. This is a subsidy to farmers from everyone else. If pricing was fairer, then there'd be far less rice and almonds grown. This is a political problem, which I'll leave to the Californians to resolve.
posted by happyinmotion at 12:19 PM on November 19, 2022 [9 favorites]


Drink water.

I'm not even being flippant. I knew all of the information from the video at one point or another, and concluded that it was easiest to just skip on all of them. I drink coffee black anyway, and found out that cereal is incredibly unhealthy (yes, even that "healthy" cereal branded for adults) so I kind of don't really miss it at all. I'll just get a little bit on rare occasions when I need it as an ingredient.

Take the advice in the video if you want milk (oat > soy > almond > dairy) but keep in mind that milk (all kinds) isn't necessary or a part of a balanced breakfast or anything like that.

Bonus: the recent Maintenance Phase podcast is on the (highly political) origins of the Food Pyramid.
posted by AlSweigart at 12:39 PM on November 19, 2022 [5 favorites]


I’ve just gone back to mostly drinking black coffee

Totally. I mean, rye whiskey for me. But you never see rye getting called out for deleterious environmental effects, right? RIGHT?!

Idk, maybe that's the rye talking. Anyway, what?
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 12:42 PM on November 19, 2022 [15 favorites]


Thanks for posting chariot... chrchr, in many cases it's not so much the land but the climate that's unsuitable - to grow grass/pasture species needs a moist climate and well-distributed rainfall. This is less than ideal to grow nuts (plants diseases increase) and many grains - the crop never dries before harvest, and with e.g. wheat you risk ergot.

I don't know where the speaker gets their four square kilometres per 250ml of milk figure from - @ 3:07. A well-performing NZ dairy farm produces about 0.7 litres of liquid milk per square metre per annum - in my region this would need no irrigation.

Most dairy land here (Southland) was formerly tussock grassland, shrubland, and pockets of wet forest & cleared for farming in the 19th Century (sheep in the south and grains in the north). There are major (probably irreversible) nitrogen pollution issues from dairy farming where irrigation is the main water source (e.g. South Island East coast), but arable farming (crops) can be majorly polluting too if practiced badly.

There's a lot of development in NZ going into crop-based proteins, e.g. peas as their whole growing cycle is 90 days and then something else can be planted - so they're highly profitable (if you know what you're doing) - Making Peas Pay [3 page .pdf]

I live in an extensive area of dairy farming with about 600 dairy farms. Many were sheep farms (& wheat, oats and barley as happinmotion writes) but the financial framework of payments to dairy farmers (monthly) as opposed to sheep farmers (annually) has resulted in more farmers moving to dairy (and being pushed to by the banks in many cases, with detrimental effects on the land, as any farming type is a life's work to learn).

Non-animal protein milks stand to shift the funding from mainly rural-based production (which is largely transparent ime), to factory production with hard-to-trace raw products and less documented manufacturing processes. Also the influx of new money from people outside traditional agriculture/horticulture industries is a risk as these people often have a very reductive understanding of plants and natural systems.
posted by unearthed at 12:44 PM on November 19, 2022 [10 favorites]


Interesting and informative, but I was hoping for a simple infographic. Also disappointing that this is so human-centered. There is no measure of the cruelty to cows/calves that dairy farms inflict.
posted by j810c at 12:45 PM on November 19, 2022 [3 favorites]


Are people successfully cooking with plant milks?
posted by Selena777 at 1:22 PM on November 19, 2022


My partner switched to plant milks, so I use it as a substitute for regular milk in all of the cooking I do. It’s been fine for pastry, cakes, and doughs.

I switched to no milk in coffee before plant milks were regularly available, so I would like to sing the praises of espresso: you’ll be the barista’s favourite, you can taste the different beans better, and you don’t have to wait as long for your coffee. The downside is that your drink is now tiny.
posted by The River Ivel at 2:08 PM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


Oat milk substitutes really well in most baked things. Coconut milk/yogurt often works well in savory dishes. It does depend on the recipe though.

