this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
301 points (89.7% liked)

World News

32282 readers
962 users here now

News from around the world!

Rules:

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub 79 points 6 months ago (43 children)

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

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 56 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] jupyter_rain@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] apprehensively_human@lemmy.ca 6 points 6 months ago

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.

[–] sushibowl@feddit.nl 8 points 6 months ago

There's a couple reasons behind this:

  • Economies of scale. Oatmilk is not nearly as big of a market and therefore tends to be more expensive per gallon
  • Dairy subsidies. Dairy farmers can be pretty heavily subsidized, depending on the country, making the milk artificially cheap
  • Marketing. Oatmilk is mostly consumed by upper middle class (sub)urban folks who have enough disposable income to worry about things like animal welfare and the environment, and thus are willing to pay a premium for eco-friendly products. Companies know this so a lot of oatmilk is positioned and priced as a premium product.

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] metaStatic@kbin.social 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Actually trying to be the climate resistance nut here, we're paying to ship water.

Buy the oats and make your own.

[–] bruce965@lemmy.ml 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Actually I never thought about it, but it makes total sense. Is it simple? Could you share your recipe?

[–] metaStatic@kbin.social 11 points 6 months ago (12 children)

if you search for oat milk recipes you'll be exactly where I am right now

[–] pl_woah@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (11 replies)
[–] SomeGuy69@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago (6 children)

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.

[–] AngryPancake@sh.itjust.works 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] RoquetteQueen@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

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.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Ookami38@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 months ago

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.

load more comments (39 replies)
[–] MonkderDritte@feddit.de 60 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's not worldnews. US farms wouldn't be legal in EU. Most EU farms wouldn't be legal here (Swiss). California is not the world.

[–] Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago (3 children)

The US is the 2nd largest milk producer on the planet...and that's only IF you count the EU as a single entity. Otherwise, it's 1st. Also, the largest economy on the planet. Things that happen in America matter elsewhere.

[–] BearGun@ttrpg.network 28 points 6 months ago

While that may be true, the title and article act as if the US is the world, as if "the most humane dairy farms" in the US are the most humane dairy farms in the world, which is clearly not even remotely close to the truth.

[–] Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee 16 points 6 months ago

It might be the 2nd largest milk producing country, but they couldn't sell the milk in the EU due to the unethical and unhygienic way it's produced. That's OP's point

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] somethingsomethingidk@lemmy.world 40 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Was thinking "Oh shit now I have to become vegan", but the article is paywalled so I didn't have to go on the guilt trip.

[–] eardon@lemmy.ca 11 points 6 months ago

Lol. That's how it goes.

[–] eardon@lemmy.ca 39 points 6 months ago (7 children)

Cows need to be pregnant to produce milk so dairy cows are artificially inseminated throughout most of their lives.

They don't tell you this in school.

[–] antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 6 months ago

Not only that but the calves would require a large percentage of that milk, and so a byproduct of dairy farms is often veal, at least for the male calves.

[–] kcuf@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago

It's obvious but blew my mind when I was told that

[–] bassad@jlai.lu 7 points 6 months ago

Then after only 4-5 years of this they are slaughtered because the milk production begins to diminish.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Alsephina@lemmy.ml 23 points 6 months ago
[–] Gexilla@kbin.social 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (14 children)

I haven’t seen any mentions of soy milk in this thread. I have it unsweetened with some fruit Müsli and even in coffee/tea and I’m good to go

[–] FrederikNJS@lemm.ee 12 points 6 months ago (2 children)

My personal opinion is that soy milk tastes like grass... I've tried it in coffee, alone, on cereal, but I just can't avoid feeling like someone dumped a handful of freshly cut grass in...

Almond is pretty good on it's own, but in coffee it tastes like marzipan... It's not bad, but not the taste I want in my coffee.

Oat is what tastes most like cow's milk to me.

[–] gramie@lemmy.ca 7 points 6 months ago

I second oat milk. Not watery like soy or almond milk. The other problem with almond milk is the insane amount of water that it takes to grow almonds.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (13 replies)
[–] inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago (7 children)

Humane meat and dairy is yuppie bullshit.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›