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.
Need to keep the ag subsidies flowing so that rural areas keep voting conservative
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The industry got too big and too reliant on subsidies. A reckoning will occur at some point, itās just a matter of whether itās announced ahead of time or surprises everyone.
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Every day the reckoning will be worse than it would have been the day before. Thatās why it should be planned and not A) ripped off like a bandaid or B) have it fail on its own.
Right now the government is doing practically the opposite and reassuring and strengthening the bandaid despite the inevitable need for it to come off.
I get it. Iām also on board with UBI. Hell, Iām even a vegan that isnāt calling for an immediate end to all subsidies for the ag industry even though a vast majority of it is in support of a practice that I believe to be highly unethical and horrendous. But I get that it canāt change overnight, but that doesnāt mean to keep kicking the can down the road either.
The human cost then will be more than the human cost now. It just will be āfutureā humans instead of the current ones so they so keep supporting it and making it someone elseās problem.
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Ok, leave a note behind to explain to your childrenās family why theyāre in extreme poverty because some folks didnāt want to gradually remove a subsidy in a controlled fashion. Again. Youāre just punishing more future people. But I guess since you donāt have to meet them, youāre ok with sacrificing their livelihood.
You will never get a UBI while large amounts are subsidizing specific industries. Wanna know where you can get that money though?
The thing is, I donāt even think we disagree that much. You just are taking the one approach I advocated against (but still argued would be better than doing nothing; ie keeping the subsidies) and pretending thatās my whole argument. I argued for gradual removal of subsidies to correct the market over time. You are advocating for a scenario that likely will never occur without some other large scale disaster or giant swing in public consciousness (UBI will never occur prior to ag having a market bubble popā¦ one will never happen during our life, one has a chance to).
āItās not a good time right nowā - the party in power at the time
Too big and too reliant on subsidies is a feature, not a bug. You want your farmers producing a fairly large surplus most of the time, because the harm resulting from a major food shortage is catastrophic. A widespread drought, disease, natural disaster, crop failure, or other shortage needs to be made up with other foodstuffs.
Subsidization incentivizes production even when market rates fall below profitability, which is what happens when production is significantly greater than actual demand.
New Zealand and Australia virtually eliminated agricultural subsidies and their industries are doing just fine.
Only 1% of americans work in the primary sector and that is not only comprised of farmers. Furthermore, there are more farming products than dairy, oats for oat milk have to be farmed somewhere as well.
Sorry, but thatās horseshit.
Taking away dairy subsidies would drive up milk and milk product prices, pushing more people to buy alternatives instead. Any loss of employment in the dairy industry is balanced by new jobs in manufacturing plant milks and dairy alternatives. This isnāt people being replaced by robots, itās cows being replaced by plants. You still need pretty much the same workforce to package and distribute it regardless.
Itās not as if Democrats donāt also throw plenty of bones to farmers.
Even if the farmers themselves are likely to be relatively conservative, theyāre such a politically sympathetic group that no one wants to be seen as āgoing after hard-working real American farmers!ā. Things like the Iowa caucuses playing a huge role in national politics donāt help either (although the Dems have thankfully killed that).
Itās more of a matter of if food gets more expensive youāre more likely to be voted out of office
One thing nobody has commented on - how that article slips in a seemingly positive mention of NestlƩ (they own the cafe that uses plant milks). That raised my eyebrows.
Iām beginning to notice a handful of company ties to āmake perfect the enemy of goodā takes like this.
Itās enough to drive one to schizophrenia. Everything is a hidden message
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Always follow the money. Nobody does journalism for free.
The dairy lobby in the US is huge money. If you ever want to know why weāre making a seemingly stupid decision follow the money, look at the entrenched interests and read some history. We subsidize dairy farmers because we used to subsidize dairy farmers and they spent a bunch of their earnings lobbying for more subsidies.
Except almonds. Almonds are terrible water wasters, and mostly grown in California where they can least afford the water.
Still more efficient on resource utilization than animal agriculture. If you hate almond milk for that reason, you should want the dairy industry completely abolished.
Shit, you should want all animal agriculture banned.
Based and correct.
Eh, there are plenty of use cases where certain land types arenāt really arable. Ruminants fill that niche easily.
