Oatly: The New Coke? • Hacker News Board

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#231

Post by istjohn » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

xfiz wrote: 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…

TFA cites eight peer reviewed articles to support his claims about the harms of canola oil. "We can't know anything" is an easier argument to make than taking an affirmative position one way or another, but it isn't insightful or interesting.

Edit: Others in this thread have made more substantive arguments about flaws with the research cited.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#232

Post by 1337shadow » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

vanilla-almond wrote: post #150

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 because we want milk as cheap as possible.

So, you're not going to blame Lactalis are you ?

It's so easy for a seller to escape from any responsibility "we're just selling what consumers want !". This is fallacious because consumers buy whatever product available for sale that is closest to what they want.

Consumers don't decide how industry invests to make their product. I mean, I buy milk, cream, cheese, from a local farm, I have my own chicken and so on, but that's because I can, but I wouldn't feel like blaming people who don't and claim of having better morality or whatnot.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#233

Post by 1337shadow » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

INTPenis wrote: post #226

I'm from the home of Oatly, southern Sweden, Malmö. Most of my friends are vegan and even I buy Oatly just to avoid milk protein because I'm getting older. BUT a lot of my vegan friends are shying away from Oatly now apparently because they're partially funded by a large Chinese state owned company. And we actually have more locally produced alternatives to Oatly coming out here in Sweden, one is now launched in Stoc…

I don't know Oatly, but it seems to be pretty much like an Horchata, which originated at least as far back as 13th-century Valencia, Spain.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#234

Post by loceng » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 2:47 PM UTC

yourkin wrote: post #81

doublesCs wrote: post #66

What's wrong with sugar though? I also don't buy the cartoonishly simplistic claim that "coca-cola is unhealthy". Does it cause obsesity? It doesn't "cause obsesity" in the same sense that ingesting more calories than you spend causes obsesity: It's not the coca-cola or the sugar by themselves.

The only thing wrong with sugar is overeating it to the point of ruining one's macro proportions and going into caloric surplus. Just saying that "sugar is unhealthy" is not true from a dietary perspective. A better statement would be "too much sugar is unhealthy".

Sugar and carbohydrates can severely negatively impact people, even in small amounts.

"[INSERT FOOD] for some people is unhealthy at any amount" is what should be always said. People then have to determine what those foods and level of foods are, it could be accumulative as well - where too much of a few different foods may be too irritating to your system.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#235

Post by aliswe » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

SiempreViernes wrote: post #135

NotOscarWilde wrote: post #38

A tangent on Canola and rapeseed oil: I have recently watched a Chinese Cooking Demystified video (I believe it was [1]) about the Chinese rapeseed oil and its comparison in taste and erucic acid contents to Canola oil, which is its only available variant in Western countries. The video stated a thesis echoed on Wikipedia's page on Erucic acid [2]: > Studies done on laboratory animals in the early 1970s show that eru…

Good shout on the studies maybe not being obviously relevant. I checked them, and the score is: Rat, Rat, actually about cooking in canola oil, any vegetable oil versus less olive oil, Rat, actually about a different oil with quite different content of the active acid being trialled, Rat, Rat. After this review, it is clear to me they cheated with what could have been the most quantitative part of the argument: a bad…

Sorry I don't get what you're saying. "Rat"?

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#236

Post by d0ugal » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

ejolto wrote: post #197

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. 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…

I would guess they are using this comparison as oatly has become popular in coffee shops for lates etc. So the size is more common there, but probably not common at home.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#237

Post by henryaj » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

aliswe wrote: post #235

SiempreViernes wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good shout on the studies maybe not being obviously relevant. I checked them, and the score is: Rat, Rat, actually about cooking in canola oil, any vegetable oil versus less olive oil, Rat, actually about a different oil with quite different content of the active acid being trialled, Rat, Rat. After this review, it is clear to me they cheated with what could have been the most quantitative part of the argument: a bad…

Sorry I don't get what you're saying. "Rat"?

Think 'rat' indicates a study the OP found that was performed on rats

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#238

Post by INTPenis » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

1337shadow wrote: post #233

INTPenis wrote: post #226

I'm from the home of Oatly, southern Sweden, Malmö. Most of my friends are vegan and even I buy Oatly just to avoid milk protein because I'm getting older. BUT a lot of my vegan friends are shying away from Oatly now apparently because they're partially funded by a large Chinese state owned company. And we actually have more locally produced alternatives to Oatly coming out here in Sweden, one is now launched in Stoc…

I don't know Oatly, but it seems to be pretty much like an Horchata, which originated at least as far back as 13th-century Valencia, Spain.

I don't know about that but it's very simple. It's just oat based milk alternatives. Oat based drink, cream and stuff like that.

It doesn't taste like milk. It tastes like oats soaked in water. But it works for cooking, coffee and blending as a replacement to milk.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#239

Post by istjohn » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

gvjddbnvdrbv wrote: post #20

puttycat wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what I had in mind. The article does not mention cow milk's health implications, and only focuses on debunking Oatly's alleged health benefits. This creates the same "Obscure the Truth" effect the article opens with, giving the impression that there's nothing wrong with cow milk. If both options are equally unhealthy (which is at the minimum the biased impression the article gives by not discussing cow milk),…

What actual proven health implications does cows milk have?

TFA links to this article which discusses the health pros and cons of cows milk: https://www.healthline.com/health/is-milk-bad-for-you

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#240

Post by kernoble » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

Canola oil causes intestinal distress in more people than you know, similar but more severe than lactose intolerance, but it is often considered an allergy. My partner and her mother are unable to digest / have a violent intestinal response to it.

It's extremely unpleasant for them, and in the long run could probably cause significant health issues related to nutrition absorption and increased inflammation.

Anyway. I'm convinced that many people have this issue and don't know about it. Information about this problem is not very widespread, and I'm unaware of any studies that attempt to explain its mechanism.