Like an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population, I don’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 didn’t have to ask—or pay extra—for a milk alternative. Since 2022, the once Oakland-based, now Nestlé-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, aren’t just good for the lactose intolerant: They’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 milk—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, they’re often more expensive. Walk into any Starbucks, and you’ll likely pay around 70 cents extra for nondairy options.
. Dairy’s affordability edge, explains María Mascaraque, an analyst at market research firm Euromonitor International, relies on the industry’s ability to produce “at larger volumes, which drives down the cost per carton.” American demand for milk alternatives, though expected to grow by 10 percent a year through 2030, can’t beat those economies of scale. (Globally, alt-milks aren’t new on the scene—coconut milk is even mentioned in the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata, which is thousands of years old.)
What else contributes to cow milk’s dominance? Dairy farmers are “political favorites,” says Daniel Sumner, a University of California, Davis, agricultural economist. In addition to support like the “Dairy Checkoff,” a joint government-industry program to promote milk products (including the “Got Milk?” campaign), they’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 guidelines—and why it has featured content, such as a 2013 article by then–Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, trumpeting the dairy industry as “leading the way in sustainable innovation.”
But the USDA doesn’t directly support plant-based milk. It does subsidize some alt-milk ingredients—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 “strategy for growth is advertisement and promotion and publicity,” which isn’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. “Market-level conditions allow us to move more quickly” than other companies, a spokesperson for the coffee giant told me, but didn’t say if or when the price drop would happen elsewhere.
In the United States, meanwhile, it’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 “price isn’t the main thing” for their buyers—as long as enough privileged consumers will pay up, alt-milk can fill a premium niche. But it’s going to take a bigger market than that to make real progress in curbing emissions from food.
Because most plant juice tastes like shit and has the wrong mouth-feel for most things we use cow milk for. Its not rocket surgery.
Spot on. People are out here trying to play like almond, oat, soy and every other milk substitute is exactly the same as dairy based milk, it’s not and will not ever be, they’re different products
Also pretending that people swapping from dairy to alternate milks will somehow impact the looming climate crisis is also pretty disingenuous
If we all went vegan we’d reduce food based emissions by 70%, which is 15% of the entire planets GHG emissions. Not to mention recovering 75% of farm land.
It really is a no brainer if you want to make a difference. And if I, “a rural New Zealander who grew up on a dairy farm who said he’d never eat a vegetarian meal in his life” can convert to veganism based on the logic of it, surely anyone could.
Do we really need to recover farmland, though? At least in the US, we have way more than enough to go around. And there’s like 19 people in New Zealand, y’all don’t need the space. :P
there is no reason to think farmland would be “recovered” or converted to any less- environmentally destructive use.
I’m not vegan or even vegetarian, so I feel pretty impartial on this. My partner uses oat milk for their coffee, and over the years I just got used to using it straight, or in cereals, etc. Now I greatly prefer it. It’s just “milk” for me now.
Never thought it would happen, but getting cow milk when I’m out feels off - that mouth-feel you mention; just doesn’t sit right anymore. It really is an acquired taste.
Right there with you. I’ve been living the plant milk life for years at this point and cow milk just tastes so… water-y for lack of a better explanation.
My wife says she can “taste the cow” in the milk, in the same way she could “taste the goat” in goat milk before moving to plant based milks.
I know exactly what she means though, it’s a weird aftertaste that tastes ‘wild’ in the same way you can differentiate wild game from beef or pork.
However, it seems only people who have been off cow milk for a while can identify this element.
How is it better for us? Most plant milks have no protein in them or a fraction of the protein of real milk. Not to mention plant milk often doesn’t taste great. Oat milk is the only one I find acceptable and even then I don’t prefer it to real milk.
Also, there are other dairy products like yogurt and cheese that you need real milk for.
Dairy milk is gross. I stopped drinking it nearly 15 years ago. I wasn’t vegan or vegetarian at the time. It just tasted awful. I still would eat cheese than, but as a drink, dairy milk is plain awful. It’s also terribly inefficient. It’s not shelf stable. It has a short lifespan. It requires a lot of water and energy per cup than many others.
Do plant-based milks taste exactly like milk? No. But they don’t have to.
And how is it better for us? Considering a majority of the world can’t digest it is a big sign as to why plant based is better. Soy isn’t the only option. There’s almond, pea, banana, cashew and coconut to name a few.
It’s not shelf stable. It has a short lifespan.
Ultra-pasteurized milk has a remarkable shelf life, even when unrefrigerated.
And how is it better for us? Considering a majority of the world can’t digest it is a big sign as to why plant based is better.
Your argument becomes a non-sequitur when extended to people who are lactose tolerant. The mere existence or ubiquity of lactose intolerance does not entail that milk is bad for the lactose tolerant. Perhaps plant substitutes to cow milk are better for even the lactose tolerant, but lactose intolerance is completely irrelevant to the minority of us such as myself who produce sufficient enzymes to digest lactose without any difficulty whatsoever.
Sorry, didn’t realize the world revolves around the extreme minority when discussing what’s good for the human race as a whole.
You’re right. How could anyone ever make any argument against anecdotal case by case stories. Obviously the entire collected data on human nutrition is useless as a whole because it doesn’t apply to small percentages of the population. Oh silly me and not understanding that general concepts aren’t important.
