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Oatly: The New Coke?

divinations.substack.com

101–110 of 429 posts

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're saying is, vegan men are more likely to die with a healthy prostate and a full head of hair.

No, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that being vegan most likely results in lower testosterone, which is a basic hormone that is very important for males. It is important for all aspects of mens health and well being, especially when you get older.

Vegans actually tend to have higher testosterone: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2374537/pdf/83-...

“Vegans had 13% higher T [testosterone] concentration than meat-eaters and 8% higher than vegetarians.” Not only did vegan men have as much testosterone as meat eaters, they actually have 13% MORE of this manly hormone. On the flip side, too much testosterone can be a bad thing because it leads to higher levels of IGF-I – a risk factor for certain cancers. Surprisingly, the report also found this: “Vegan men had on average 9% lower IGF-I levels than meat-eaters.”

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#103
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what about just drinking water and eating berries? I kid you not, you will feel so much better.

Maybe I should try a serious comparison with berries specifically, but my personal experience is that I don’t get the same sustained slow energy release from fruit that I’d get from porridge or low GI cereal - I get hungry faster.

That's carbs for ya

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#104
post #65

> The evidence for the harms of canola oil is still in its early days, but continues to grow. Research has linked it to: Memory impairment [1], Alzheimer’s risk [1], Cardiovascular disease [2], [5], [6], [8], Diabetes [2], Increased all-cause mortality [2], [6], [7], Metabolic syndrome [3], Decreased brain function [4], and Oxidative stress [5], [7]. Most of these references talk about how there is no clear benefit o…

I'm curious of your actual hunch, are you actually skeptical that canola (and other industrial seed oils) are not harmful?), or just pointing something out about the evidence?

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#105

"Made for humans" also draws attention to the fact that the milk you're drinking from a cow is not being drank by the offspring of that cow like it normally would and many people don't realise you have to keep making diary cows give birth to get more milk. Newly born male cows are usually turned into veal in a few weeks and female cows are separated from their mothers so they don't drink the valuable milk. Milk givin…

I hosted a meetup on “dairy tech”. Before the presentation, I think I had an implicit assumption that cattle raised for beef were treated poorly. I came away realizing that cattle used for milk production suffer more. In the most efficient dairies, they never leave their enclosure, are kept pregnant continuously via artificial insemination, and are injected with hormones.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#106
post #24

Any recommendations for a different good-tasting, ‘healthy’ milk alternative, then? Porridge or cereal with water is inedible...

I've tried pretty much all variants of milk substitutes and found that they all disappoint me. The best way to enjoy porridge without milk is adding other flavors: mashed banana, raisins, cinnamon, grated apple, prunes, blueberries, cranberries, dried apricots... This goes for overnight oats as well.

Agreed. My general health tip is to stop contorting ingredients to reproduce other foods -- cookies made out of cheese, milk made out of nuts, cake without gluten, etc. Most healthy ingredients are tasty on their own terms, so lean into that.

Also, read up on other traditions for breakfast foods and drinks. Many are not nearly as high in carbs and dairy as the traditional American breakfast options.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know dairy farming very, very well. It varies between areas. In France for example, there are no mega farms, all farms are small to medium, many family owned. Hormones are banned. This is true for other parts of Western Europe. Mega Farms are mostly an American issue. I do not support them at all.

This is substantially incorrect, especially for France [1]: While cows indeed aren't grown in intensive farming in France, 95% of pork in France is raised in intensive factory farming, and other species have similar stats. Most of the western world has similar stats. This is far from a US-only problem. [1] https://www.liberation.fr/france/2018/06/04/porcs-bovins-vol...

I was specifically talking about dairy farming. Pork, chicken and beef all have their own issues. The average USA farm size is about 220 cows vs. about 70 cows in France, and the practices used in Europe as a whole are more humane (my numbers are from closed market studies published by IFCN). These animals are very well monitored and cared for. I wouldn't want to change place with them, but then I also wouldn't trade places with many other humans around the world.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're saying is, vegan men are more likely to die with a healthy prostate and a full head of hair.

No, that is not what I am saying. I am saying that being vegan most likely results in lower testosterone, which is a basic hormone that is very important for males. It is important for all aspects of mens health and well being, especially when you get older.

Well, yes. For example, the more of it you have, the likelier you are to develop prostate cancer in later life, and to have worse outcomes from that cancer. That definitely seems important. And eating lots of red meat also lowers your sperm count and quality, apparently (1) - which seems important too, at least if you're interested in siring lots of strong and healthy sons to carry on your line. Which I assume would be important, but who knows? For all I can tell based on what you've said so far, you could just have a taste for really butch tops. Which, fair! Same here. But I don't really feel the need to inquire as to their diet.

(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4180710/

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#109
post #5

Great write up on debunking oatly's "health benefits". But fails to mention the the moral reasons to choose oat milk over cow's milk. TBF lot of the meat replacements are plagued by similar problems. [1] [1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/impossible-and-beyond-ho...

> But fails to mention the the moral reasons to choose oat milk over cow's milk.

This is kind a red herring. Cow's milk should be irrelevant because you don't have to choose between the two. You can leave both out if you have moral reasons to avoid cow's milk and health reasons to avoid oat milk.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#110

I was looking for a second opinion, and found the comment by Glenn in that article was a good counterpoint. I won't repeat it here, but another point that comes to mind is that one may use a very small amount of milk-substitute in your hot drink, compared to drinking a much larger amount of coke. So it's not perfectly comparable, even if they were equally bad.

I think "the new coke" just refers to the misleading marketing, no? But you're right of course.

Health claims surround milk substitutes, without the necessary evidence.

Dr Jason Fung writes about an over emphasis on data gathered from experiments with mice that guide public health recommendations. I think that's an important point. A lot of effects in animal studies haven't been observable in humans.

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