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- cross-posted to:
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Like an estimated two-thirds of the worldās population, I donāt digest lactose well, which makes the occasional latte an especially pricey proposition. So it was a pleasant surprise when, shortly after moving to San Francisco, I ordered a drink at Blue Bottle Coffee and didnāt have to askāor pay extraāfor a milk alternative. Since 2022, the once Oakland-based, now NestlĆ©-owned cafe chain has defaulted to oat milk, both to cut carbon emissions and because lots of its affluent-tending customers were already choosing it as their go-to.
Plant-based milks, a multibillion-dollar global market, arenāt just good for the lactose intolerant: Theyāre also better for the climate. Dairy cows belch a lot of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide; they contribute at least 7 percent of US methane output, the equivalent emissions of 10 million cars. Cattle need a lot of room to graze, too: Plant-based milks use about a tenth as much land to produce the same quantity of milk. And it takes almost a thousand gallons of water to manufacture a gallon of dairy milkāfour times the water cost of alt-milk from oats or soy.
But if climate concerns push us toward the alt-milk aisle, dairy still has price on its side. Even though plant-based milks are generally much less resource-intensive, theyāre often more expensive. Walk into any Starbucks, and youāll likely pay around 70 cents extra for nondairy options.
. Dairyās affordability edge, explains MarĆa Mascaraque, an analyst at market research firm Euromonitor International, relies on the industryās ability to produce āat larger volumes, which drives down the cost per carton.ā American demand for milk alternatives, though expected to grow by 10 percent a year through 2030, canāt beat those economies of scale. (Globally, alt-milks arenāt new on the sceneācoconut milk is even mentioned in the Sanskrit epic MahÄbhÄrata, which is thousands of years old.)
What else contributes to cow milkās dominance? Dairy farmers are āpolitical favorites,ā says Daniel Sumner, a University of California, Davis, agricultural economist. In addition to support like the āDairy Checkoff,ā a joint government-industry program to promote milk products (including the āGot Milk?ā campaign), theyāve long raked in direct subsidies currently worth around $1 billion a year.
Big Milk fights hard to maintain those benefits, spending more than $7 million a year on lobbying. That might help explain why the US Department of Agriculture has talked around the climate virtues of meat and dairy alternatives, refusing to factor sustainability into its dietary guidelinesāand why it has featured content, such as a 2013 article by thenāAgriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, trumpeting the dairy industry as āleading the way in sustainable innovation.ā
But the USDA doesnāt directly support plant-based milk. It does subsidize some alt-milk ingredientsāsoybean producers, like dairy, net close to $1 billion a year on average, but that crop largely goes to feeding meat- and dairy-producing livestock and extracting oil. A 2021 report by industry analysts Mintec Limited and Frost Procurement Adventurer also notes that, while the inputs for dairy (such as cattle feed) for dairy are a little more expensive than typical plant-milk ingredients, plant alternatives face higher manufacturing costs. Alt-milk makers, Sumner says, may also have thinner profit margins: Their āstrategy for growth is advertisement and promotion and publicity,ā which isnāt cheap.
Starbucks, though, does benefit from economies of scale. In Europe, the company is slowly dropping premiums for alt-milks, a move it attributes to wanting to lower corporate emissions. āMarket-level conditions allow us to move more quicklyā than other companies, a spokesperson for the coffee giant told me, but didnāt say if or when the price drop would happen elsewhere.
In the United States, meanwhile, itās a waiting game to see whether the government or corporations drive down alt-milk costs. Currently, Sumner says, plant-based milk producers operate under an assumption that āprice isnāt the main thingā for their buyersāas long as enough privileged consumers will pay up, alt-milk can fill a premium niche. But itās going to take a bigger market than that to make real progress in curbing emissions from food.
What is an ultra-transformed food and what makes it bad for you? Generally the things added to foods (sugar, salt, preservatives) are what make them less healthy than fresh counterparts. At least here, the soy milk has added salt putting it at the same salt content as milk, and no added sugar, putting it at 8x less sugar than milk. What it does have is added calcium, vitamin B2, vitamin B12, vitamin D, and a higher protein content than milk. Simply being processed doesnāt make something unhealthy, the things that are changed in processing it can make something unhealthy. That doesnāt apply here.
Agreed, the term and confusion is likely due to over-simplification from media and researchers.
I thought there were added sugar in those alt-milks, as most I tried tasted so sweetā¦
If they taste sweet, at all, they are definitely sweetened with added sugar. One of the biggest cons of plant-based milks is that they are either completely devoid of sweetness, or have lots of sugar and are higher carb than dairy milk.
The sweetened plant milks taste excessively sweet to me and the plant-based ones taste right. It depends a bit on the specific milk though, I think pea milk is pretty devoid of sweetness for example.
