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.
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, it’s just a matter of whether it’s 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. That’s 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. I’m also on board with UBI. Hell, I’m even a vegan that isn’t 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 can’t change overnight, but that doesn’t 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 “future” humans instead of the current ones so they so keep supporting it and making it someone else’s problem.
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Ok, leave a note behind to explain to your children’s family why they’re in extreme poverty because some folks didn’t want to gradually remove a subsidy in a controlled fashion. Again. You’re just punishing more future people. But I guess since you don’t have to meet them, you’re 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 don’t 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 that’s 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 pop… one will never happen during our life, one has a chance to).
“It’s not a good time right now” - 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.
Sorry, but that’s 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 isn’t people being replaced by robots, it’s cows being replaced by plants. You still need pretty much the same workforce to package and distribute it regardless.
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.
It’s not as if Democrats don’t also throw plenty of bones to farmers.
Even if the farmers themselves are likely to be relatively conservative, they’re such a politically sympathetic group that no one wants to be seen as “going after hard-working real American farmers!”. Things like the Iowa caucuses playing a huge role in national politics don’t help either (although the Dems have thankfully killed that).
It’s more of a matter of if food gets more expensive you’re more likely to be voted out of office
One thing nobody has commented on - how that article slips in a seemingly positive mention of Nestlé (they own the cafe that uses plant milks). That raised my eyebrows.
I’m beginning to notice a handful of company ties to “make perfect the enemy of good” takes like this.
It’s enough to drive one to schizophrenia. Everything is a hidden message
C̵̡̢̡̢̙̰̻̘̠͎̟͖̯̉͐̉̊̓̎̽͂͆̈̄̔͊͊̃̔̈́́̂̑̿̐̈́͑͛̆̾̈́́͘̚̕͝͝ơ̴̢̧̨̢̟̳̜͙̝͚̟̞͖̞̲͙͍̠͎̞̫͙̮̦̥̯̹̟̦̘̮̖͛͋̏̂̈́̽̓͊͂̃̀̒́͒̏͛̓̐̅́̽͛̇͆̀̽̋͋̋̈́̍́̓͑̚̕͝ͅn̸̡̧̨̛̛̛͍̺̤͎̮͕̟͇̞̙̞̯̤̭̠̥̰̹͍̮͍͙̫̮͉̫̻͖̜̭̦̱͚͎͖͖͓̹̽͛̊̂̓̿̄̏̊̀̀͌̓̽̏͂̒̂̌̄̄̀̊̆̏͑̈́̊̊͌͒͗̀̎̈́̚̕͝͝͠s̴̡͔̗͖̝͖̫̩̲̗̪̤̯̳̼̲̼̈́́̅̇̿̀̎͗́͗͒̀̿̌̎͐͛̆͗͆̿̓̈͗͌̌͒͒́̚̕̚̚͝ṵ̸̢̥̭͎͍̲̟͍̹͙̱̦̤̮̜̖͕̪̱̼̞̜̖̹̥̜͍̝̑̄̆̍̉͒̍̌̅̏̌̊̇͑̄̂̇͌́̿̈́̾͂̏̒͛̐̐̉̏̕̕̚̚͜͜͝͠͝͝ͅͅͅm̵̡̡̨̻̱̹̙̭͚͔̣̘͎̬̖̝̲͈̦̱͓̤̤̲̲̫̫̩͔̮̻̂͋̄̀͐̀̔̿̊̾̋͐̃͆̕̕͜ͅe̸̢̡͇̤͔͈̮̥͓̙͓̻͙̹̦͔̼͔͛̉́̇ͅͅ
Always follow the money. Nobody does journalism for free.
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 aren’t 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.
The bigger catch is that 70% of all crops we grow go to our livestock.
We wouldn’t need to use those lands if we just ate less meat.
The bigger catch is that 70% of all crops we grow go to our livestock.
this isn’t true
Livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land, while supplying only 18% of calories and 37% of protein.
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But we don’t need to use all that land. Plant-based diets use 70% less land, including 22% less crop land.
I don’t want it gone but I don’t want it subsidized. I’m not planning on being vegan but I’m cutting out a ton of animal protein from my life. I make it a special thing.
So you’re saying almond milk drinkers could end up going to hell someday?
/s -The Good Place reference
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…
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 I’ve tried is from Joya, but I haven’t 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 I’ve 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 isn’t really just soy milk. There are so much stuff added to it. It’s 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 (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.
