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Milk


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Choose your milk alternative to dairy...  

15 members have voted

  1. 1. Which milk would you choose...

    • Coconut Milk
      0
    • Almond Milk
    • Rice Milk
      0
    • Hazelnut Milk
      0
    • Hemp and Flax Milk
      0
    • Soy Milk
    • Oat Milk
    • Captain Milk


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Who knew that there were a number of different milks available? Some better known than others.

 

I had no idea that dairy milk had such a bad reputation...

 

'producing a glass of dairy milk results in almost three times more greenhouse gas emissions than any plant-based milk and it consumes nine times more land than any of the milk alternatives. (Land is required to pasture the cows and grow their feed, which the animals belch out in the form of methane.)'

 

If this is the case and switching from dairy milk is a good option for improving the environment, which plant based milk would you go for?

 

1. Cocunut Milk

Coconut has a reputation as exotic and healthy, but for poor regions in the Philippines, Indonesia and India, where pickers are often paid less than a dollar a day, the palm groves are no paradise.

Because coconut trees only grow in tropical climates, the pressure to meet global demand is causing exploitation of workers and destruction of rainforests. “Coconut is an absolute tragedy and it makes me really sad,” Isaac Emery, a food sustainability consultant. “I love cooking with coconut milk but I don’t feel good about buying coconut products. Farmers in Indonesia should be growing food to feed their families instead of meeting international demands.”

To avoid supporting unsustainable practices, choose coconut products that are certified Fair Trade.

2. Almond Milk

While almond trees occupy smaller amounts of farmland compared with other crops grown for milk, this benefit is overshadowed by the negative impacts of almond farming in the US. Concentrated almost entirely in California’s arid Central Valley, almonds are the largest specialty crop in the US and the orchards cover a region the size of Delaware.

Almonds require more water than any other dairy alternative, consuming 130 pints of water to produce a single glass of almond milk, according to the Oxford study. Satisfying continual demands for larger almond crops is also placing unsustainable pressures on US commercial beekeepers. Nearly 70 percent of commercial bees in the US are drafted every spring to pollinate almonds. Last year, a record number –over one-third of them– died by season’s end as a result of these pressures and other environmental threats.

3. Rice Milk

Although rice milk is ubiquitous as an inexpensive and widely available dairy alternative, it offers little in the way of nutrition or environmental benefits compared with other choices.

Rice is a water hog, according to the Oxford study, plus it produces more greenhouse gas emissions than any other plant milk. Bacteria breeding in rice paddies pump methane into the atmosphere and large amounts of fertilizer pollute waterways.

4. Hazelnut Milk

For consumers who want the nutritiousness and tastiness of a nut milk but without the environmental impacts of almond farming, the hazelnut is a rising star. Like all nuts, hazelnuts grow on trees that pull carbon from the atmosphere and help reduce greenhouse emissions rather than increase them. Hazelnuts are environmentally superior to almonds in that they are pollinated by the wind rather than commercial honeybees and they grow in moist climates, such as the Pacific north-west, where water is less of an issue.

5. Hemp and Flax

Another way to ensure sustainable choices is to choose milk alternatives made from what Emery describes as “niche crops” such as hemp and flax. They are grown in relatively small quantities in the northern hemisphere, which makes them more environmentally friendly compared with a monoculture operation. Both plants produce seeds that make for a milk rich in protein and healthy fats.

6. Soy Milk

According to the Oxford study, soy milk is the joint winner on the sustainability scale. Plus, soy is the only plant milk that comes close to offering a protein content comparable to dairy. It was the go-to alternative long before almond milk came into vogue – but then soy fell out of favor.

“Soy has a relatively high concentration of certain hormones that are similar to human hormones and people got freaked out about that,” says Emery. “But the reality is you would have to consume an impossibly large amount of soy milk and tofu for that to ever be a problem.” Recent studies have instead found that a moderate amount of soy is healthy, especially for women.

The primary environmental drawback to soy milk is that soybeans are grown in massive quantities around the world to feed livestock for meat and dairy production. Large swaths of rainforest in the Amazon have been burned to make way for soy farms. The work-around for this is to simply do a little research and read the carton to find soy milk that is made from organic soybeans grown in the US or Canada.

7. Oat Milk

“I’m excited about the surge in oat milk popularity,” says Liz Specht, associate director of science and technology for the Good Food Institute, a not-for-profit that promotes plant-based diets. “Oat milk performs very well on all sustainability metrics.” Also: “I highly doubt there will be unintended environmental consequences that might emerge when the scale of oat milk use gets larger.”

According to Bloomberg Business, retail sales of oat milk in the US have soared from $4.4m in 2017 to $29m in 2019, surpassing almond milk as the fastest-growing dairy alternative. But unlike almonds, there are already plenty of oats to go around. “Right now, 50 to 90 percent of global oat production goes into animal feed,” says Specht, “so there’s a huge existing acreage that we can safely steal share from without moving the needle at all on total production.”

Oats are grown in cooler climates such as the northern US and Canada, and are therefore not associated with deforestation in developing countries. The only drawback with this trendy and guilt-free option is that most oats come from mass-produced, monoculture operations where they are sprayed with the Roundup pesticide right before harvest. A study by the Environmental Working Group found glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup and a possible carcinogen, in all the foods it tested containing conventionally grown oats and even in one-third of products made with organic oats. However, the popular Oatly brand oat milk company maintains its oats are certified glyphosate free.

8. Captain Milk

 

 

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Guest Pistonbroke

I only use Milk in Coffee (I drink Tea black) and we just use that Laktose free stuff, even use it if a recipe calls for it. 

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46 minutes ago, Scooby Dudek said:

Which tastes the closest to dairy milk ? 

I have it on cereal and love a cold glass on a hot day 

Between soy milk and oat milk, from the looks of it. I am going to give oat milk a try as enjoy milk on cereal and according to critics, oat milk tastes great on cereal.

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1 hour ago, Bjornebye said:

Goats milk is lovely. I'd always been a semi-skimmed man but I only drink Soy or Oat milk now. Only because she's a vegan. Plus the industry of proper milk is slowly killing the planet. 

Today @Bjornebye has been posting like a very mature person. I have to admit, I'm impressed.

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