The catch is that like 80% of the land used for livestock currently could also use crops instead.
Fwiw US dairy plans to be carbon neutral by 2050.
But we donāt need to use all that land. Plant-based diets use 70% less land, including 22% less crop land.
The bigger catch is that 70% of all crops we grow go to our livestock.
We wouldnāt need to use those lands if we just ate less meat.
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The bigger catch is that 70% of all crops we grow go to our livestock.
this isnāt true
Livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land, while supplying only 18% of calories and 37% of protein.
So youāre saying almond milk drinkers could end up going to hell someday?
/s -The Good Place reference
I donāt want it gone but I donāt want it subsidized. Iām not planning on being vegan but Iām cutting out a ton of animal protein from my life. I make it a special thing.
I feel like trying to compare a water intensive crop grown in a place known for drought to crops that can be grown in many places where water is far more readily available is being a bit disingenuous. Youāre not comparing apples to apples.
I mean, you could say that we shouldnāt be wasting resources on animal agriculture anywhere, but especially in the same places that donāt have enough water for crops.
Feeding food and giving water to other āfoodā will always be far less efficient than just providing a fraction of that water to plant-based foods. Animal agriculture is a waste.
Almond is the worst of the nut milks, but itās STILL way better for the environment than dairy.
What you get in stores is not even really almond milk. Real almond milk would be way too expensive to be competitive.
Exactlyā¦ Ughh I still fail to understand why almond milk is popular among vegans. Itās very expensive and doesnāt even taste that niceā¦
True. Soy and oat milk can be very good, depending on the brand.
oat milk is the jammy out of all the alt milks imo
Reccomendation on brands?
My favorite oat milk is Oatly Barista, the best soy milk Iāve tried is from Joya, but I havenāt seen it outside of Austria yet. Alpro is quite good and more widely available (at least in Europe). In North America, Silk seems to be great from what Iāve heard. Store brand soy milks tend to taste pretty bad from my experience here in Germany, but some of them might have improved since I tried them years ago.
Oatly and Califia both have great oat milks. They also have barista milks that substitute for half and half in coffee!
Thank you for the suggestions!
Even soy milk in the US isnāt really just soy milk. There are so much stuff added to it. Itās thick too.
I grew up drinking a lot of real soy milk which has a watery consistency that I can get at some Vietnamese / Chinese grocery stores or tofu shops. Flavor is quite different too.
Though I guess the US put thickeners and other stuff into theirs to help imitate milk
Still better than dairy.
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TIL industries create the demand for these products, not consumers
I know you are joking but with how dairy lobbies get subsidies from the gov they kind of are making their own demand.
Unlike plant milk made from say soy or almonds. Those get no subsidies at all. Nope.
The propaganda for milk (thatās still going) certainly had a big role to play.
I cannot help but be reminded of the games that Big Tobacco (and Big Fossil) played pre-90s, all through the 90s, most mostly lost. It used to be āwhat are you non-smokers complaining about? Itās not that bad, etcā¦ā pre-90s. Then, finally most indoor smoking got banned, even in bars. Then the fight moved to ābut second hand smoke is not that bad, etcā¦ā
Used to be there were tons of smokers in the United States. Now there are far less. I imagine dairy will go through a similar cycleā¦with the same efforts to distract and distort - even with a crisis of many related chronic diseases - see the ābut almonds use so much water!ā nonsense that is almost surely an industry placement.
For another comparison to tobacco, I had many, many family members that worked in health care. Most places in health care allowed smoking, nearly everywhere, at one point. If you see what constitutes āfoodā and ānutritionā in hospitals, it is easy to draw comparisons. It is almost like they could not care less if you get sick and stay sick, since there is no money in prevention.
People hawk on manufactured consent until itās inconvenient to the point
itās true! did you just discover bernays?
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no. Edward Bernays.
Sorry but you got two cows, so youāre obviously a paid shill for big dairy /s
individualism
Idk if itās delicious. Itās good. Baileys is delicious. Hot chocolate is delicious. A cold glass of milk? Canāt say that craving comes up for me all that often.
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Yes whole milk is good. Work buys 1% and it tastes like watered down milk.