People hawk on manufactured consent until it’s inconvenient to the point
it’s true! did you just discover bernays?
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no. Edward Bernays.
Sorry but you got two cows, so you’re obviously a paid shill for big dairy /s
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.
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Yes whole milk is good. Work buys 1% and it tastes like watered down milk.
individualism
I wouldn’t say it’s delicious… it’s meh-lk
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.
there is no reason to think farmland would be “recovered” or converted to any less- environmentally destructive use.
Ready for another reply where I used /u/commie’s clever abilities to reply to an argument? Prepare yourself for an amazing analytical response!
“I disagree”
this is poisoning the well
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
Yeah our rivers in NZ got so polluted with cow effluence and runoff the waters became legally unswimmable. Then the right wing government changed what is legally define as “polluted” so people could swim again.
Farm land (in particular farm land unsuitable for crops) can be used to plant forests, further reducing climate change. If the boomer generation lost 6-10 IQ points on average for leaded petrol, ours will see that again from high PPM CO2 rates.
Or look at the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. That all done to produce more farmland. So, if we were using or land more efficiently we wouldn’t be carving up the “lungs of the world”
If we all went vegan we’d reduce food based emissions by 70
I doubt it.
I’m going to use your sound logical deductions and reasoning skills to reply to your comment in kind, ready?
I doubt it
Yeah? Well I doubt THAT.
you can doubt whether i doubt something but i am the authority on whether i doubt something so self-reporting my doubt is the strongest evidence that can be gathered in support of the claim.
a claim made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. i’ve presented exactly as much evedince as the claim to which i was responding.
Why? Because all the animal herders will still produce lots of meat at a loss and then just burn everything no one wants to eat?
i don’t believe the methodology used to calculate emissions from animal agriculture is appropriate: every examination i’ve done has attributed emissions to animals that are actually conservation, like feeding cattle cottonseed and then attributing the impacts of cotton grown for textiles to cattle.
But then you doubt the number and not the general effect of reducing carbon emissions by switching to a plant-based diet, right? Because it is pretty obvious, that growing plants and then feeding those plants to animals is way more inefficient than eating the plants without extra steps.
a lot of what is fed to animals are parts of plants that people can’t or won’t eat. there may be some reduction but i don’t believe it can be anywhere near 70%
If you see how much crops we need to grow and fresh water we need to feed a cow, you’d see how inefficient meat is.
70% of all the crops we grow is to feed our livestock.
Meaning for 1/3 on our plate, we use more than double the resources than the other 2/3 combined.
70% of all the crops we grow is to feed our livestock.
that’s a lie
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.
Yeah! That’s the perfect way to put it, thank you. It’s like a foreign extra flavour - a certain cowiness that I didn’t notice growing up. Cow milk used to taste like “default milk,” where everything else was a variation on that normal base. But now it’s one of the “other” milks, because I taste it so infrequently.
Have you considered heavy cream? /s
If this hits market, I’ll be all for it.
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Calm down Chidi…
How did the man not die from starvation?
You have to grow the feed for cows, give them water, and cows emit significant greenhouse gasses.
Almond trees use way less water and actively reduce CO2 during growth.
Well, dairy takes more.
Seems like it is because the answer isn’t what you said.
They were giving their own answer, genius.
When you say “It’s not rocket science/surgery” it implies that what you’re saying is an evidence, in this case their answer is false, it’s not subsidized because it tastes better or people enjoy it more, it’s purely political.
The dairy lobby in the US is huge money. If you ever want to know why we’re 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.
Probably because everyone tried only the shittiest alt-malks, assume they are all bad, and somehow don’t 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 it’s the same as people that say only bad things about tofu but have only eaten white American ‘recipes’ 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 that’s 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. It’s also way easier to get the hang of marinating and cooking.
I mention this only because I love it so much, and I’d 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 I’ve 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 isn’t 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 I’ll have to find time for shopping now. I only wish I could count on people to not angle grind off my bike lock while I’m in the store.
One year later (looking through my comments) - how did it go?
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 can’t 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 “improved” 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.
I’ve tried pressing the liquid out, freezing, and flouring/cornstarching it and that works to an extent but it’s more effort than I’d 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 can’t cook, amirite?
