Oatly: The New Coke? • Hacker News Board

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#281

Post by rconti » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 4:04 PM UTC

rattray wrote: post #117

prepend wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is about the failings of Oatly, not the failures of milk. There’s lots of milk substitutes that aren’t as bad for you as Oatly. I read the comparison to milk as just a comparison to the baseline or what Oatly wants to taste like, not as an endorsement of cow milk.

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 almond milk tastes awful, Oatly was the first milk substitute I actually liked (maybe preferred!) to dairy milk.

Currently I rotate through Oatly, Califa farms, and Silk oat milks depending on what's available.

The water footprint of almond milk is just mind-blowing. I can't fathom ripping out other productive agriculture so that we can suck up more water than other crops just to sell almonds overseas and turn it into.. milk.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#282

Post by jniedrauer » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 4:04 PM UTC

Jabbles wrote: post #96

Is Glycemic Index important for healthy people or is it mainly of concern to people with diabetes? The NHS suggests the latter, but it doesn't seem to have a very strong position - unlike the article, which seems very sure that high GI is bad for you. However, using the glycaemic index to decide whether foods or combinations of foods are healthy can be misleading. https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-d…

Glycemic index is a somewhat deceptive measurement. A snickers bar has a lower glycemic index than a slice of whole wheat bread[0][1]. That doesn't make it better for you.

What glycemic index is actually showing you is the ratio of fat to carbs. And carbs are not inherently unhealthy. As a distance runner, I consume a lot more carbs than the average person, and I'm in the best shape of my life.

[0] https://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/glycemicIndexDetails.php...

[1] http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/glycemicIndexDetails.php?...

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#283

Post by tlow » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

bitexploder wrote: post #186

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…

Picking a nit: “Lattes are bad for you” come now. No food is inherently “bad”. In moderation or in a balanced diet you can regularly eat some amount of “bad” food and remain perfectly healthy. I do agree they aren’t a health food but I dislike “good” and “bad”. I think healthier and unhealthier is a much better axis for food, and making choices around food.

False. Lattes ARE most definitely bad for you when they contain 30-40 grams of sugar or almost 3 TABLESPOONS.[1]

[1] https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/414/hot?parent=%2Fdri...

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#284

Post by airstrike » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

tlow wrote: post #276

The article makes great points. The most important one is that the carbohydrate content of Oatly is significantly greater than milk with a much higher GI sugar. It has a different sugar formulation which has double the impact (GI) on blood sugar as compared to Lactose (milk sugar). This alone makes it an extremely unhealthy choice as drinking 12 oz is certainly enough to spike blood insulin levels and cause a subsequ…

> The most important one is that the sugar content of Oatly is not only significantly greater than milk, it has a different sugar formulation which has double the impact (GI) on blood sugar as compared to Lactose (milk sugar).

Let's see...

* 7g of sugar in a cup of a low-fat oatly https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/oatly/low-fat-o...

vs.

* 12.5g of sugar in cup of 2% milk https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/usda/milk-(2%25...

So you're factually incorrect.

You're also disregarding the fact that even 12.5g of sugar isn't terrible if the rest of your diet is generally sugar free, that some people are lactose intolerant, and finally that oat milk doesn't come with the same terrible externalities associated with the dairy industry.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#285

Post by porknubbins » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

defen wrote: post #270

grumple wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

When you steam milk for latte the volume almost doubles so that probably 9 -10 oz milk, still not insignificant but not 20oz.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#286

Post by airstrike » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

tlow wrote: post #283

bitexploder wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Picking a nit: “Lattes are bad for you” come now. No food is inherently “bad”. In moderation or in a balanced diet you can regularly eat some amount of “bad” food and remain perfectly healthy. I do agree they aren’t a health food but I dislike “good” and “bad”. I think healthier and unhealthier is a much better axis for food, and making choices around food.

False. Lattes ARE most definitely bad for you when they contain 30-40 grams of sugar or almost 3 TABLESPOONS.[1] [1] https://www.starbucks.com/menu/product/414/hot?parent=%2Fdri...

Lattes aren't defined by that specific recipe served at Starbucks.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#287

Post by rconti » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

agloeregrets wrote: post #35

kitbrennan wrote: post #14

> anyone who's tried a latte with oat milk can attest it is by far the best tasting, most milk-like alternative That's quite a bold & generalising statement. Personally I think cashew nut milk is the most milk-like alternative in terms of flavour and mouthfeel.

Oat Milk, even the very best, is syrupy and thick. I think most people looking for a latte without dairy are better off seeing the Milk Alternative’s flavors as their own thing rather than trying to replicate a dairy latte. There are a lot of upsides to be found if you stop chasing an impossible goal. Notably, I found that a Soy London Fog is actually single-handedly a better drink than a milk London Fog...but it is…

Huh, Oatly tastes really close to dairy milk to me, but some of the other oat milks I've tried are fairly bad. There's a huge variance. I don't think "syrupy" is a way I'd describe any of them, though, except perhaps the higher fat barista blends?

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#288

Post by mark_l_watson » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

dandanqu82 wrote: post #254

mark_l_watson wrote: post #214

I liked the article but it could have been much simpler and shorter. I believe that non-dairy "milk" can be healthy, but I look for a few things on the label: the package should contain almost no carbohydrates and no added oil. I just checked out our pantry, and indeed, the oat "milk" we have has more carbohydrates than I want, so that is off our shopping list. Other milk substitutes that I just checked met my criter…

The low fat version of Oat-ly has no oil added. It’s not like the company is giving you no choice but to buy a product with “controversial” ingredients.

It turns out that oat "milk", even without oil added, has a lot of carbohydrates, some in the form of natural sugar.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#289

Post by GordonS » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

atombender wrote: post #244

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…

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.

> As a result, all mustard oil in the US is labeled "for external use only"

Huh, same in the UK too - I wondered why on earth it would say that on a bottle of mustard oil, now I know!

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#290

Post by airstrike » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 4:15 PM UTC

SiempreViernes wrote: post #141

twanvl wrote: 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…

For completeness, I checked them all and the score is: * Rat * Rat * actually about cooking _in_ canola oil * about switching _any_ vegetable oil to _less_ olive oil * Rat * actually about a different oil with quite different content of the active acid being trialled * Rat * Rat (Oh, and the article is written by a SEO marketer)

At this point, we should all just flag this article til it's gone. It's FUD