I wouldnāt say itās deliciousā¦ itās meh-lk
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N-e-s-t-l-Ć©-s
Makes the very best
Economic WarfareThe average Joe has some say in it. When people buy factory farmed milk, they
directlyfinancially support the treatment of animals at these places. Imo people should learn in schools (or look for themselves) at footage from factory farms and slaughterhouses from their country to be informed about living conditions so they can make an informed choice if thatās worth it.and if they donāt buy the dairy farmers get their subsidy anyway. like yeah i can make myself poorer buying unsubsidized milk, but kinda sucks youāre putting the problem on me.
When people buy factory farmed milk, they directly financially support the treatment of animals at these places.
thatās not even true.
Where does the farmās income come from?
Do you imagine theyād get the same amount of income if all people stopped consuming their product tomorrow?
no one buys milk from factory farms. people buy milk in grocery stores.
Tomayto tomahto. The grocery store bought the milk from factory farms with the money they get from their customers. At the end of the day the money from milk consumers still funds the animal abuse.
The grocery store bought the milk from factory farms
i doubt it. they probably went through a supplier.
Congratulations
looks to me like you understand that this is a lie:
When people buy factory farmed milk, they directly financially support the treatment of animals at these places.
Youāre really the personification of the word pedantic. I changed my poorly formulated sentence.
At the end of the day the money from milk consumers
goes into a pile with all the money spent on bean juice and keeps all those people employed doing the same things theyāve been doing.
My personal theory is that we subsidize dairy not for the milk, but for the cheese. As far as Iām aware you canāt make cheese out of plant milks, and weāve gotten pretty reliant on cheese as a source of protein and other nutrients in our American diets - especially among children and lower income diets.
Look up: cheese caves. š
In short: There is so much excess cheese out there that the US government is literally storing billions of pounds of it in underground caves.
Letās raid. They canāt stop us all!!!
What the fuck
You can make plant-based cheeses. And some of them are pretty good. But they lack all of the same properties. Like, you can get a cheese that that when hot will stretch a little bit like the cheese on a pizza, but as it cools off it loses all of that elasticity and is not great for lukewarm pizza. You can get cheese that is pretty decent for lukewarm and hot pizza, but it doesnāt have that stretch. It more just rips apart. And you definitely donāt have the span of āflavorsā of cheese or whatever youād call it. Some of the big ones, sure, but again, they donāt have all the same physical properties.
I donāt mind the loss of those properties, but many people do.
Cheese isnāt a great source for protein compared to beans in regards to price though.
Honestly, I think we subsidize the dairy industry simply because theyāve been lobbying so long. Meat is subsidized too. Itās the one market that the conservatives are fine with ignoring the mantra of āfree marketā and support regulating the hell out of it in whatever way supports the āfarmersā (big farm is nothing like the labeling suggests and is all headed by big guys in suits who likely never have been on a farm in their life).
Beans can taste amazing when prepared by a competent chef, but often taste like shit when prepared wrong.
Cheese, on the other hand, is much more forgiving of poor preparation. Eat it straight out of the package, sliced and on bread or crackers, melt it into sauces, or grill it, or any number of other uses.
Simply put, cheese is fast and easy, and can elevate almost any other food.
Also, try to get kids to eat beans. It can happen. But not easily, and often you have to do it in the form of chili, with loads of cheese.
Youāre just describing American children raised in a poor diet. Beans are a staple food among not of the world population, including their children. Theyāre super easy to prepare as well. Talking about the extremely fatty and unhealthy cheese like that is probably one of the many reasons the US is obese and unhealthy.
Cheese is not a healthy part of a diet in any quantity where it provides a significant protein of the personās protein needs.
This. First of all, very few people are ever going to be deficient in protein, at least in the U.S. Secondly, cheese seems like one of the very worst sources. Animal sources in general are bad, of course.
I think it depends on context and how you are raised. I was given exposure to a broad array of vegetables and beans as a kid, and liked most of them, even as a kid. I think its a cultural thing - if you (or TV, or peers, or media) tell kids that ākids donāt like Xā, well, they probably wonāt.
Both meat and dairy are subsidized because they consume huge amounts of corn, and the corn industry is an even bigger lobby.