Interesting! For some reason, all the unsweetened ones taste horrible to me, like bitter dirt. But drink lactose-free cow milk normally, and the lactase enzyme increases the perceived sweetness by just a tiny bit. I love tofu in its raw form, so I remain shocked that I canāt stand unsweetened soymilk.
You can buy it sweetened or unsweetened here. The sweetened soy milk here has almost the same sugar content as milk but still slightly lower (2.5g/100ml for the soy milk, 2.6g/100ml for the milk)
Nutrition differs for other milk replacements as well, but thatās due to the core ingredient being different (e.g., oats have more sugar than soy).
If you can digest lactose, itās simply much better for you than sucrose. Most objective health sites Iāve seen consider sugar content to overall be a pro of dairy milk over sweetened plant-based milk, but con over unsweetened plant-based milk.
Unfortunately, I canāt digest lactose, and I believe (never found research) I lose some of that benefit when I add lactase to my milk.
Sucrose has a higher glycemic index than lactose but it doesnāt seem to be that much of a difference. I canāt find any objective sources for lactose being better for you other than it having a lower glycemic index, and how much that really matters especially in the relatively low amounts of sugar in milk and sweetened plant milk seems not clear. Iām quite curious to learn about it, do you have any references?
The lower glycemic index is a pretty big deal in a vacuum, in regards to insulin-related issues and appetite-related issues. Which you seem to have already agreed with?
As for āthereās not enoughā, dunno. Honestly, nobody is trying to say that nut milk is bad for you (except possibly the cancer risk in soy milk, but I tend to put that in the āunlikelyā column alongside cancer risk of cow milk). Itās that milk is better for you, if only slightly so.
And if you note, I said lactose is much better, not dairy milk is always much better (though I think itās better in almost every way, health-wise). It was in a direct reply to the near-match sugar content from your previous note.
You canāt find unsweetened soymilk around me because nobody will buy it. Ditto to a lesser extent in other unsweetened milks. Usually, the unsweetened ones are also the unfortified ones around me, tooā¦ which means nutritionally inferior.
One of the advantages to cow milk is that it is probably the lowest carb content for that āsweet enoughā milk balance. Unsweetened plant milks are just lacking that, and the plant milks sweetened to compete are too high-carb. But yeah, I wouldnāt call any plant milk ultra-transformed. The term āprocessed foodā is way too large an umbrella for reasoned conversation.
Per the Mayo Clinic, itās tough to beat dairy milk for balanced nutrition. These heavily fortified alt-milks arenāt terrible, but the body doesnāt digest those nutrients as well. Doesnāt mean itāll kill ya. I know people who eat a giant pastry for breakfast every morning, but itās points against. If the only thing you care about is nutrients and not being dairy, the answer is definitely unsweetened Soy Milk if itās available where you are.
Iām lactose intolerant, and for years I thought lactaid wouldnāt for for me. The sweetened soymilk I drank definitely contributed to some weight gain back then, but it was hardly the main or only cause.
The phrasing in the Mayo Clinic article is weird to me. The pros and cons outlined in that article (skim milk versus soy milk), skim milk has:
The conclusion that milk (even skim milk) is better for you than soy milk does not seem self-evident to me. I would rather have less sugar (regardless of whether itās added or not) and more healthy fats than slightly more protein. There are many good sources of protein but avoiding sugar in your diet enough to stay under the recommended limit is really difficult.
Interesting. From those bullet points, it does seem self-evident to me. But then, those bullet points are not the whole description either.
Itās not just āslightly more proteinā, itās āslightly more of a better proteinā (which, admittedly, the article doesnāt dig into). Itās not just calcium thatās easier to absorb. Thatās just the topic they were responding to in that line.
The āform of lactoseā (not lactase. lactase is the enzyme people like me lack). Lactose is decently healthier than sucrose gram-for-gram, if you can digest it (and while I doubted elsewhere, I donāt see how adding lactase enzyme to it would make it any less healthy).
āless healthy fatsā is actually worded weird here. Soymilk and almond milk has higher fat (which I didnāt think they had higher fact), but itās a slightly healthier fat. The fats in cow milk are perfectly fine if kept to under 7% of your calories - and it only accounts for <2% of the calories in the milk. Meaning you canāt drink enough milk for it to be a major reason youāre having too much saturated fat.
Finally, they are comparing soymilk intentionally fortified with nutrients to plain-ol cow milk. And cow milk wins. Itās still fine to have fortified soymilk if you really wantā¦ (OR fortify cow milk to get the best of both worlds.) Fortified foods are ok, though their absorption levels are sometimes lower or sometimes uncertain, but thatās just a matter of how much more time weāve had to study the nutritional effects of milk. It is still slightly better to have dairy milk, and definitely not worse to have dairy milk, if you can.
Ultimately, the article clearly articulates that dairy milk is healthier than plant milks, but plant milks are still ok as long as you know what youāre drinking. Whether you boil it down to those bullet points or read the article, thatās what the article says, and manages to defend.