I still buy regular cream for my coffee and regular yogurt/cheese because tastewise the substitutes are just so much worse (in my dairy-free period I tried literally every one I could get my hands on, including the fancy hipster artisan vegan cheeses... some were pretty tasty but not a valid replacement). I've switched to oat milk now for most purposes though, including cereal, baking, and in tea. It's not 100% as tasty but maybe 95% with the right brand, so it's not a big sacrifice.
posted by randomnity at 2:22 PM on November 19, 2022 [2 favorites]


I’ve discovered an oatmilk/coconut milk blend that substitutes for dairy half-and-half quite well. It’s nice and creamy, unlike most straight oatmilks I’ve tried, which tended to be pretty watery (at least the ones without all manner of thickeners, anyway)
posted by Thorzdad at 5:16 PM on November 19, 2022


(is it wondermilk, thorzdad? we're drinking untold gallons of the stuff in our coffee and tea.)
posted by mittens at 6:07 PM on November 19, 2022


Phalene, do you mean reduce the consumption of butter? Or red meat?

- You can sub oil for butter.
- I had a veggie burger at a food cart pre-pandemic that tasted so much like meat I had to go back and ask the food cart person what it was. It was very convincing. It was that "beyond meat" everyone's been talking about. They even sell it at my local discount grocery store, so there's a decent chance you should be able to find it.
posted by aniola at 6:09 PM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


'Protein' is really misunderstood and different proteins are not interchangeable. Proteins are composed of various amino acids and based on the construction, may be more or less digestible. When proteins are digested, they generally need to be broken down into smaller subsections or individual amino acids. Not all proteins use the full range of amino acids in their composition; for example, gelatin is ~98% protein, but is missing several amino acids.

Your body takes the amino acids and uses them to build proteins in your body. If your cells are lacking a specific amino acid, your body cannot manufacture any proteins that require that ones that aren't available.

Just because non-dairy milks are high in protein doesn't mean that they contain a complete range of amino acids, or that they are as digestible as cow's milk, or that they are as balanced in the amino acid profile.

Now, whether the mixture of amino acids in the different milks is more or less optimum for people is a more useful analysis.
posted by coberh at 6:10 PM on November 19, 2022 [4 favorites]


are there any harm reductive approaches that don't take radically redoing what I eat?

You could start by sometimes subbing out plant-based for dairy-based, as any reduction is good. At my house we get both oat milk and cow's milk these days - we're not in a place to eliminate cow's milk, but we are at least reducing the volume we consume.
posted by marlys at 8:41 PM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


I am curious about a plant based milk not mentioned in either link that I came across recently - buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum). I'm wondering if anyone is familiar with its production? I know it is grown in a wide variety of places including places where a lot of other crops cannot be which I guess is one of its appeals.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:22 PM on November 19, 2022 [1 favorite]


I am slightly puzzled by people's prefrnce for a plant-based milk over black te or coffee. Personally, I don't drink a great deal of coffee, but I do drink a lot of tea, and I've been gradually reducing the amount of milk I put in it, rep;acing it with lemon (a plant) or nothing. Since tea is by far my greatest use of milk, this allows me to have the occasional milky coffee and put whole dairy milk on my porridge (made with water).
posted by Fuchsoid at 1:15 AM on November 20, 2022


At least the almond milk doesn't involve chopping down the South American rainforest, like the soy milk does...

Deforestation for soy is driven by beef and dairy production (and to a lesser extent chicken and pig production) - almost none of it becomes human food directly. It's probably in your dairy milk, and your eggs, your bacon and your beef. In the USA you might be consuming some of the oil, but in commercial terms that's a byproduct of the animal feed. Your soy milk probably comes from Canada.

As for almond milk, production in California *is* currently very wasteful of water but California produces most of the world's almonds. California actually wastes more water on producing dairy milk, but only creates a few percent of the USA's dairy milk.
posted by BinaryApe at 1:28 AM on November 20, 2022 [7 favorites]


My favourite plant milk is actually potato milk - the Dug Barrista is amazing.
posted by BinaryApe at 1:29 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]


AlSweigart: cereal is incredibly unhealthy

[citation needed]
posted by Too-Ticky at 4:22 AM on November 20, 2022 [2 favorites]


Based on new FDA rules, Life is no longer healthy.
posted by box at 6:35 AM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]


As a person who desires and drinks zero milks (animal or plant), I was trying to find out how much milk is consumed as a beverage, compared to as a coffee additive, and found this article:

Fluid Milk Consumption Continues Downward Trend, Proving Difficult to Reverse

Includes breakdowns of children, teenagers, and adults drinking milk as a beverage, with cereal (surprisingly high for adults!), and as a coffee/tea additive.
posted by meowzilla at 10:53 AM on November 20, 2022 [3 favorites]


Are people successfully cooking with plant milks?