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N-e-s-t-l-é-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 that’s worth it.When people buy factory farmed milk, they directly financially support the treatment of animals at these places.
that’s not even true.
Where does the farm’s income come from?
Do you imagine they’d 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.
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.
You’re 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 they’ve been doing.
The grocery store bought the milk from factory farms
i doubt it. they probably went through a supplier.
Congratulations
and if they don’t buy the dairy farmers get their subsidy anyway. like yeah i can make myself poorer buying unsubsidized milk, but kinda sucks you’re putting the problem on me.
My personal theory is that we subsidize dairy not for the milk, but for the cheese. As far as I’m aware you can’t make cheese out of plant milks, and we’ve gotten pretty reliant on cheese as a source of protein and other nutrients in our American diets - especially among children and lower income diets.
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 doesn’t have that stretch. It more just rips apart. And you definitely don’t have the span of “flavors” of cheese or whatever you’d call it. Some of the big ones, sure, but again, they don’t have all the same physical properties.
I don’t mind the loss of those properties, but many people do.
Cheese isn’t a great source for protein compared to beans in regards to price though.
Honestly, I think we subsidize the dairy industry simply because they’ve been lobbying so long. Meat is subsidized too. It’s the one market that the conservatives are fine with ignoring the mantra of “free market” and support regulating the hell out of it in whatever way supports the “farmers” (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.
You’re just describing American children raised in a poor diet. Beans are a staple food among not of the world population, including their children. They’re 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 person’s 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 “kids don’t like X”, well, they probably won’t.
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 “natural” form.
Look up: cheese caves. 👍
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.
Let’s raid. They can’t stop us all!!!
What the fuck
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 haven’t looked back yet.
It’s 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 it’s an expensive purchase, but I buy it once every 6 months or so. It goes a long way and I use little (⅓ cup) at a time.
Some of my family think we’re living large because we can “afford” cashew nuts, which we use for many purposes, but don’t think twice about spending 3 times more on meat every single week.
Yeah, once you found a brand, that tastes well, it’s not an issue anymore. But paying a lot just to notice, that it tastes disgusting, kinda sucks.
Unsure if you’re talking about cow milk, plant based milk, cashews or nutritional yeast 🤷♂️
Nutritional yeast
Protein can be found in much better food sources than dairy. It’s a shame the protein myth prevails in this country even into the 2020s…
Government cheese has been a thing since at least the great depression.
Because lots of people in your country drink it, like it, and even more eat things made from it. Like cheese.
“Two thirds of people can’t tolerate lactose” 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. You’ve seen what capitalism did to housing. You don’t want that to happen to food.
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.
No, the reason why it’s subsidized is politics, not people’s enjoyment of the product.
Mind explaining to me the political reasons it’s subsidized? I want these reasons to not be tied to peoples enjoyment of the product at all, mind you…
Because it supports middle rural America and that’s where conservative strongholds are.
I’ve never heard any politician say the subsidies exist because people like it. It’s always in support of jobs, etc. Are you daft? Point to one politician or lobbyist claiming subsidies are needed because folks like the flavor.
And even for non conservatives, cutting farmers’ income and making them stop producing (even if they produce too much) is a big no no, no matter your political alignment.
…or that they love all the bad health outcomes from drinking milk and consuming massive quantities of cheese.
Are you familiar with the term ‘tautology’?
Sometimes you have to tell children twice before they get it through their thick skulls.
Due to freedom of selection, nowhere in the world has a alt-milk market which surpasses that of traditional milk. It’s because people prefer traditional milk, and not plant-paste. I’m sorry that I’m having to repeat myself for you to understand, but hey - you can lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink.
If plant/alt milk were more popular, you’d see places where it supplanted traditional milk, but you don’t see that literally anywhere in the world. So, it’s a hard truth. One that…due to people’s confirmation bias, they don’t seem to be willing to accept.
There is freedom of selection, but it’s not a free market. We’re literally discussing that in this post. Milk is substantially cheaper due to subsidies. Many people can’t afford to simply purchase the more expensive one when a cheaper version is available. However, in a free market, it wouldn’t be that much cheaper.
New products take time to surpass old products. You have false advertising and bad information floating around as truth and people think milk needs to be had to be healthy. It was so heavily advertised to boomers through millennials and even some of gen z, that I’m not surprised many have fallen for the marketing like you so heavily did.