I seem to recall people are working on bacteria-produced casein, and so that may, if it could be done at scale, solve the ethical and environmental problems, but I wonder if casein in that form will be just as bad as dairy is in its ānaturalā form.
Soy cheese is called tofu.
Cheese was one of our main obstacles toward cutting out dairy. I came across a vegan cheese sauce recipe that utilizes blended steamed potatoes & carrots for the texture and nutritional yeast and other spices for the flavor. Been using it for a few years now and havenāt looked back yet.
Itās hard to find good nutritional yeast though. Since they are quite expensive, it is not easy to try around until you find one, that does not taste like garbage.
Yes itās an expensive purchase, but I buy it once every 6 months or so. It goes a long way and I use little (ā cup) at a time.
Some of my family think weāre living large because we can āaffordā cashew nuts, which we use for many purposes, but donāt think twice about spending 3 times more on meat every single week.
Yeah, once you found a brand, that tastes well, itās not an issue anymore. But paying a lot just to notice, that it tastes disgusting, kinda sucks.
Unsure if youāre talking about cow milk, plant based milk, cashews or nutritional yeast š¤·āāļø
Nutritional yeast
Government cheese has been a thing since at least the great depression.
Protein can be found in much better food sources than dairy. Itās a shame the protein myth prevails in this country even into the 2020sā¦
Probably because everyone tried only the shittiest alt-malks, assume they are all bad, and somehow donāt get heartburn and diarrhea and gunky mouth and throat feel from cow milk. I save all my lactose intolerance suffering for cheese and ice cream.
Seriously though itās the same as people that say only bad things about tofu but have only eaten white American ārecipesā that genuinely suck. Meanwhile Asians happily inhaling literal tons of it prepared in actually good meals. Try making bread from scratch without salt (or salty ingredients) and thatās what tofu foods for the white market remind me of.
Tofu is fine, but tempeh is almost as widely available in supermarkets, has a higher protein density, is fermented, and works in soooo many things. Itās also way easier to get the hang of marinating and cooking.
I mention this only because I love it so much, and Iād love for people that shit on vegan food to give that a go (lightly pan fried, and then tossed in a gooey before sriracha-soy-peanut-butter-lime-brown-sugar sauce) and get back to me. I could eat it every night and never get tired of it.
This is something Iāve actually been meaning to try and forgot about
Let me help!
- 1 block tempeh, sliced down the middle long ways, and then clicked into little rectangle slices. Pan fry in a little oil of you choice.
Combine for sauce (put in a bowl and toss the tempeh in it after - cooked peanut butter isnāt great, imo):
- 1 part soy sauce or tamari
- 1 part lime juice
- 1 part sriracha
- 1 part brown sugar
- 2 parts peanut butter
Get back to me. This is one of my absolute favorites!
Thanks Iāll have to find time for shopping now. I only wish I could count on people to not angle grind off my bike lock while Iām in the store.
everyone tried only the shittiest alt-malks
well i dont have 5 euro to dish out on a carton of altmilk every time i want to make an omelette
yall have an excess of money and it shows
More like gurgling stomach pain. That said in most cooking I generally just use cow milk and hope it goes better than drinking it straight. Most of them, even if they claim to be a 1:1 replacement canāt serve the same purpose in a lot of recipes. One time I was doing a midnight pantry raid and made Mac and white cheese with iirc almond milk. It became almost identical to white chocolate melted over noodles.
I was about to say, when making bread salt is like the only flavouring so they recommend not being too stingy. I do love tofu though. The texture is neutral and can be āimprovedā depending on the goal. The taste is pretty bland and it will taste like whatever you want it to be.
My gripe with tofu is that it always sticks to the pan.
Iāve tried pressing the liquid out, freezing, and flouring/cornstarching it and that works to an extent but itās more effort than Iād like for something that is basically sauce flavoured.
Tofu is a pain. Try heating the pan significantly before adding oil, and then toss the food in on top of the oil shortly after.
Alternatively, scallions in oil help to make a non stick coating. Or a lecithin-containing spray oil. The lecithin helps prevent sticking way more than the oil itself does.
Or tell your pan to shut up, and either deep fry or air fry it.
Hahaha, white people canāt cook, amirite?