When the kids in my house became vegetarians for the planet, I tried out a lot of recipes with vegan alternatives. Most of them went very well, to the extent that most of the tasters couldn't tell the difference or even preferred the vegan version (not all tasters involved are vegan or vegetarian). They like my vegan lasagna better than the meat version. The big challenge is cheese (my lasagna was the classic Bolognese type, where cheese never played a huge role in the first place). We use oat milk and vegan butter. I go with miso, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, dried mushrooms and dried tomatoes for umami.

I don't use fake meats and have given up on fake cheese. So the oat milk and vegan butter are the only substitute elements. Instead of meat, I use eggplant, mushrooms or lentils. Instead of dairy I use water more often than I use oat milk.

I have never liked cereals much, or fresh milk as a drink, so for me, it's mostly about cheeses and sauces and butter. I love butter, but I can live for months without it. I like yogurt too, and yogurt drinks like ayran, but it's more like a lovely treat once in a while than something I crave daily.
And since I didn't like it much, my kids have rarely been served milk as a drink or on cereals. Back when they were kids, people were SHOCKED that they had water with their meals instead of milk, but they have grown up to be healthy human beings. They like milk more than I do but they don't depend on it and the youngest drinks oat milk in her coffee.
posted by mumimor at 12:17 PM on November 20, 2022


Come to think of it, I want to qualify that a bit. In my family, no one at all likes substitutes for anything. All the different faux meats and cheeses have been tasted and rejected. But the kids are vegan-positive. They don't mind having celeriac as the main course at all. They don't miss meat if we don't have any for a month (though they do love a Moules Marinières, a very sustainable protein-based dish).

This is why I think culture is very important for climate change. If in your mind, there are tons of vegan and vegetarian options, cutting down on meat won't scare you. If you feel that a serving of beef is a signifier of success, then losing that will be a signifier of failure.
posted by mumimor at 1:46 PM on November 20, 2022 [4 favorites]


"Fluid Milk Consumption Continues Downward Trend, Proving Difficult to Reverse" I'm not surprised meowzilla, in NZ 99% of fluid milk is reconstituted from milk powder and it's crap - last time I was in California milk was really delicious, really nice stuff.

Meanwhile in NZ the whole export supply is dried for export - mainly by burning coal - black powder to white powder, A few smaller companies are using hydro/geothermal etc but the main manufacturer is a quango and sees no problem - NZ is a very strange place, and deeply hypocritical about planet care).
posted by unearthed at 7:58 PM on November 20, 2022 [1 favorite]


If you feel that a serving of beef is a signifier of success, then losing that will be a signifier of failure.

At least one person I know well feels like meat is what makes a meal. It's disconcerting to them to have a vegetarian dinner. But I think (or hope) that they have changed their ways, since that was several health problems ago. Certainly it's only part and parcel of the American idea about meat, which is itself a historical aberration.

Because of this thread, I'm trying oat milk this week when I'm out of my usual almond milk. For my own reasons, I don't refuse dairy, but I do have lactose intolerance, so that milk, cream, and hidden whey proteins cost me a lactase pill. To avoid that, I'm expanding into dairy substitutes, but I have yet to meet a good vegan cheese.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:18 AM on November 21, 2022 [3 favorites]


We still eat dairy (cheese and yogurt) but have completely switched to Califia Barista Blend Oat Milk for cappuccinos and cereal (when we eat that). I can easily get an exceptional microfoam with my Rancillio Silvia if I add a little bit of coconut based creamer (I can get a very good one without, but that bit of coconut fat added to the oat milk just gives the perfect slip to the foam). Oat milk has the right amount of natural sweetness that I now prefer it for cappuccinos over dairy. we used to get very good dairy milk too- Strauss' organic full fat in a glass container, from farms about 60 miles from us. I don't miss it.


There was once a coconut yogurt manufacturer that made an amazing product with the proper yogurt tang, but they went out of business during the pandemic and no other brand I've tried has ever come close. I tried a plain almond yogurt not long ago and it was absolutely disgusting with a powerful vegetal flavor. Still waiting on the plain no-dairy yogurt holy grail.
posted by oneirodynia at 11:30 AM on November 21, 2022


Anecdata: we have been struggling to make drop biscuits with ghee and oat milk that hold together.
posted by ElGuapo at 5:39 PM on November 22, 2022


Based on this thread I decided to try oat milk over my morning cereal. I got Chobani Oatmilk Original flavor. I can report back that it's ~fine~.

My only complaint is that it doesn't actually come in a half-gallon; it's only 52 ounces. That means it only made five bowls instead of six.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:24 AM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]


« Older Today will be different. Enough water will come.   |   Dam Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments