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The rise of alternative milks

theguardian.com

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Re: The rise of alternative milks

#141

Post by SllX »

rebuilder wrote: post #61

I was meeting a client yesterday at their office, they offered me coffee and asked me if I wanted milk, then whether I'd like oat or regular. I said regular (usually drink oat but was somehow preoccupied) and the response was "yea, fortunately that's still available". To me that was a pretty striking example of how the realities of what climage change is going to push us towards are sinking in.

Today we’re (the general “we”, not you and I specifically) looking at the milk we put in our coffee with disdain, tomorrow we’ll be looking at the coffee in a similar manner.

Probably someone somewhere out there already is and we’ll start seeing the headlines, blogs and podcasts about it in the near future. By building our societies around globalization, we have in some ways made our societies necessarily globalized. Everything we import/export has a fuel cost including ourselves when we’re the passengers, and that cost doesn’t stop at National borders, but incurs every time we move anything anywhere any distance.

So when you have a popular crop, coffee, almonds, tea, coconuts, whatever that can only be grown in certain parts of the world, it is going to have an outsized impact on the global fuel economy relative to crops that are grown and consumed locally. The more fuel we consume, the greater the amount of carbon emissions we output, and carbon dioxide only has a global warming potential of 1 (as the base unit). Methane has a GWP of 86 across a score of years and 34 across a century.

Now so far as I know, the GWP metric is only used for individual gases, but if you were to try to isolate it on a commodity by commodity basis, I’m betting Cow’s milk as transported to and sold in the supermarket today wouldn’t look great. I’ve worked in a cafe and I know approximately how much milk we went through in a week, often because I was the one buying it. Even a small mom and pop café can easily go through 40+ gallons a week, and that was hardly the only dairy product sold (cheeses of all sorts, whipped cream, ice cream, cheese cakes, chocolate cakes, pastries). I don’t even want to think about the amount of milk a single corporate chain like Starbucks or Peet’s goes through on a weekly basis.

Fortunately cow’s milk is still available. That is really an understatement on your client’s part. I think humanity will sooner die out or go back to a technological dark age from which it never fully recovers before we give up cow’s milk in its entirety in just the US, never mind the rest of the world.

Re: The rise of alternative milks

#142

Post by gorilla_fight »

Pharmakon wrote: post #56
dabbledash wrote: post #52

Using “milk” in the name of something doesn’t make an “alternative milk” in any way that doesn’t apply to any other drinkable liquid.

It’s pure marketing, where the reality would be “juice” if we’re being charitable. In a lot of cases it’s water with a hint of X, and a lot of added sugar. All told drinking a lot of anything other than water is probably a bad move, but evidence suggests that if you’re not lactose intolerant, milk is a healthier choice for what you put on cereal. All things being equal, my major issue with alternative “milk” isn’t th…

I prefer this alternative naming by The Onion: https://www.theonion.com/fda-defends-decision-to-reclassify-...

Astute as ever, America's finest news source turns this marketing-driven terminology on its head.

This has happened before, industries creating imitation products deceptively similar to the real thing. For example in the early 1900s, states fought back against fake butter, but were ultimately overruled by the Supreme Court: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-culture/food/t...

> Margarine manufacturers, to better appeal to the public, wanted to tint their product yellow; butter producers objected, claiming that yellow margarine, fraudulently masquerading as butter, was a deliberate ploy to deceive the public. (Butter from corn-fed cows is also anemically pale, and is routinely dyed to turn it an attractive butter-yellow; this practice, however, butter makers argued, was simply a cosmetic tweak.)

> By 1902, 32 states had imposed color constraints on margarine. Vermont, New Hampshire, and South Dakota all passed laws demanding that margarine be dyed an off-putting pink; other states proposed it be colored red, brown, or black. The “pink laws” were overturned by the Supreme Court (on the grounds that it’s illegal to enforce the adulteration of food) but the ban on yellow margarine remained. (The last hold-out, Wisconsin, only repealed its margarine-color law in 1967.)

Re: The rise of alternative milks

#143

Post by cageface »

YokoZar wrote: post #111
lprubin wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen it estimated that it takes 2,000 gallons of water to produce a gallon of cow milk which would be twice what it takes to produce almond milk.

Some quick googling suggests there are 4 cups of almonds in a gallon of almond milk, and ~25 almonds per cup, so about 100 gallons of water per gallon of almond milk from just growing the almonds. That's a factor of 20x, if we believe it takes 2000 gallons of water to make a gallon of milk. But another source on the top links of Google says it takes about 4 gallons of water to make a gallon of milk. This is a differe…

4 to 1 is nowhere close to the right ratio for water to milk produced. The numbers vary a lot depending on the region and how you calculate them but the correct range is between 100:1 and 1000:1.

https://sciblogs.co.nz/waiology/2012/05/24/how-much-water-do...

Re: The rise of alternative milks

#144

Post by selimthegrim »

gorilla_fight wrote: post #131
mnm1 wrote: post #80

Milk may not be the healthy food it was touted to be, but neither are most if not all of these "milks" that are basically mostly water and sugar. I'd take lactose over fructose or glucose any day. That's the main selling point: a slightly sweet, natural drink sweetened by lactose rather than fructose and glucose directly. Otherwise, I might as well drink soda--from looking at the sugar content of most of these "milks…

> I'd take lactose over fructose or glucose any day. I came to the same conclusion, to expand on this point: lactose = glucose + galactose, and there is some interesting research on the benefits of galactose: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3240634/ Galactose Enhances Oxidative Metabolism and Reveals Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Human Primary Muscle Cells normally it is broken down to glucose, which can…

Overnight oats are quite a popular product...

Re: The rise of alternative milks

#145

Post by munchbunny »

Rumudiez wrote: post #81
seanwilson wrote: post #67

I've completely switched to soy milk. It tastes a little different to cow milk but after a few cups of tea over a week I didn't notice anymore. Now cow milk tastes strange to me. Soy milk also lasts around a year unopened so you can save time buying it in bulk as a plus. People need to stop expecting replacements to taste 100% identical to what they're use to and give their tastebuds some time to adapt. Same with mea…

I switched to soy milk for about four months, but ultimately went back to regular milk because it has less sugar and is less sweet. I imagine without the sugar it’s not as palatable, but it was a noticeable, negative attribute for me.

Unflavored soy milk has a pretty distinct flavor that is different from regular milk. It's an acquired taste, and trying to use it explicitly as a milk substitute mostly doesn't work.

I grew up drinking soy milk, it's much more palatable when you don't treat it as its own drink instead of a milk substitute. I never put soy milk into my coffee/tea/cereal.

Re: The rise of alternative milks

#146

Post by gorilla_fight »

PerfectElement wrote: post #115
Pharmakon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pure marketing, where the reality would be “juice” if we’re being charitable. In a lot of cases it’s water with a hint of X, and a lot of added sugar. All told drinking a lot of anything other than water is probably a bad move, but evidence suggests that if you’re not lactose intolerant, milk is a healthier choice for what you put on cereal. All things being equal, my major issue with alternative “milk” isn’t th…

> low in protein and fat is a bad sign. By that standard, human breast milk should be considered unhealthy (0.8%-0.9% protein, 3%-5% fat).

3-5% fat is actually considered high-fat, for comparison, cow's whole milk is typically 3.25%, low-fat is 1% and skim/non-fat is 0-0.5%.

Interestingly, the fat content of milk can vary drastically between species, from Holstein cows 3.6% (popular for high volume milk production, but less fatty), Brown Swiss cows 4.0%, Jersey cows 5.2% (prized for their rich creamy milks), Zebu cows 4.7%, goat 4.0%, up to buffalo 6.9%, yak 6.5%, sheep 7.5%, reindeer 17%, and even fin whale a whopping 42% fat and a similarly staggering 12% protein. (Source: _On Food and Cooking_ by Harold McGee, page 13).

Re: The rise of alternative milks

#147

Post by rlue »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #113

If someone is looking to switch for sustainablity reasons, they shouldn’t be buying liquid non dairy almond either. You must need a handful of almonds to make your own almond milk. It’s wasteful in so many ways..from processing to transporting to the water content and all the middle men charges in the supply chain. Soak almonds. Peel. Purée with water..strain. Or don’t. Fresh almond milk. I realize many people won’t…

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, economies of scale mean that the efficiency of mass production should be far, far higher than a bunch of people individually making their own at home, especially when the alt-milk you’re making has a short shelf life. On the other, the logistical challenges of packaging, preserving, and distributing mass-produced groceries produces a lot of waste.

Here in Taiwan, most mom-and-pop (i.e., non-chain) breakfast shops will make their own soy milk by the vat every morning. You can swing by with an empty jug and fill it up at less than a dollar (US) a liter. Most of that money goes to labor, as the beans and sugar required to make a liter of soy milk cost less than 10¢. This is, to me, the ideally sustainable solution: micro-mass production, so to speak.

(Of course, very few people actually do it this way anymore, as most people here prefer the convenience of disposable cups and straws. But that’s another question for another time.)

Re: The rise of alternative milks

#148

Post by rlue »

seanwilson wrote: post #67

I've completely switched to soy milk. It tastes a little different to cow milk but after a few cups of tea over a week I didn't notice anymore. Now cow milk tastes strange to me. Soy milk also lasts around a year unopened so you can save time buying it in bulk as a plus. People need to stop expecting replacements to taste 100% identical to what they're use to and give their tastebuds some time to adapt. Same with mea…

> Same with meat alternatives.

I politely disagree.

1. If you don't want people to expect it to taste identical, don't call it a "meat alternative". Just call it what it is (“soy patty”?), and then people will expect it to taste like that. 2. Have you tried the Impossible Burger? It’s pretty damn close.

Re: The rise of alternative milks

#150

Post by kbutler »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #137
pofilat wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's tacky to try to describe things in weird terms to make them sound bad instead of arguing their merirs. I'd rather "breasfeet at a random animal" than "eat genetically engineered things that grow in dirt and manure, covered in bugs".

Most gmo free at our market. Drinking milk as an adult is weird. One is natural, one isn’t.

> One is natural, one isn’t.

Yes, but not the one you mean.

Cow milk: can consume it straight as it is produced by nature, right out of the cow (but chilled is probably tastier). Can consume milks from lots of other animals, too. The only reason adult animals don't frequently consume milk is probably just availability. https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/64822/are-humans... has interesting info, including adult wild birds finding they could peck through aluminum lids to get milk and wild gulls consuming seal milk.

Soy milk: consuming a liquid produced by soaking, cooking, blending, and straining a plant part that is unsafe for humans to eat until processed by heat or fermentation. https://healthyeatinghttps://healthyeating.sfgate.com/happen... Then if you're buying it from a market, it has probably been packaged into a plastic or plastic-lined container (like commercial cow's milk) and processed to be shelf-stable for months, all to provide a close similarity to that "weird" drinking milk as an adult.

"Natural", although often overloaded and used politically, can't quite stretch that far.

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