Do you have me confused with someone who has wronged you?
My only response so far was a (admittedly cheeky) reply to your comment about how your reasoning for something being a ‘hard truth’ is simply because it’s the way is…a complete circle, your logic on that one.
You’re getting dragged by others because you opened with an objective claim that milk tastes better, which is a subjective opinion. You’re now pivoting to argue that cow milk is objectively better because it’s more popular? Taylor Swift isn’t the best musician because she’s popular. Because “best” is incredibly complex. Best guitarist? Composer? Singer? What’s best of any of those categories, anyway? We gotta ask Phaedrus, I suppose.
If you’re trying to argue that cow milk is the “best”: Cow milk is really good at getting protein and other minerals/vitamins to folks. Really good. It’s got a lot of properties that make it really useful in some recipes I love. Also I eat a lot of dairy ice cream, and yogurt. I’m not some anti-milk crusader.
Dairy production, however, is really energy- and space-intensive compared to some alternatives. There’s a tradeoff to be thought carefully about, and it deserves more than “cow milk is popular therefore it’s the best”. Unless you’re just trying to say that cow milk is popular because cow milk is popular (which no one was arguing?). If that’s the case, see my first reply. Circularity complete.
I’m not arguing cow milk is popular because cow milk is popular. I’m arguing that it’s popular because it is subjectively better than the alternatives.
Kind of like how dogs are 4 legged animals, but not all 4 legged animals are dogs. Your argument to that is claiming circular reasoning, but it’s clearly not.
Subsidies happen because they want to keep the prices low, because it’s a popular food item. The majority have chosen it, so that makes it the market leader. They didn’t choose it because it was a popular choice. And so inherently that makes it what it is. The defacto best option. Sometimes you have to paint with a broad brush when talking about broad topics.
Fact is, they lack a lot of the subjective properties that make milk as useful as it is. Milk is popular because it’s the best. It’s not the best because of its popularity. The popularity is simply an easy to understand byproduct of its superiority.
How about actually learning what circular reasoning is.
It’s more that liking a product isn’t a good reason to subsidize it’s production.
Cow milk tasting much better than alternatives (which I do very strongly agree with) is not exactly a good argument for dairy subsidies.
I agree with you, but that doesn’t mean we should be subsidizing its production. If we’re gonna do that I say we also pay car makers to start making fun hatchbacks again because I prefer them.
WTF are you linking? A 1x1 pixel image is pretty sus.
Guess I uploaded it badly. It’s a Big Lebowski gif of the line, “well, that’s just like, your opinion, man”
Edit your comment to be in this format: [text describing the image](url of image)
ty. I was quite tired when I originally commented and just mixed up which field to put the url into.
It’s a bug. Whether it’s Kbin, lemmy, or what, I don’t know. But it’s not rendering properly on Kbin at the very least.
i don’t drink other “milks” but i do drink soylent and, to my pallet, it’s a perfect milk substitute. and, in a lot of ways, it’s better nutritionally: every 400kcal delivers 20% of the RDA for 28 essential nutrients, and a (reasonable) blend of carbs, fat, and protein.
superior product
In what way?
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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?
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.
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.
every predator which preys on mammals will eat the mammaries of lactating prey. why wouldn’t they?! it’s packed full of nutrients.
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.
So is saying “It’s subsidized because it tastes better!” which is the argument people on here are using instead of the real reason which is politics.
I mean take it in context to who I replied to.
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!
My takeaway from this is that Nestle probably doesn’t 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.
I had this fantastic plant-based milk product on my store shelves called “Not Milk”. I really enjoyed it. Had this mild coconut flavor which might turn off some (not me) but anyway, it’s gone now because it was too expensive for the market I’m 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. They’ve 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 can’t say enough how good it tastes. I’m 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?
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 they’ve 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 won’t live through the winter. Also, have they really worked out the desalination thing for large areas? https://www.growinganything.com/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi
Less than regular milk so if you’re divided between almond and cow milk, to for almond.
Plants don’t 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. I’ll correct my post and note the edit. Thanks again!
Extra thick oatmilk is the way to go.
Butter and heavy cream don’t really have a good replacement, but regular milk has so many alternatives it’s 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.
Check to see if your store has “Nextmilk” made by Silk. It is cheaper than “Not Milk” and tastes better!
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 «ultra-transformed food», which alt-milk very much sounds like…
