Like an estimated two-thirds of the worldā€™s population, I donā€™t 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 didnā€™t have to askā€”or pay extraā€”for 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, arenā€™t just good for the lactose intolerant: Theyā€™re 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 milkā€”four 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, theyā€™re often more expensive. Walk into any Starbucks, and youā€™ll likely pay around 70 cents extra for nondairy options.

. Dairyā€™s affordability edge, explains MarĆ­a Mascaraque, an analyst at market research firm Euromonitor International, relies on the industryā€™s ability to produce ā€œat 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, canā€™t beat those economies of scale. (Globally, alt-milks arenā€™t new on the sceneā€”coconut milk is even mentioned in the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata, which is thousands of years old.)

What else contributes to cow milkā€™s dominance? Dairy farmers are ā€œpolitical favorites,ā€ says Daniel Sumner, a University of California, Davis, agricultural economist. In addition to support like the ā€œDairy Checkoff,ā€ a joint government-industry program to promote milk products (including the ā€œGot Milk?ā€ campaign), theyā€™ve 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 guidelinesā€”and why it has featured content, such as a 2013 article by thenā€“Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, trumpeting the dairy industry as ā€œleading the way in sustainable innovation.ā€

But the USDA doesnā€™t directly support plant-based milk. It does subsidize some alt-milk ingredientsā€”soybean 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 ā€œstrategy for growth is advertisement and promotion and publicity,ā€ which isnā€™t 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. ā€œMarket-level conditions allow us to move more quicklyā€ than other companies, a spokesperson for the coffee giant told me, but didnā€™t say if or when the price drop would happen elsewhere.

In the United States, meanwhile, itā€™s 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 ā€œprice isnā€™t the main thingā€ for their buyersā€”as long as enough privileged consumers will pay up, alt-milk can fill a premium niche. But itā€™s going to take a bigger market than that to make real progress in curbing emissions from food.

  • pedroapero@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    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€¦

    • adriaan@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      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 thatā€™s due to the core ingredient being different (e.g., oats have more sugar than soy).

      • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        If you can digest lactose, itā€™s simply much better for you than sucrose. Most objective health sites Iā€™ve 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 canā€™t digest lactose, and I believe (never found research) I lose some of that benefit when I add lactase to my milk.

        • adriaan@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          Sucrose has a higher glycemic index than lactose but it doesnā€™t seem to be that much of a difference. I canā€™t 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. Iā€™m quite curious to learn about it, do you have any references?

          • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            I canā€™t 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

            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 ā€œthereā€™s 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 ā€œunlikelyā€ column alongside cancer risk of cow milk). Itā€™s 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 itā€™s better in almost every way, health-wise). It was in a direct reply to the near-match sugar content from your previous note.

    • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • adriaan@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          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 canā€™t stand unsweetened soymilk.