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Oatly: The New Coke?

divinations.substack.com

261–270 of 429 posts

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#261
post #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…

really drinking milk with a splash of coffee

Lots of people do this. It's called a latte. Or for hipsters, a "flat white". Or any mocha-frappa-chino equivalent has a lot of milk and cream in it.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#262
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.

I've been making my own oat milk on occasion. I just got some 80 micron nut milk bags (at least two, I double strain) and use the recipe found here: https://minimalistbaker.com/make-oat-milk/

The hardest part is figuring out just how long you need to blend it for. It took me three batches to get it just right. The first was too thin (didn't blend long enough), the second too slimy (blended too long).

It's dirt cheap and gets the job done. Give it a good shake before you use it, though, as it has a tendency to settle.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#263
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

really drinking milk with a splash of coffee Lots of people do this. It's called a latte. Or for hipsters, a "flat white". Or any mocha-frappa-chino equivalent has a lot of milk and cream in it.

12 oz of milk though? My research says a latte contains about 6oz. Fraps probably contain less (mostly ice).

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

really drinking milk with a splash of coffee Lots of people do this. It's called a latte. Or for hipsters, a "flat white". Or any mocha-frappa-chino equivalent has a lot of milk and cream in it.

12 oz of milk though? My research says a latte contains about 6oz. Fraps probably contain less (mostly ice).

They come in a bucket if you go to Starbucks

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#265
post #173

"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 believe that some dairies use "sexed" semen to minimise the ratio of male calves. Doesn't detract from the separation, etc though.

I wonder if veal farmers are using the exact same technology to increase the ratio of male calves

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#266
post #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…

As a non-coffee drinker, I drink my oatly pure, in the same way as I drank my milk growing up. So yeah, 340 ml is apt when I use my big mug.

You make it sound as if no-one drinks pure milk in your environment? I find THAT weird.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#267
So much hate for cow milk. I think grain-fed dairy needs to stop, but a quick look at the latest studies shows all cause mortality is lower for people that drink milk.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#268

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…

There's also mustard oil, which is banned for human consumption in the US due to fears about erucic acid. Mustard oil is one of the most common cooking oils in India and Pakistan. As a result, all mustard oil in the US is labeled "for external use only". People still use it for cooking.

> There's also mustard oil, which is banned for human consumption in the US due to fears about erucic acid.

Fun snippet from the wikipedia page on Mustard Oil: "Rats are unusual in their inability to process erucic acid, and the symptoms in rats caused by a diet with high levels of erucic acid has not been observed in pigs, primates, or any other animals"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustard_oil

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#269
I was surprised to see no discussion about environmental impacts.

One nasty consequence of non organic canola oil is that the industry largely uses glycophosate for pest control. The organic version of Oatly does not use canola oil, and Califa uses sunflower oil (and has less sugar!).

And yes, industrial cattle practices suck. But the cattle themselves aren't the inherent problem. In 1800 there were approximately 60 million wild Buffalo in North America. Today there are about 90 million cows, of them about 30 million used for milk. The environment has the capacity to support a similar order of magnitude of bovines sustainably. Sustainable cattle farming in some cases is even carbon negative [0]. Bovines historically played a big role in the grassland ecosystem but what industrial scale farms are doing look nothing like nature.

It's easy to vilify industrial scale cattle farming but it's not truthful to say that there are no ways to have environmentally friendly cattle farms.

[0] https://www.whiteoakpastures.com/meet-us/environmental-susta...

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

really drinking milk with a splash of coffee Lots of people do this. It's called a latte. Or for hipsters, a "flat white". Or any mocha-frappa-chino equivalent has a lot of milk and cream in it.

12 oz of milk though? My research says a latte contains about 6oz. Fraps probably contain less (mostly ice).

A Starbucks Venti is 20oz (hence the name)
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