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Oatly: The New Coke?

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Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#161

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

lambdaba wrote: post #119
vanilla-almond wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested to know if these studies refer to low quality vegetable oils using a chemical process to extract oil. For example, in the UK, supermarkets sell cold-pressed rapeseed oil (canola oil in the US). The cold-press process is sold as making rapeseed oil as relatively healthy cooking oil. Does cold-pressing rapeseed/canola seed turn it into a relatively healthy cooking oil (vs the expeller-pressed or c…

The problem is the fats in those oils are very susceptible to oxidation and have low smoke points, they are never safe as cooking oils for this reason. For cooking the best options outside of animal fats are olive oil and coconut oil, but of course olive oil is most versatile and better tasting imo.

From memory the good stuff in olive oil is destroyed by heat (if you swallow olive oil and it's good quality, you get a distinct 'burn' at the back of your throat).

Also IME olive oil loses its interesting taste rapidly when cooked with, but others may not find that.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#162

Post by uxcolumbo »

daneel_w wrote: post #72

I'm on-board with the moral aspect of minimizing support for the dairy industry (though this topic is oddly never brought up), however, I just don't like the taste of Oatly's products. They are indeed too sweet. There are better-tasting oat beverage brands out there which declare less sugar (and without salt for balance). Soy milk works great, too.

Which other brands would you recommend?

I like the creaminess of Oatly - works well in coffee.

Other brands I tried (Alpro) were a bit watery and some use guam, which is an OK thickener ingredient, but doesn't go with milk alternatives in my view.

Maybe I'll look into making Oat milk - seems like a quick and easy thing to do.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#163

Post by williamdclt »

seanwilson wrote: post #131
mcculley wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I came away realizing that cattle used for milk production suffer more. I think you could certainly argue that. Beef cows are slaughtered at around 3 years and diary cows are slaughtered at around 5 years but after giving birth with their offspring taken away several times (both have about a 20 year life span). Personally, I don't understand how vegetarians justify it as being much different in terms of animal crue…

> You're still paying into a system that's killing animals for your benefit

Still a net improvement over buying milk and meat isn't it?

Also, people are vegetarian for all sorts of reasons. For some it's about eating meat, for some it's about animal cruelty, for some it's about environmental impact, and probably there's plenty of other reasons

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#164

Post by lozf »

mft_ wrote: post #24

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

Coconut yogurt is pretty good and can work well.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#165

Post by cworth »

lambdaba wrote: post #119
vanilla-almond wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested to know if these studies refer to low quality vegetable oils using a chemical process to extract oil. For example, in the UK, supermarkets sell cold-pressed rapeseed oil (canola oil in the US). The cold-press process is sold as making rapeseed oil as relatively healthy cooking oil. Does cold-pressing rapeseed/canola seed turn it into a relatively healthy cooking oil (vs the expeller-pressed or c…

The problem is the fats in those oils are very susceptible to oxidation and have low smoke points, they are never safe as cooking oils for this reason. For cooking the best options outside of animal fats are olive oil and coconut oil, but of course olive oil is most versatile and better tasting imo.

The smoke point of olive oil varies significantly from extra light to extra virgin. Extra virgin actually has a much lower smoke point than canola oil.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#166

Post by ysavir »

cribbles wrote: post #145

I'm sympathetic to marketing counterfactuals, so I wanted to like this article, but its claims did not sway me. - The appalling environmental footprint of the dairy industry was never addressed. - The canola oil claims cited were nowhere near conclusive (see twanvl and NotOscarWilde's comments below). - The nutritional comparison seemed to me to be more or less trivial. Okay, it's got a higher glycemic index and simi…

> The author engages in a little deceptive rhetoric himself by setting a 12oz serving as the baseline. It's true that a portion that size is bad for you. Lattes are bad for you. Like many people, though, I only rarely use milk substitutes to add a dash of not-coffee to coffee that would otherwise be too hot or too burnt. Guess I shouldn't be concerned?

Maybe you shouldn't be, but others might. I was regularly using ~1 cup of Oatly (8 ounces) in my weekend pancakes. It's still only 2/3 of their baseline portion, but it's significant enough.

I've already moved from Oatly to Califia Farms Oat Barista Blend, which only has 3 grams of sugar per cup to Oatly's 7. And I'm keeping my eyes open for alternatives with even less sugar.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#168

Post by rattray »

themgt wrote: post #128
rattray wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which milk substitutes are better? Especially in the sense that they wouldn't be able to accrue complaints from an assailant as dogged as this writer.

I think unsweetened almond milk is maybe the best overall pick if you want a milk substitute. From my understanding it's fairly healthy, natural, and the taste / "mouth feel" is good. Downsides are cost and maybe the amount of water/bees used to make the almonds.

I'm also a fan of almond milk from a taste perspective, but I've always been a bit unsure about how it is processed – and the amount of water used is definitely an ethical downside in my book (I used to live in California, where this was a controversy during times of drought).

After a bit of research just now, though, there don't seem to be many credible claims of commercial Almond Milk's chemical processing being very scary (at least compared to Oatly, which also has a few additives) so that doesn't seem too problematic to me.

This article discusses the environmental impact of various milk alternatives:

https://medium.com/@tabitha.whiting/what-milk-should-you-buy....

> Greenhouse gas emissions: a 200ml glass of oat milk is responsible for around 0.18kg of CO2e. That’s slightly more than almond milk, but less than soy or cow’s milk.

> Swedish oat milk producer Oatly put the greenhouse gas emissions of a litre of their oat milk at 0.34kg, which is a lot less than the general estimate above of 0.18kg per 200ml

> Water: a litre of oat milk needs about 48 litres of water produce. In terms of water, then, oat milk is much lower impact than other milks.

In comparison, a liter of almond milk needs 386 liters of water to produce, and cow's milk, 1016, as per https://treadingmyownpath.com/2017/04/20/is-almond-milk-bad-....

The takeaway for me is that I might prefer oat milk to almond milk for "health/eco impact" reasons by a very narrow margin, but would strongly prefer either to cow's milk for those reasons.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#169

Post by bartvk »

mft_ wrote: post #24

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

I like soy milk, but I don't use it for porridge, I use it in my coffee.

I have to say though, if you can't compromise on the taste being different, then you'll have a very hard time switching.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#170

Post by dsabanin »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #25
gvjddbnvdrbv wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What actual proven health implications does cows milk have?

Most people have some level of lactose malabsorption. Also cows milk has pretty grave health implications for the cows

I also imagine drinking diluted cows pregnancy and chronic inflammation hormones with extra cortisol on top from all the stress they experience because of their living conditions can’t be beneficial for you as well.
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