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Need to keep the ag subsidies flowing so that rural areas keep voting conservative
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).
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.
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.
Granted, tobacco is far worse than dairy in its health outcomes, but imagine if big tobacco had somehow managed to get schools and government agencies to push their product onto children as a "health" product. Dairy is much like that.
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.
Almond is the worst of the nut milks, but it's STILL way better for the environment than dairy.
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).
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.
What the fuck
Soy cheese is called tofu.
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.
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.
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.
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 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...
I prefer plant-based milk over dairy, it tastes better and it lasts longer. I tried plant based milk years ago and never went back. I've tried cashew, macadamia, rice, soy, almond, coconut, oat, and sunflower. Some of my favorites are vanilla almond, dark chocolate almond and cashew, vanilla macadamia, and vanilla coconut. My family still buys dairy milk, but we always bought plant-based butter. I buy cream cheese to use as bread spread.
Can you make cheese out of almond milk? If I'm doing my math right, 75% of milk is made into cheese.
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.
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.
I haven’t had a glass of milk in years. It kinda grosses me out, but I love some cheese. But I’m doing my small part in not buying gallons of milk.
I don't see why dairy should be subsidized but some plant milks aren't exactly environmentally friendly either. The best can be said is they're better than dairy, assuming the same land could be used for both. But they can be devastating in their own right. E.g. to grow 1 almond (i.e. one kernel) takes over 3 gallons of water. Other crops used to make milk like oats have lower water consumption.
The almond example is frequently brought up, but this is still half of what dairy milk requires, without taking into account the difference in land use too
I see soy/oat/rice milk as their own thing, instead of a direct cow milk substitute/replacement.
There are many, many dairy product that are important as food or ingredients to other foods such as butter, yogurt, ice cream, cream, infant formula, and various cheeses that cannot be replaced directly by plant based alternatives.
And also, if you don't like milk, try getting one of those unhomoginized milk in glass bottles that's usually directly bottled by local farms. You have to shake a lot to get the cream on top dissolved again, but there is nothing that's quite like an ice cold cup of that.