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Oatly: The New Coke?

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191–200 of 429 posts

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#191
post #178
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ~…

There’s also Elmhurst - though more expensive. It’s basically just water and oats and maybe some salt. They list the number of ingredients on the label though for easy selection as some have more.

Thanks! I'll definitely keep an eye out for it.

Now if only they can make a 16oz product for those us of who don't use it enough to consume 32oz in 7-10 days...

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#192
post #152

The author should write a similar article about himself, because the whole article is filled with dubious claims and misguided evidence. The two main claims are "Since the GI is a measure of how much of a negative response your body has to certain sugars" and "research showing harms from canola oil". Neither can be ascertained. A big problem with nutritional science is that it's complex, therefore it is neigh impossi…

That's the main problem I face with studies with Food/Dieting etc etc.

You can equally claims both sides and reject both studies. Nobody know anything for sure and you can prove equally wrong/right both sides.

Eg: Cow milk is bad while whole generations have drank them.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#193
post #167

Man, what is it about SEO marketers and writing about things far out their competency?

That feels like a shallow dismissal.

The above is just a expression of sentiment, the actual dismissal is found in other parts of the comments.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

[deleted]

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#196

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 claim is that Oatly is not a good substitute for milk, and that cow milk is perfectly fine to drink for a good percentage of people, which I judge the article demonstrated satisfactorily.

You can of course say you don't want to (or can't) drink milk for a very long list of absolutely fine reasons. The solution then is to just not drink milk, not substitute it with oat-canola slurry. Or you could reduce your consumption to the point where its price can go up (as more of a luxury product) and allow manufacturers to treat animals ethically. Or buy it from responsible farms.

You can also make the point here that there is a great number of people who, when faced with the choice of "drink less milk" vs "continue cow abuse", will pick the latter because they like drinking milk more than they care about cows (which are bred specifically for human consumption). In that case you could argue that substituting Oatly for milk will make the world better, because it lets them lower their milk consumption without requiring sacrifice on their part. The thing that worries me here are second order effects - if Oatly is indeed not very healthy (which it sounds like it isn't, at least compared to regular milk), then these people will then suffer lowered cognition and worse health, leading to them making less than ideal choices in democratic elections, and putting more strain on the health system.

Again - there are good critiques that can be leveraged against our current farming practices regarding milk production and more, but I don't see the solution being switching to synthetic alternatives with potentially harmful effects that marketing makes their best to prevent you from knowing. Just go without and advocate for change.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#197

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.

Yeah what is up with that? 12 oz is over 340 ml, who puts that much milk in their coffee? I had to measure the volume of my coffee cup, it's 250 ml or 8.8 oz.

I usually drink my coffee black, but if I do have milk in it it is usually a tenth of what the author uses. Unless the author is drinking a quarter gallon of coffee at a time he's not drinking coffee, but really drinking milk with a splash of coffee.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#198

I drink milk, but I think the strongest case against drinking cows milk is industrial-scale dairy farming. We (consumers) are to blame because we want milk as cheap as possible. We've seen protests across Europe in the past by farmers who say they can't provide milk at such cheap prices and maintain welfare standards. Unfortunately, we consumers seem unwilling to pay for high welfare. Sure we say otherwise when asked…

> We (consumers) are to blame

No, the farmers are to blame. This is the kind of thing regulations solve. If we force the use of sustainable and ethical farming methods through regulation, like how we force producers to obey all other aspects of food safety and production, then the market will adjust to the new prices, whatever they may be.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#199

dang, this article is written by an SEO guy, and submitted twice over the past 20 hours, just by adding a hashbang. The history of the domain on HN shows this pattern a lot. Maybe you could look into it, but I guess this low quality hit piece is just another SEO fad and should be banned from HN.

email him with such concerns, random comments aren't necessarily seen

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Try eating shredded carrots with coconut oil, olive oil and salt on an empty stomach once a day. What does that do?

Carrots are an indigestible fibre so they carry the coconut oil into your small and large intestine. Usually the coconut oil would be absorbed rapidly. The coconut oil then kills the bad bacteria lining your gut. The carrots on their own also absorb some of this bacteria and are excreted. You can do the same thing with bamboo shoots if you don't like carrots.

Thanks for the answer!

I actually love carrots as snacks, though I'm not sure how well they'd go with coconut and olive oil. Have to try I guess.

Do you have any sources about coconut oil killing the bad bacteria in the gut?

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