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The truth about organic milk: cows are suffering on even the most “humane” dairy farms
(www.theatlantic.com)
this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
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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:
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
Actually trying to be the climate resistance nut here, we're paying to ship water.
Buy the oats and make your own.
Actually I never thought about it, but it makes total sense. Is it simple? Could you share your recipe?
if you search for oat milk recipes you'll be exactly where I am right now
okay, apparently the homemade stuff isn't fortified with calcium & iron (which plain homemade oat milk wouldn't have) - so you'd have to make that up with other parts of your diet - so Chia, cheese, yogurt (yes, I sense the irony), kale/collards (spinach has stuff that make the calcium harder to absorb), rhubarb, tofu - as far as iron... beans, spinach (for the iron), pumpkin, quinoa
I did a quick search on my trusty DuckDuckGo, but all I could find was "blend oats for 30-60 seconds", and a lot of disclaimers.
I would assume for a good tasting recipe you should add a little bit of sugar, maybe you have some recommendations about the oats that you use. Can you store it for a few days? Idk, you most likely have more experience on the subject.
If it takes longer than 5 minutes to prepare (also including the cleanup process) I can see why people would rather consume a pre-made product.
Anyways it's worth to try, if you have a specific recommendation I would appreciate it greatly. Otherwise I will go for one of the recipes I can find.
It really is as simple as blending rolled oats and water in a 1:4-ish ratio for 30 seconds or so, and straining the result twice. Adding sugar is optional. It stores pretty well in the fridge, maybe up to 5 days. Trust your nose!
Personally I don't make it very often, as my main use for milk is in cappuccino, and plain oat milk doesn't steam very well. The barista editions you can buy have some added extras (fat, sugar, proteins, stabilisers) to improve the characteristics for steaming.
I totally understand the convenience factor of store-bought too. If you don't have a blender on standby it's a bit of a hassle. And the store bought stuff is shelf-stable for weeks when sealed.
Okay then, I will give it a go. Thanks a lot!
Oh, I don't think you need to add any sugar. Well, if you're putting it on cereal that's already sweetened, you definitely don't need to add any sugar.
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.
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.
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
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.
Smell and taste seems to very a lot between people. I'm not even surprised.
I love oat milk, personally.
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.
Gluten phobe here, no can do
Oats don't contain gluten
You say that but they cannot be labelled gluten free in my country because they do https://coeliac.org.au/article/oats-and-the-gluten-free-diet/
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.