Not trynna be the token vegan/health nut - just wanted to share:
I fuck with oatmilk- it’s pretty fuckin good for what it is and it’s bomb in some cereal. Don’t gotta cut out milk but maybe instead of 2 gallons you do one of each or somethin idk
The problem is that dairy subsides make cow milk less expensive than it should be. Those subsidies should be reallocated to environmentally-friendly alternatives. The average shopper at the store is going to look at the price tags and pick the one that’s like half the cost.
I am also simultaneously asking myself if prices for oatmilk are fair. Where I live the cheapest option is 1€ for a liter. But if you ever made oatmilk by yourself, you know how cheap it is do do it at home. I know I’m just lazy as f*, so I am not doing it and therefore should not rant. But I am really curious what’s behind this pricing, other than higher tax than on milk.
Logistics. It’s just oat water but it comes from far away. Just make it yourself.
You would make your own oatmeal, right? Who tf would buy premade oatmeal with the water already in it? If a few people start doing it themselves, they will drop the price of the ready-made stuff.
I’ve done this before and it is very simple, but you do need a blender. It works in a pinch but I’d much rather just buy a carton of it.
The problem I’ve found is that it’s very tricky to filter properly. If you don’t filter it at all then you end up with a grainy product, but it’s far too thick to go through something like a coffee filter without clogging it up so you need to use cheesecloth.
Another problem is storage. Making it in small quantities as you need it is fine as long as you’re ok with it being room temperature, but if you want to make enough to keep in the fridge then the oats are going to begin to separate from the water almost immediately unless you add an emulsifier.
There’s a couple reasons behind this:
- Economies of scale. Oatmilk is not nearly as big of a market and therefore tends to be more expensive per gallon
- Dairy subsidies. Dairy farmers can be pretty heavily subsidized, depending on the country, making the milk artificially cheap
- Marketing. Oatmilk is mostly consumed by upper middle class (sub)urban folks who have enough disposable income to worry about things like animal welfare and the environment, and thus are willing to pay a premium for eco-friendly products. Companies know this so a lot of oatmilk is positioned and priced as a premium product.
In a way it’s sort of disgusting that capitalism is exploiting your desire to save the planet for extra profits, however that’s how it is generally designed to operate: nothing happens unless there is a profit to be made from it.
Yeah that’s always the tricky bit with making “change” - not everybody can afford it, but those who can should keep that in mind and maybe bump a bit more for those who can’t
The fact that people are waving this hard for oatmilk, shows me that there must be a genetical component of people, who can’t taste certain elements of oatmilk. For me it it tastes watery, like even below 1,5% fat and it smells unpleasant, with a subtile kind of moldy/rotten in it. I drink about a liter of milk every day and I would not want that even in my coffee, let alone pure or in my cornflakes.
This shouldn’t mean people shouldn’t try or even like oatmilk, but it’s no replacement for me, not even close.
Drinking a litre of milk every day can’t be healthy. It causes osteoporosis and can raise your cholesterol levels.
https://iphysio.io/osteoporosis/
Do as you want but for everyone reading this thread, I thought it was a good resource to add. And also keep in mind, the animal agriculture lobby is huge and they publish biased counter studies with questionable methods.
The osteoporosis thing has mostly be debunked. It’s old women who can be effected by it, most everyone else isn’t. Of course living vegan can be healthier if you get your blood levels checked regularly and take supplements, but most of the food tastes worse too. It depends on what’s more important to you personally. The linked article’s study, to me, is compromised, they even admit it themselves by acknowledging it’s more a general animal protein thing.
I think a lot of people who switch to non-dairy milk never really liked to drink milk in the first place. It was easy for them to switch. I had to cut dairy when I had a baby with a milk allergy and it was so hard. None of the milk alternatives taste anything like cow milk. I hated all of them. Vegan cheese is pretty terrible, too. Even the most expensive fancy cashew ones taste significantly worse than the cheapest cow milk cheese. I did like Daiya’s smoked gouda and nutritional yeast is pretty good, but other than that I was so glad to have cow milk back in my diet after a year of being dairy-free. I like meat alternatives but dairy alternatives are just bad. I hope science figures it out.
That baby with the dairy allergy outgrew the allergy but still prefers oat milk.
For the record I grew up drinking 2-3 glasses of whole milk a day. Your conclusion may be logical, but I don’t think that means it represents the populace by any means just because it makes sense.
I like meat alternatives but dairy alternatives are just bad.
This so much.
That’s quite a logic leap there if I’m being honest.
I grey up drinking whole milk and having 2-3 glasses a day, I love milk.
I buy the purple Silk brand that has the extra protein in it (red ribbon printed on the carton) and I’m telling you it’s gas in cereal. By itself, it’s still not whole milk - don’t get me wrong, it’s just 30x less watery than almond milk was but maybe the protein one is thicker or something idk.
I’m hoping they sell this good stuff here too at some point. I haven’t stopped trying to find an alternative, I too would like to reduce animal suffering.
I find it really depends on the brand. I have no idea what the differences really are (or even how it’s made in the first place) but in my experience around half are as you describe and half are delicious
Smell and taste seems to very a lot between people. I’m not even surprised.
I love oat milk, personally.
Just look out that oat is a carb. If you’re having oat milk with cereal then you’re having carb with carb.
This is another straw on the camels back to svrewing up your sugar levels and potentially giving you diabetes.
I’m no super healthy guy, but a friend of mine had this issue where they were on the high glucose side due to their diet, this was one of the things they needed to cut out.
Almond milk I think was the better alternative.
Almond milk I think was the better alternative.
Almond milk also requires 6x as much water to produce than oat milk. Almonds in general are a very high water usage crop.
It does still use less water than cow milk though, so if someone switches from cow milk to almond milk then it’s still a net improvement in terms of water usage
True but the cow is also used for things like beef once slaughtered. A nut on the other hand is simply used up after being harvested.
A lot of the cow water figures get complicated quickly as well since various calculations either include or ignore indirect water usage. Things like water usage for their feed. Or whether the water usage is counting across an entire cows average lifespan, including slaughter and all byproducts, or just the water usage while the cow is producing milk.
This makes it hard to directly compare to something more simple like growing a nut or oats where the end product is essentially singular. There are a lot of variables to consider when trying to compare to a product from a farmed animal.
The more steps of complexity there are in the system the less efficient it is, this seems incredibly obvious to me? Turning plants into cow flesh is less efficient than just eating plants.
I mean, if oat milk is going to make you less healthy, why are we concerned about the water usage if it’s still a better alternative to cows milk on both counts?
There’s no industrial water usage in sticks I find when out walking. That doesn’t mean I’m going to put them in my cereal (intentional hyperbole to make the point).
A lot of nuts are very high water usage crops. It’s a gallon per almond but almost five for a walnut.
That’s also the case for animal milk. And compared to what’s in the average cereal you can forget about the oat milk. Just take a little bit less of your cereal (and maybe add a bit of nuts/seeds) and you should be good to go.
What’s also the case for animal milk sorry?
Both contain carbs and mixed with cereal you’re eating carbs with carbs 🙂
Man, nut milks (hah) and oat milk are fantastic. I’m not vegan, but I absolutely support reducing the animal products you consume. Milk is a big deal for me, and while they don’t always quite satisfy in the same way, animal milk alternatives are pretty awesome.
I agree. Oatmilk is my go to, especially if I’m mixing it with something. I find the flavors blend better
Personally I prefer soy milk since it generally requires the least resources and also has the highest amount of bioavailable protein.
Oat is pretty good though.
I didn’t like soy milk at all when I was younger (like a teenager). It had a weird aftertaste and texture. I don’t know if it has changed since then or not, but now I also find it generally the tastiest.
I also use organic soy milk (since it is usually the only type that doesn’t have gums or other ingredients…just soybeans and water) to make really simple plain yogurt too. I just break open a probiotic capsule or two into a 1qt tetrapak bottle, shake it up really good, divy up into 1c mason jars, and run the Instant Pot Yogurt setting for 15-16 hours.
That yogurt gets made into parfaits or overnight oats (with some date syrup if I can’t find it…or just maple syrup to sweeten). Sometimes I’ll even make a really good soft serve frozen yogurt (mix 1 part sugar to 4 parts yogurt, freeze 6+ hours, put it in a good blender, add fruit or vanilla or cocoa (or all!) as desired.
Mmm I sorta agree with you but soy milk and soy plantations in general (or whatever the proper name is for a farm of soybeans) definitely contribute to deforestation it takes a lot of land to turn out enough product
Here’s a quick mention in a posting I found - I’m sure there are some studies out there if you’re interested
https://bastyr.edu/about/news/which-milk-alternative-most-eco-friendly
The deforestation is to grow soy to feed cows to make milk and beef.
Kinda frustrating when the environmental alternative to dairy milk…is being planted in the former Amazon Rainforest to make dairy milk.
almost all soy, including what is grown in the region formerly occupied by the amazon, is pressed for oil for human use, only about 7% of it is fed directly to animals. after processing the soy forhuman use, the waste product is what is given to animals, and cows get only a fraction of the soy. most of the soy fed to animals goes to poultry and swine.
That’s off by an order of magnitude. It’s not 7%, it’s 77%
But, only a small percentage of global soy is used for these products. More than three-quarters (77%) of soy is used as feed for livestock.
https://ourworldindata.org/soy#more-than-three-quarters-of-global-soy-is-fed-to-animals
When we look at the most common extraction method for soybean oil (using hexane solvents), soybean meal for animal feed (not oil) is the driver of demand
However, soybean meal is the main driving force for soybean oil production due to its significant amount of productivity and revenues
[…]
soybean meal and hulls contribute to over 60% of total revenues, with meal taking the largest portion of over 59% of total revenue
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0926669017305010
This is even more true of other methods like expelling which is still somewhat commonly used
Moreover, soybean meal is the driving force for the whole process [expelling oil from soy] because it provides over 70% of the total revenue for soy processing by expelling
your five-year-old study might seem to be relevant on the surface, but you will find that the data sources for, for instance, biodiesel prices date to 1999. it is not ph.d. level research. i would expect something of this caliber from a rigorous high school.
your seven-year-old research about soy markets is outdated. while the oil has always been worth far more than its weight in the bean, it is now around 50/50, even though beans are only about 20% oil.
i’m so glad you found the OWID link. do you see how the chart shows the vast majority of what is fed to animals is called “soy meal” or “soy cake”? that’s the byproduct of pressing soybeans for oil. they literally eat our industrial waste. down at the bottom of the chart you can see the 7% that is fed directly to animals
Byproduct that accounts for the majority of the revenue? That’s hardly a byproduct?
7%, is feeding of entire soybeans
Can’t opt out of capitalism while living under it imo. Especially when it’s as systemic as it is. Not opting for any other governing style or economy really - I’m pretty ignorant on alternatives besides traditonal bartering. I just think it’s pretty obvious to anyone under the boot that this isn’t working.
I’d say the best course would be to beat them at their own game and rewrite the rules yourself I guess
Not at all, pump the f— out of that sh–, it’s pretty cheap to manufacture and once economies of scale take over it will become way cheaper.
i went vegetarian a few months ago and ive been losing weight and muscle like crazy. i haven’t figured out how to maintain it. everything tastes good though
It’s really tough. There’s a lot we’re still learning about the gut and nutrient absorption- but as long as we protect science, we can expect improvements.
The work with gene editing and growing meats and whatnot has been a long time coming - stay optimistic, stay curious! ❤️
Adjust your diet. Add pea or soy protein powder if you need to and make sure you’re eating a lot of beans and tofu and tempeh. Most likely losing muscle is due to protein deficiency so that’s your answer.
i am still downing multiple whey protein shakes with cows milk. i haven’t even gone non-dairy yet
Oh well then keep doing that unless the article got to you and you want to eliminate dairy lol
i would like to. I am working out one variable at a time
That’s not worldnews. US farms wouldn’t be legal in EU. Most EU farms wouldn’t be legal here (Swiss). California is not the world.
The US is the 2nd largest milk producer on the planet…and that’s only IF you count the EU as a single entity. Otherwise, it’s 1st. Also, the largest economy on the planet. Things that happen in America matter elsewhere.
While that may be true, the title and article act as if the US is the world, as if “the most humane dairy farms” in the US are the most humane dairy farms in the world, which is clearly not even remotely close to the truth.
It might be the 2nd largest milk producing country, but they couldn’t sell the milk in the EU due to the unethical and unhygienic way it’s produced. That’s OP’s point
I’m pissed off that when I move out of the USA because it’s turned into a fucking nightmare, I’ll still be affected by things happening in the USA. The outsized effect that it has makes me mad.
Was thinking “Oh shit now I have to become vegan”, but the article is paywalled so I didn’t have to go on the guilt trip.
Archive link because paywall
I haven’t seen any mentions of soy milk in this thread. I have it unsweetened with some fruit Müsli and even in coffee/tea and I’m good to go
My personal opinion is that soy milk tastes like grass… I’ve tried it in coffee, alone, on cereal, but I just can’t avoid feeling like someone dumped a handful of freshly cut grass in…
Almond is pretty good on it’s own, but in coffee it tastes like marzipan… It’s not bad, but not the taste I want in my coffee.
Oat is what tastes most like cow’s milk to me.
I second oat milk. Not watery like soy or almond milk. The other problem with almond milk is the insane amount of water that it takes to grow almonds.
Huh, yeah, it totally does taste like grass. Kinda.
I still drink it tho 💪
Also it’s way thicker than oat and almond milk.
And contains more protein. Generally I’d say the best option, no clue why people are so hung up on oat specifically.
I agree. I really like soy milk and was always so confused by the hype for new alternatives—not confused that people might like something else, mind you, just confused at the overall hype, to the extent that people forget soy exists and is better at many of the things the newer alternatives lack. Protein content and water usage being chief among them.
Soy milk has a more distinct flavor imo - not as sweet either
Also soy is spooooooky~
You can buy various flavors, though? Just like any other types of alt milks, there’s kinds that are sweetened and made to taste like vanilla, or kind that’s just sweetened, or chocolate soy, or unsweetened
Oh yeah, I always get unflavored tho because I use it for making pea protein shakes for my Huge Factory Labor Muscles
Lmao, fair enough. Gotta eat big to get big 💪
Sorry that’s false. Less protein than cows milk.
It should be abundantly clear that the comparison was with oat milk…
I find that soy milk tastes thinner and more watery than oat milk.
What funny soy milk are you drinking? It tastes distinct, for sure, rather than being sweetish like oat or almond milk. But in terms of viscosity soy milk has them beat.
I don’t know, whatever soy milk Costco sells in Canada.
I’m partial to oat milk myself. Vanilla unsweetened is refreshing.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it: in order to extract milk you must r— the cow and then kill its baby, then if you don’t milk them, they die.
The treatment of animals is so bad that b-------ty laws have literally failed to pass because they would have criminalized the whole industry, and that’s not even to mention the times when people who call out overt, malicious abuse suffer more consequences than the ones doing it.
Basically; the sooner we shut the system down the better. It’s unsustainable and only being held together by subsidies anyway.
From personal observation, non-meat farm animals are lean, sinewy and taste like shit. I’m not actually sure what they do with the calves but it’s not growing them as normal meat cows.Also, how does eating the corpse make killing more (or less) okay?I didn’t bring up the morality of eating meat because it’s tangential to this conversation.
I replied to the wrong person, oops. Sorry!
It happens 😄
I’m not actually sure what they do with the calves but it’s not growing them as normal meat cows.
They raise them for a little bit and then slaughter them and sell it as veal.
…milk isn’t even necessary for us after we are no longer toddlers…wtf? I know it’s necessary for desserts but are people really drinking milk voluntarily in their daily lives as adults or teenagers?
Yeah who needs checks notes. The cheapest source of great macro vitamins in the store???
You fucking anti milk clowns are so fucking stupid.
Milk is a super food that is only supplanted IMHO by kefir. That shit is incredible.
I get both my whole milk and kefir from local farms. One is in town, and the other is only about 15 miles away. It’s the freshest, most delicious milk I’ve ever had and I can hardly stomach the store bought stuff anymore.
Imagine drinking milk from something that can’t consent smdh 😞
This one is going down in the “shit takes of the century” list
Decade ;)
Get a load of Captain Breaky Bones over here!
Do Americans get weak bones if they don’t get milk?
I wouldn’t know, I’m not American.
Neither am I and I didn’t get brittle bones after I stopped drinking milk. I just ate normal balanced meals. Getting weak bones after ditching milk might be an american skill issue
Gettin awful defensive there. Must be calcium deficiency.
eat spinach
While spinach does contain a lot of calcium. It also contains several enzymes that make the uptake of that calcium from spinach difficult.
I’m a vegetarian so it’s a quick way to get calories/protein.
Humane meat and dairy is yuppie bullshit.
Why is it bullshit to not want your food to cause unnecessary suffering? If I have the choice of eating a burger from a cow that suffered it’s whole life or one that was treated well, why would I not choose less suffering?
Oh! You’re one of those who things we should all be vegan…not gonna happen for so so many reasons, so why not compromise and reduce suffering in the world?
Life eats life, that’s how it works. Organisms evolved to eat meat are not inherently inhumane for following their biological imperative. Our factory farming system IS inhumane in that it causes unnecessary suffering, but that’s a result of the scale of operations and our economic system.
The acidity of our stomach alone is clear evidence we are evolved to eat meat, combine that with our need for B12, our teeth, length of intestines relative to other herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores puts the nail in the coffin for the idea that we are not meant to eat meat.
The acidity of our stomach alone is clear evidence we are evolved to eat meat, combine that with our need for B12, our teeth, length of intestines relative to other herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores puts the nail in the coffin for the idea that we are not meant to eat meat.
You wear shoes, statistically you probably wear glasses or contacts, all of us have back problems as we ags the idea that we should do what our body evolved to is honestly kinda ludicrous. I mean heck, we are talking through wifi, wires and electricity. We both drive a car to get food through major distribution chains. Nothing in our lives is natural.
Take some damn b12 supplements, the overwhelming majority of people, vegans and carnist alike, have a deficiency anyways.
Life eats life, that’s how it works.
Yeah, but beans don’t have a brain, nerve endings or a nervous system. Sure they are alive, but it’s intellectual dishonest to think that a pigs and beans interact with the world in the same way. So yes, life eats life, but my life sustaining food doesn’t feel pain. It has for over a decade now.
Like, I feel you should read the article? The idea that you can kill something ethically is cognitive dissonance.
Yeah, but beans don’t have a brain, nerve endings or a nervous system. Sure they are alive, but it’s intellectual dishonest to think that a pigs and beans interact with the world in the same way. So yes, life eats life, but my life sustaining food doesn’t feel pain. It has for over a decade now.
Ever heard of these things called “cats”? They eat things with brains and nerve endings.
Tell me friend, do you also 💩 in a box?
Cats have no sense of morality, civilization, empathy, or agriculture. Our understanding of the world is greater and thus so is our responsibility to act more intelligently. I can’t have a discussion with a cat, but you aren’t a cat so it’s asinine to use them as a metric on rational behavior.
