Live data from Hacker News

Oatly: The New Coke?

divinations.substack.com

371–380 of 429 posts

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#371
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 ~…

The author would say that you shouldn’t be eating pancakes, which presumably you are making with refined grains and frying in oil, and likely topping with some sort of sugar... he’s a keto fan. If you’re going to eat pancakes, I’d say it’s worth making them taste good.

I make my pancakes with oat flour, no sugar (other than the chocolate chips--can't give those up), and no dairy. The chips are at least 62% cocoa, so their sugar levels aren't as high as milk chocolate chips. I just checked and the oat flour I use (Bob's Red Mill) is whole grain, not refined. So I think I'm doing alright!

By no means are these pancakes healthy, but after years of experiments I think I managed to find something that just straddles the barrier between nutritional-waste and nutritional sabotage. And that's fine for one meal a week. Thanks for your concern, though!

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#372
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Innocent" branded oat milk-substitute contains no added oil of any kind, so all of his canola objections would be moot there. I guess it still contains oat sugars though, at 3.2g per 100ml (of 7g carbs per 100ml)

100ml == ~3.4oz, so that's probably still a pretty equivalent amount of sugar to oatly. Either way, they're pretty negligible – most juices have at least 20g sugar in a cup.

I personally really enjoy hazelnut milk too. It has oils and sugars from the nuts, I have no idea if it's 'good' for you, but it is delicious.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#373
post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen a bunch of sides of it in the US. In the midwest where I grew up parts of my family required children to drink a glass of milk because the milk-industry propaganda at the time said it was important for kids to drink a bunch of milk for bones and growth and other stuff that was never true and was known to never be true. But we didn't have the internet yet, so how do you fact check it? The TV said so. I do se…

>I liked chocolate milk because who doesn't, but after someone for the first time pointed out that it's kinda weird for humans to drink milk intended for calves (maybe I was 13 or 14?) I pretty much just stopped drinking it because it just wasn't that good anyway and now I had an excuse. My brother and mother are both lactose intolerant, it turns out. Is it weird? Weird is completely abstract. Is eating the female co…

It's like I said, it was an excuse to avoid drinking something I didn't like that much anyway. Yes, weird will always be subjective, thanks for clearing that up.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#374

"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…

How do dairy farmers do it in India (where milk is a huge thing, while beef, while also actually a large industry, is much more controversial)?

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely fascinating to read these replies! We have a very diverse set of people here. I had no idea that people didn't drink milk on its own. Apparently some Europeans don't. I eat cereal mostly to drink milk. If Oatly was a good substitute, I'd probably have started using it. (I haven't tried it yet.) 340ml is 0.08 gallons. That's consistent with "about a bowl of cereal."

I've seen a bunch of sides of it in the US. In the midwest where I grew up parts of my family required children to drink a glass of milk because the milk-industry propaganda at the time said it was important for kids to drink a bunch of milk for bones and growth and other stuff that was never true and was known to never be true. But we didn't have the internet yet, so how do you fact check it? The TV said so. I do se…

> milk-industry propaganda at the time said it was important for kids to drink a bunch of milk for bones and growth and other stuff that was never true and was known to never be true.

You seem to be saying that the human body cannot make productive use of the calcium from cow's milk. Do you have a source for this?

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#376
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

All plant milks taste like dirty sugar water to me. I've tried Oatly and found it slightly less sweet than others, but still not particularly good. Nothing about it is milk-like to me. It was as watery as all the others, I don't understand how the grandparent can find it "syrupy and thick".

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#377
"So now we have to ask ourselves: What’re the odds that we’ve learned our lesson and this will never happen again? Or could there be a new class of products running the same playbook, building billion dollar brands with clever marketing and deceptive health claims while secretly ruining our health?"

I straight up thought they were describing tech companies or the advent of social media/ad tech e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc. and health claims being it makes you feel more connected with people, but it actually affects your mental health and creates addiction in negative ways we are just starting to comprehend.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#378
post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I liked chocolate milk because who doesn't, but after someone for the first time pointed out that it's kinda weird for humans to drink milk intended for calves (maybe I was 13 or 14?) I pretty much just stopped drinking it because it just wasn't that good anyway and now I had an excuse. My brother and mother are both lactose intolerant, it turns out. Is it weird? Weird is completely abstract. Is eating the female co…

It's like I said, it was an excuse to avoid drinking something I didn't like that much anyway. Yes, weird will always be subjective, thanks for clearing that up.

Fair enough. It wasn't meant as an attack - I get frustrated how arbitrary and social people's attitudes are with food.

The same people that consider mouldy Roquefort to be delicious might consider durian a sin against humanity with little appreciation of the hypocrisy at play.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats exactly what a hipster coffee drinker would say.

Google says a flat white doesn’t have milk foam. So 1/3 less ingredients than a latte. A latte, cappuccino, and macchiato all seem way more similar. I’m here to argue that coffee is more normcore than hipster.

1/3 milk foam is not equivalent to 1/3 milk.

Re: Oatly: The New Coke?

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ref “your body in balance” by Barnard A vegan neurologist might be a bit biased... What does he have to say about plant-based hormones such as phytoestrogens? Also, what is wrong with a little bit of morphine in your food?

I for one always reach for a piece of cheese when I've had a stressful day, it really takes the edge off.

Bourbon and a nice dry cheddar are my goto when I need a serious unwind.
Post reply on HN