I had this fantastic plant-based milk product on my store shelves called āNot Milkā. I really enjoyed it. Had this mild coconut flavor which might turn off some (not me) but anyway, itās gone now because it was too expensive for the market Iām in.
Meanwhile gallons of milk flow for the same purpose, only subsidized for under half the cost per ounce.
As we do, we stifle innovation ourselves based on our past.
check out your local Aldi. Theyāve got a range of almond, soy, coconut and oat milk at very reasonable prices. I was loving coconut milk until my friend told me how high in saturated fat it is (like really high.) Since then I do about half coconut and half light almond for my oatmeal and I canāt say enough how good it tastes. Iām eating oatmeal as a dessert now sometimes because I like it so much.
Edit: had originally said cholesterol but totally had meant saturated fat. Thanks to @DarthFrodo for bringing the error to my attention.
I thought almonds took too much water or something?
Less than regular milk so if youāre divided between almond and cow milk, to for almond.
Depends on where they are grown.
California is a huge Almond supplier, but they have had frequent droughts. People get angry when they are asked to conserve water and then everything theyāve conserved is used to grow a water-hungry crop.
This could be solved by growing them somewhere else, or desalinating (California is a coastal state after all).
we need to mandate water efficient farming pratices
Zones 5-9 are recommended or they wonāt live through the winter. Also, have they really worked out the desalination thing for large areas? https://www.growinganything.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi
Plants donāt produce cholesterol, only animals. Coconut oil is high in saturated fat that seems to be bad for blood cholesterol levels, but coconut milk (for drinking, in cartons) has hardly any fat in it. The one I looked up has half of the saturated fat compared to 3,5% fat cows milk.
Thanks for the correction, I totally meant saturated fat but my brain shit the bed. Iāll correct my post and note the edit. Thanks again!
Extra thick oatmilk is the way to go.
Check to see if your store has āNextmilkā made by Silk. It is cheaper than āNot Milkā and tastes better!
Butter and heavy cream donāt really have a good replacement, but regular milk has so many alternatives itās crazy. Almond milk and oat milk I prefer to regular old milk.
Vegan butter or coconut oil sub well for butter, depending on the use. And canned coconut milk works pretty well for heavy cream in baked goods.
Because lots of people in your country drink it, like it, and even more eat things made from it. Like cheese.
āTwo thirds of people canāt tolerate lactoseā is utterly fucking meaningless in this context. Most of those are in Asia. Last I checked, it was countries giving out subsidies, not some nebulous world council.
And nearly all farming gets subsidised, because that reduces reliance on external countries. Youāve seen what capitalism did to housing. You donāt want that to happen to food.
My takeaway from this is that Nestle probably doesnāt own any dairy companies, but probably does own a plant that makes oat milk. They keep all the profit in their own ecosystem by buying their supplies from themself and then get to tell us how green and thoughtful they are.
Are there actual studies showing that plant-based alternatives are better for health (for individuals that digest lactose just fine like me) ?
I switched to alt-milks for ecological reason but media keep talking about the negative health effects of Ā«ultra-transformed foodĀ», which alt-milk very much sounds likeā¦
I prefer plant-based milk over dairy, it tastes better and it lasts longer. I tried plant based milk years ago and never went back. Iāve tried cashew, macadamia, rice, soy, almond, coconut, oat, and sunflower. Some of my favorites are vanilla almond, dark chocolate almond and cashew, vanilla macadamia, and vanilla coconut. My family still buys dairy milk, but we always bought plant-based butter. I buy cream cheese to use as bread spread.
It seems like you like vanilla and chocolate and not plant āmilk.ā
True, idk how much of the content is actually milk, some milk has tasted watery, especially rice milk and almond milk.
It varies from brand to brand. Some, usually the cheaper ones, are really just water and the flavor carrying plant and those are gonna be watery. The more āmilk-likeā tasting brands add canola oil to make it more fatty, just like milk has fats.
Just like buttermilk is more watery than whole milk since it contains less fat.
Iām obsessed with plain unsweetened Silk soy milk. Itās just the best thing ever made. Cereal, baking, cooking, lattes and plain are all just amazing.
I like silk too! But I donāt find it to be very good for baking or cooking.
Iāve found oat milk (specifically Oatly) to cook fairly well. Iāve made bechamel based sauces, puddings, custards, etc. with it plenty of times and always had good results.
puddings
I thought for puddings soy works better because of a enzyme in oat milk that prevents pudding from going solid. If it works for you, great.
It depends on the brand of oat milk, some work, some donāt.
Oh the one time I used instant pudding mix it didnāt work. It only works with mixes that you cook or making it fully from scratch. Works great with rice pudding!
Fuck yeah. I had Oatly once like 3 years ago and decided that was the end of sucking on cow tits for me.
Same that is my favorite and I donāt think we are alone because its always sold out at the stores while the other plant milks remain untouched.
For real!! We literally always buy everything left of it lol
There is zero reason to drink milk past infancy. Plant based milks suck for cooking.
Edit:
That came across wrong. If you like drinking milk, so be it. There used to be a big push that you need to drink milk. Some of it by the dairy lobby, but also the food pyramid thing. Milk is dense nutritionally, yes, but we donāt have a need to drink it, was the point I was trying to say. I know that isnāt pushed as much today, but I was definitely a generation raised being told that you must drink milk, itās a necessity.
Or you could just live and let live, fam. Why be so judgmental?
I said the same thing to my neighbor when he caught me tossing my trash in his back yard. Like, what the fuck dude? Just chill.
Most people prefer the taste and itās often more calorically dense? And yeah, plant based sucks for cooking. I mostly use milk products (half and half, cream) in cooking, and plant based is not it for cooking.
Iām a pretty devout meat eater, I will 10000% give up eating meat before giving up dairy. Also, fwiw, we do need to eat less meat and use fewer animal products, but lets not gaslight ourselves about it.
There are plant milks and creams for cooking purposes. As for the taste, if you feel plant milks have overpowering taste, you can mix multiple different types. For example, when we have made white sauce for lasagna, we use soy-, oat- and almond milk.
I havenāt used dairy in a long time, so I canāt think of anything where plant based products couldnāt be used as a reasonable replacement (apart from cheese, there the options are severely lacking)
Can you make cheese out of almond milk? If Iām doing my math right, 75% of milk is made into cheese.
I havenāt had a glass of milk in years. It kinda grosses me out, but I love some cheese. But Iām doing my small part in not buying gallons of milk.
I actually did a informal survey at work when I was buying milk. Out of 40 people, only two have bought milk (like whole or skim) in the past year. Some did milk alternatives. Some bought half and half. But very little did pure milk.
Not sure who the milk drinkers are.
Kids.
I go through just under a gallon a day between myself and four roommates
Thatās how our household was when the kids were little, 1 to 1.5 gallons a day. Now that theyāve moved out itās more like a gallon a month.
Milk is delicious though! Iām 27 and still plow through it, haha
It is! I enjoy it, but Iāve mostly cut it out, along with a bunch of other foods, just to keep my calorie intake down. I try to only use it where I see it as a necessary component, like when making lattes or on breakfast cereal. Where in the past I might grab a giant glass of milk I now substitute water. Except with brownies, obviously.
I cook with it a lot.
Cooking with milk is messy and time consuming.
I use an electric stove top instead.
Me. I am a bit into baking, have young children, and add milk to my coffee.
I guess about a large container a week.
Most recipes can easily use plant-based milks instead of dairy milk. And barista versions of plant-based milks taste awesome in beverages like coffee. Just putting it out there.
Edit: Just made amazing vegan waffles that needed 250ml of milk. Oat milk is super affordable and tastes pretty much the same to me and has the same properties in the ābakingā process as regular milk would.
I will try again. I subbed out vegetable shortening for butter and it was little impact. The less I speak of trying soymilk in bread the better.
It didnāt work well for me with rice milk, Iāll try oat next time !
I drink both plant-based dairy substitutes and milk (well, buttermilk because Iām lactose intolerant).
This helps explain the dairy industryās silly lawsuits about what exactly may be called āmilkā on store shelves. Weāll ignore the fact that plant-based milks, being referred to as milks, have been around for centuries.
Currently I buy it cause I have young kids, but my wife and I drink oat/almond. Kids are picky about plant milk
Can you make cheese out of almond milk? If Iām doing my math right, 75% of milk is made into cheese.
