this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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[–] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

We don't need non human milk in the first place so I don't need a milk alternative either lol

Also, for the record I'm mostly off human milk too now that I'm an adult

[–] Vegoon@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago

Also, for the record I’m mostly off human milk too now that I’m an adult

Don't worry, babysteps (no pun intended) for the win, you can do it!

[–] Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Like an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population, I don’t digest lactose well,

That number, like all world population numbers is heavily skewed by just how many people are in China. The mutation that causes adults to continue to produce the enzyme to digest lactose is less common among those of Asian descent.

(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.)

...and there are medieval European recipes that call for almond milk, and tofu is made from soy milk and there are written sources referencing it roughly a thousand years old. You're right, none of these are really new on the scene, aside from maybe oat milk.

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.

I feel like your first paragraph completely ignored this aspect. You squeeze milk out of a cow. Nut and bean milks require grinding the stuff up with a lot of water, mixing it thoroughly, then squeezing the wet pulp through a fine filter (for small batches something like a cheesecloth) to separate the milk from the pulp.

Commercial oat milk requires further processing, because just pulping, mixing with water and straining oats does not produce anything appetizing at all.

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.

That's not a bad assumption on their part - people who are deeply concerned with the emissions involved in producing their food tend to be richer, in no small part because poor folks are going to put price first, because they have to think about how food fits into their budget more.

Also cheese - you can't make cheese from plant milks. Well, you can try, but that's basically how you make tofu, and performing a similar process on other plant milks creates something closer to tofu than cheese.

[–] Nobsi@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago

Hey, just so you know, that whole lactose intolerance is just hundreds of years of the west drinking milk a lot.
And you can make cheese without milk. Obviously with a different process but Gouda is one of the cheeses that is already replicated very well.

Oat milk does not need much processing btw. You can make really good tasting oatmilk at home.

[–] torknorggren@lemm.ee 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Except almonds. Almonds are terrible water wasters, and mostly grown in California where they can least afford the water.

[–] trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Shit, you should want all animal agriculture banned.

[–] trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] blanketswithsmallpox@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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.

https://freefromharm.org/agriculture-environment/saving-the-world-with-livestock-the-allan-savory-approach-examined/

Fwiw US dairy plans to be carbon neutral by 2050.

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/27/1095100351/the-dairy-industry-aims-to-be-carbon-neutral-by-2050-heres-what-it-means-for-far

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The bigger catch is that 70% of all crops we grow go to our livestock.

this isn't true

[–] pafu@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago

Livestock accounts for 77% of global farming land, while supplying only 18% of calories and 37% of protein.

Source

[–] satans_crackpipe@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

This is a weird advertisement. Drink water. Plant milk does not have the protein or calorie density as dairy milk. You may as well drink water and eat your greens instead of supporting industries that are gentle rapists of the earth. I'll drink my own vomit before reading that rag again.

[–] Wooky@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago

Cereal with water is weird. I like my oats with oatmilk.

Soy milk has comparable amounts of protein with dairy.

[–] clegko@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Anonymousllama@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] threeduck@aussie.zone 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If we all went vegan we'd reduce food based emissions by 70

I doubt it.

[–] Sodis@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Sodis@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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%

[–] Sodis@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Do you have any sources on hand? It's hard to google for this stuff without running into sites by PETA etc, which are too biased for my taste.

[–] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

i don't know of any broad surveys across crop categories but i'm pretty familiar with soy

https://ourworldindata.org/soy

you can see that 17% of all soybeans becomes oil. but a soybean is only about 20% oil altogether. in order to extract that much oil, we must press about 85% of the global crop of soybeans. the vast majority if the soy fed to livestock is the industrial waste from that process. you can see in that chart it's called "soy cake" or "soy meal".

elsewhere in this thread i mentioned cottonseed.

[–] Sodis@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But then humans can also eat that soy meal to get their proteins. It's pretty tasty, I eat it regularly.

[–] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

people do eat soy meal but they eat very little of the amount produced. if the vast majority of it weren't fed to livestock it would just be waste.

[–] Sodis@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We are talking about a switch to a predominantly vegan diet. People need to get the protein they got from meat from somewhere else.

[–] commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

i think that's a hard sell for most people and i frankly just don't see it happening. do you have a plan to make that happen?

[–] Sodis@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago

Well, if the first step happens (people going vegan), then other protein sources will be automatically in demand. A huge chunk of protein powder nowadays is whey, that can be easily substituted by soy, because of the sufficient amino acid profile of soy.

[–] MrMcGasion@lemmy.world 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] rurutheguru@lemmings.world 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Sodis@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] rurutheguru@lemmings.world 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Sodis@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] rurutheguru@lemmings.world 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Unsure if you're talking about cow milk, plant based milk, cashews or nutritional yeast 🤷‍♂️

[–] Sodis@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago

Nutritional yeast