Our understanding of the world is greater and thus so is our responsibility to act more intelligently
Agree, I just don’t think expecting all or even most of the human population to become vegan is a practical reality in the near future, so let’s try to reduce suffering in ways that are more likely to happen such as consuming fewer animal products and being less cruel when we do. For those that are willing and able to be vegan that’s great, but humans driven to eat meat and without extremely strict enforcement global veganism is a fantasy. That’s like expecting the world to go without sex, reasons don’t matter, not gonna happen.
but humans driven to eat meat and without extremely strict enforcement global veganism is a fantasy.
I never said anything of the sort. Right from the start you’ve assumed a lot about me, I left a one sentance reply to an article I agreed with and you’ve built a straw version of me to argue with your over the top talking points. Stop putting words in my mouth because I agree that it’s not realistic of feasebile for humanity to go off meat in either of our lifetimes.
What I am saying is that calling meat “humane” is an inherent contradiction and just a marketing term so people can feel better about their choice to eat meat. Just as “free range” or “cage free” chickens absolutely still live their lives in appaling conditions. It’s whitewashing away treating life as a commodity.
Which is yuppie bullshit.
I never said anything of the sort. Right from the start you’ve assumed a lot about me
You’re right I did, I’ve talked to many people and get nearly identical responses often and I assumed this of you, sorry.
What I am saying is that calling meat “humane” is an inherent contradiction
Ok, that makes sense. Life is inherently not “humane”, even when a lion hunts and eats it’s hard to call that “humane”.
so people can feel better about their choice to eat meat
Why should people feel bad about eating what their body has evolved to eat? Feel bad about participating in a disgusting capitalist animal agriculture sure, but not about following biological imperatives we all have.
. It’s whitewashing away treating life as a commodity
Yep, that’s capitalism and the scale of humanity that’s the problem, not people eating what our bodies are meant to.
I tried hard to switch to almond/oat milk but the crazy thing is that it expires much more quickly than whole milk. So it was defeating the purpose because I wasn’t drinking it fast enough and ended up wasting a ton of it. Wish they’d make them in smaller jugs or whatever.
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FYI that’s not a half gallon. Most oat milk cartons are less than 64 oz. The only one I found to be a true half gallon is the walmart GV brand.
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I thought the same but once you open the carton it’s 7 days from the date you open it. At least that was the case with almond milk. I thought they lasted a lot longer especially since they are shelf stable etc. I had a ton of black mold on and around the rim of my almond milk well before the expiration date and that is because I’m fine print it says date of expiration is 7 days after opening.
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Makes sense. I do tend toward the sweetened ones. Appreciate the insight.
I’m genuinely confused by this statement. Plant based milk lasts SUBSTANTIALITY longer than cows milk. I can leave it in my fridge for weeks, maybe a month and its still good. I legit have not ever looked at an expiry date since switching to soy milk.
That’s not even to mention that you can buy them in unrefrigerated, shelf stable cartons. It’s longer lasting in every imaginable way.
They expire 7 days from the date you open the carton. Atleast for almond milk and I’m fairly certain that applies to oat milk as well. I thought the same as you. But one bad experience is all you need.
It depends on how much sugar is in it. Shelf stable soy milk lasts a long time in my experience. ‘Silk’ goes off in a couple weeks tho
Yes, it was the vanilla silk milk. Noted, thank you!
Yes, it was the vanilla silk milk. Noted, thank you!
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My family makes almond milk with our blender. It’s actually quite easy and not as expensive as buying the carton or gallon. It’s really just almonds and water (and salt or vanilla if you’re into other flavors).
Interesting I will have to try this!
Don’t know where you are from but here there’s a brand called Earth’s Own that makes a Barista Oat Milk which is my favorite. The box is around 900ml and it is the best tasting oat milk I’ve ever had and it is also made to steam well when making drinks.
Reminded me of Raw Milk.
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