665
Plant Milk Is Better For Us and the Climate. So Why Do We Subsidize Dairy?
(www.motherjones.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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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.
Are you suggesting cow's milk is more sustainable/ecological than any plant milk?
No, they're suggesting that Nestle is probably acting in bad faith by attempting to close a monopolistic gap rather than genuinely doing something for the betterment of the world
Moving to plant-based milks would be a net positive for the world, right?
Again, you're dissenting on something that wasn't asserted. If that's your opinion, then that's your opinion, and that's fine. But, if there's a conflict of interest in a study, then we have reason to doubt the results are legitimate. This is what the comment was saying, and that's drastically far from a total conclusion one way or the other.
Your question also suggests there's one correct answer, which just plane isn't true. It makes more ecological sense for some people to consume milk products in favor of plant based just based on location alone.
I don't think that's ever true.
https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
What you eat has a far larger impact on ecology/GHGs than where it comes from.
Why aren't you responding to the topic of the thread? What you responded to was not the heart of my comment nor was it the point I was trying to get across to you.
Do you think Nestle is acting in good faith?
You really insisted on steering the conversation toward this study, yet it's largely flawed. I know I'm taking the bait, but as someone who grew up on a farm in a rural community, several red flags were very apparent. What they are talking about are gross emissions, that's what's measured by carbon capture. What these types of measurements don't consider, is how much CO2 the immediate environment is going to recapture and make use of. Cattle and buffalo before them have been a part of the north American prairies for thousands of years, and the cycle has always been the bovine graze on the grass, which spurs regrowth, aided by the gasses emitted by the bovine after eating said grass.
I believe they're being selective about where they're measuring their data as well, because it does not make sense for land use change to be a factor in the vast majority of cases for grass fed cattle. Again, this is why location matters, cattle do well on grassland. It also makes no sense for the emissions of machinery to be coupled in the data with the emissions of cattle. It's also virtually impossible for the machinery emissions to be that low for wheat and rye specifically, because I know first hand how many diesel tank refills it takes get the seeding done alone, let alone the constant maintenance it takes afterwards. It doesn't take any machinery to raise grassland cattle there but it sure does take machinery to farm grains, farmers have heavy machinery in their fields constantly. You have to plow the field, disc, harrow, spray herbicide, spray pesticide, seed the crop, spray fertilizer, roll the peas, swath the canola, harvest all of it with a massive machine, all while a cow chills watching from the next field over lol.
My guess is that they're referring to warehouse cattle, which don't exist everywhere (outright illegal in Canada I think). This is why it matters where it comes from. Can't really verify any of their data either since the source studies are behind a pay wall.
I'd also even say there's far more to ecology than raw emissions. Almond production has been a massive hindrance on California's water supply, They're prone to drought already, and they're still mass producing almonds while in a drought right now. Regardless of emissions, we would be actively contributing to an ongoing crisis if we increased plant milk demand. To do so out of ecological principle would be incredibly ironic. But, that seems to be what encouraging plant based milk over cattle has done.
Third party here, if we want to be fair and acknowledge that some milk supplies are worse than others, let's also acknowledge that nut milks are notoriously water intensive as opposed to a grain based milk like oat. But I'll heartily agree that water rights, management, and surrounding legal actions in California are... nuts (bu dum tsss) right now.
They probably do, but oat milk is probably not great for making milk chocolate or several other of their food products. Decent coffee also hides less appetizing milks somewhat.