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.

  • adriaan@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    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:

    • slightly more protein (8g over 7g)
    • potentially easier to absorb calcium
    • more sugar in the form of lactase
    • less healthy fats
    • lactase which most adults cannot process

    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 itā€™s 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.

    • abraxas@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Interesting. From those bullet points, it does seem self-evident to me. But then, those bullet points are not the whole description either.

      Itā€™s not just ā€œslightly more proteinā€, itā€™s ā€œslightly more of a better proteinā€ (which, admittedly, the article doesnā€™t dig into). Itā€™s not just calcium thatā€™s easier to absorb. Thatā€™s just the topic they were responding to in that line.

      The ā€œform 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 donā€™t see how adding lactase enzyme to it would make it any less healthy).

      ā€œless healthy fatsā€ is actually worded weird here. Soymilk and almond milk has higher fat (which I didnā€™t think they had higher fact), but itā€™s 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 canā€™t drink enough milk for it to be a major reason youā€™re having too much saturated fat.

      Finally, they are comparing soymilk intentionally fortified with nutrients to plain-ol cow milk. And cow milk wins. Itā€™s 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 thatā€™s just a matter of how much more time weā€™ve 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 youā€™re drinking. Whether you boil it down to those bullet points or read the article, thatā€™s what the article says, and manages to defend.