Dairy milk is gross.
as a drink, dairy milk is plain awful.
I mean, you have to realize that this is strictly subjective, no? One could just as easily say that oat milk is gross and plain awful. I’d disagree - I think it’s great - but “it’s icky” is not a useful argument, speaking as someone who mostly buys oat milk nowadays.
We get most of our protein from sources other than milk. Humans are the only animal that continues to drink milk past weaning and the only animal that drinks milk from another animal and only a minority does it…
So… how does the majority of humans survive without drinking milk?
Humans are the only animal that continues to drink milk past weaning and the only animal that drinks milk from another animal
objectively false
Just because you were breast-fed until past middle school, doesn’t mean it’s true for the rest of us.
I guess that the soy yogurt I had for breakfast and the vegan mozzarella that I had on my lasagna for dinner last night were all just in my imagination.
Not everyone is able to handle soy, there is no solution for every person.
As an avid consumer of yogurt, what you consumed isn’t yogurt.
what you consumed isn’t yogurt.
Considering yogurt was just a made up word at some point, I have no problem with words evolving over time like literally every other word in our language.
Yogurt is about the end-product. It’s like calling only some things bread because they have extra ingredients or don’t use the same grains that ancient societies used to make the original bread.
Not being able to handle soy?
Is baked chicken too spicy for you? Hahahaha 😂😂
I bet you can’t even throw a baseball, dude just puts it on the ground and walks home to his couch.
you don’t need breast milk for yoghurt and cheese.
I make both myself, my soy yoghurt tastes very similar to Greek yoghurt and works very well in curries etc. It’s not just the flavour, it’s fermented.
My blue and white cheeses are awesome, I serve them to people who thank me for buying them “real” cheese (something I would never do lmao). Again they’re properly cultured, you just need to mix protein and fat sources in similar ratios to the target cheese. you can even use peas as the base for surprisingly tasty but weirdly green cheese.
Can you recommend any resources for the yoghurt and cheese that you make yourself?
So the yoghurt just start by making your own soy milk. Any old recipe will do, store bought is generally too low protein to set. You can set it with gelling agents lile tapioca starch but I’m not really into cooking that way personally.
So make your milk, add a yoghurt culture (unfortunately starting one it’s unlikely you’ll be able to find vegan culture. I just started with the dregs of a neighbour’s Greek yoghurt. Probs gonna be excommunicated for that. Whatever you do keep a separe culture healthy so you don’t have to buy more), pop it somewhere warm (low temp oven, ~30 degrees iirc), leave it for 12 hours.
Your first results will be all over the shop, you’ll need to find an amount of water for the soybeans you get that doesn’t basically just make silken tofu. That’ll depend on specifically how mature they are etc so you’ll have to experiment with your local source. It’ll taste very tofu-y till you add salt (since it basically is sour tofu). Enjoy!
Cheeses umm: cashewbert is an EU store with vegan cultures, no ethical quandary there. This lady is a good place to start https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxMAl_LiSUU
Umm if using coconut oil use the descented stuff. soap makers often have food safe descented for sale. Otherwise it’ll taste like coconut. I prefer macadamia oil.
for new styles start by looking at protein and fat ratios for the animal milk version and copying them. I hate to plug reddit but the vegan cheese making sub there is great.
As with all ferments cleanliness! cleanliness! cleanliness!
Because things that aren’t milk taste like flavored water, and not…you know…milk…
I hate to break this simple truth to you, but that’s the whole reason why. Milk simply tastes better, and is a superior product to alt-milk.
You’re getting downvoted but you’re right. I think some people just like their milk to taste like coconut or something.
They’re not getting downvotes for saying they don’t taste the same. They’re getting downvoted for speaking an entirely subjective opinion as some hard truth.
It is a hard truth. If it wasn’t a hard truth, it wouldn’t be the way it is.
Guess I uploaded it badly. It’s a Big Lebowski gif of the line, “well, that’s just like, your opinion, man”
The milk solids weaken the connections between the gluten proteins to create a softer bread. It’s also what is responsible for the browning that is characteristic of bread. It also helps activate other leaveners and is what helps keep bread moist. So…a little bit more than that.
And that’s just bread… do I need to go further?
The propaganda for milk (that’s 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 “what are you non-smokers complaining about? It’s not that bad, etc…” pre-90s. Then, finally most indoor smoking got banned, even in bars. Then the fight moved to “but second hand smoke is not that bad, etc…”
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 cycle…with the same efforts to distract and distort - even with a crisis of many related chronic diseases - see the “but almonds use so much water!” 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 “food” and “nutrition” 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.
I know you are joking but with how dairy lobbies get subsidies from the gov they kind of are making their own demand.
Idk if it’s delicious. It’s good. Baileys is delicious. Hot chocolate is delicious. A cold glass of milk? Can’t say that craving comes up for me all that often.
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.
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. You’re not comparing apples to apples.
I mean, you could say that we shouldn’t be wasting resources on animal agriculture anywhere, but especially in the same places that don’t have enough water for crops.
Feeding food and giving water to other “food” 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 it’s 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.
Exactly… Ughh I still fail to understand why almond milk is popular among vegans. It’s very expensive and doesn’t even taste that nice…
