“Aubrey, no!” screamed one TikToker, narrating the Wood Milk campaign video. “Why on earth are you getting in bed with ‘Got Milk?’ Nobody likes milk—like, literally nobody.”
Oh the bovinity
There's some OK analysis further in, though I think they overlook the impact of demographic changes, lactose intolerance, and some other factors. The main problem for US milk providers is that most milk sold in the US is not very good. Farmers like Holstein cows which give maximum yield but the milk is not very creamy. If you can get milk from Jersey cows it's like night and day - big gobs of cream floating in it, and you can appreciate how milk functions as food. Don't get me started on 2% milk, which should simply not exist.
As so often, profits are shrinking because an industry got greedy and took up the pursuit of the lowest common denominator instead of the highest common factor. See also: journalism.
> Don't get me started on 2% milk, which should simply not exist.
Can you explain? Are you saying that that's too low in fat to be good? If so, why not also be against skim milk?
Also, can you speak to your opinion on organic vs "regular" milk in the US? I've only ever had US milk, but organic tastes way better than "regular". Organic skim is richer and creamier than whole "regular" milk, so maybe your comment doesn't include organic?
Cow milk is a battleground topic for global warming and climate change.
Gen Z has been encouraged to ditch milk to cut back on industrial cattle farming and methane emissions. They're also told that farming cattle is inhumane.
The milk alternatives (almond, etc.) have been framing it this way commercially, but there is also a lot of grassroots campaigning.
> They're also told that farming cattle is inhumane.
The way you formulate this statement makes it sound like there is some controversy or room for interpretation here.
Put yourself in the position of a typical milk producing cow. Imagine giving birth to a child that's taken away from you and you never see him/her again (usually to be instantly slaughtered). All just so you start lactating and the milk can be extracted from you.
I still drink mill and eat cheese, but it's pretty damn gruesome if you put any thought into it.
I suspect that local milk is better for the environment (or less bad depending on how you look at it) than almond milk in most cases:
By far the largest producer of almonds is the USA, I think California mostly, which in itself has a large environmental impact, not least because of the water required. I am in the UK so I can reasonably assume that a lot of the almond milk I see in supermarkets comes from Californian almonds somehow shipped half across the world, whereas there are cows within walking distance from my home. And, of course, in any case there is no actual dietary need for people to drink either milk or milk alternatives (though most people here would argue that milk is required in tea...)
Frankly, this is no more than commercial interests vs. other commercial interests and most people are not interested in complexity, they want simple 'solutions' to feel good.
No, from a carbon perspective, how you get your food home from the store overwhelms how the food got to the store because the last mile is using 5000lb vehicles to transport 10lbs of groceries whereas all previous steps use 1:1 or less ratios.
Not sure what the 'no' refers to, but I suspect that "how you get your food home from the store" is not relevant in a comparison since that would be the same whatever I buy.
Not even close, cow’s milk has significantly higher impacts than the plant-based alternatives across all metrics, including processing, transporting, etc.
For instance, it states that producing one litre of dairy milk requires more water than producing one litre of almond milk. OK, and? In itself it means little. Almond farming is creating big water pressure in California, which is already water-stressed. Is having cows in England creating the same water issue? I don't know.
It's not clear what the proportion of transport is in the total emissions. 'Transport' is also vague as it can go from local to intercontinental, as mentioned.
> If you want to reduce the environmental footprint of your diet, switching to plant-based alternatives is a good option.
That strikes me again as avoiding the glaringly obvious option: reduce/stop milk consumption. Otherwise, it sounds like marketing for one product over another one.
I think this poster's point is that almond milk uses an insane amount of water relative to what it produces -- a problem for a region having notable shortages of water.
Back in the old times where humans still worked in an office together, I had milk that had a creamline on it still. I honestly thought the milk went bad and was going to toss it until a lady almost yelled at me to stop me from doing that. She grew up on a farm and told me that this was the mark of high quality milk.
I tasted the creamline. Absolute game changer. Tastes incredible in cereal especially.
Cannot for the life of me find milk like this, even at the high-end grocery stores like Whole Foods. Not like this would matter anyway, since most people can barely afford regular-ass eggs at the moment.
I suppose for the last 10y I've been drinking above average amounts of milk and I really prefer our 1.5% over the 3.5%. Perfectly fine milk taste for me and there should absolutely no gobs of cream in there, ugh - I also don't drink cream. Just saying that your opinion about that is just that. But then again I've never tried American milk of any kind.
That said I've switched to oat milk for the last 1-2 years and I now prefer it, so maybe I should also stop having an opinion.
Just going by the numbers cited in the article, milk is almost 6 times as popular in the US as milk alternatives. Let's round "almost 6" down to 5. That would mean milk has 5/6 of the milk-like market. It further goes on to claim that milk consumption is down by 20% among Gen-Z compared to the average. 20% less is 80% or 4/5.
So milk's popularity with Gen-Z is 4/5 of 5/6 which equals 2/3. In other words, milk is still twice as popular among Gen-Z as all the other milk-likes combined. That's certainly a relative decline but it's far from the "nobody likes milk anymore" tone of the article.
But the issue that the dairy industry has is that milk consumption is going down at an increasing rate. As Gen-Z gets older and have children that they don't feed dairy milk to and the cream drinking Boomers die out it will become a much bigger problem.
“Nearly half (49 percent) felt ashamed to order dairy in public in front of their peers,” the Arla press release states. “Although the data showed that 70 percent of Gen Z would prefer to continue to drink dairy, an alarming 57 percent plan to give it up in the next year. Almost a third (29 percent) even admitted to only ordering dairy alternatives when in public, reverting to their favored choice of dairy when in the comfort and privacy of their own homes.
Should it? "Big [X]" is a fairly common pattern of speech nowadays, to the point that I don't think it necessarily has negative connotations. Or rather, it has negative connotations about the [X], but shouldn't give you negative connotations about the person using the phrase, since almost everyone uses that phrase.
The “you can’t call it milk” argument was funny when the alternative being offered was “nut juice”, but it’s a dumb hill to die on as a serious proposition. I’m a barista and these alternatives resemble milk, they behave very similarly to milk, etc. In my opinion the substitution is good enough that they can claim the name of milk; the major difference is in nutrition value and taste. (Some intuition pumps for my point of view: “which category does it fit in - milk, juice, water, or soda?” and “which tastes more like milk - oat milk, or non-fat chocolate milk?”)
I also pour beer (multi-talented, I know) and my opinion is yes, it is beer. Most common types of beer are between 3% (typical mid-strength “crisp” beers start here) and 7% (typical IPAs top out here), but you also have light beers down at 2% and imperial stouts up at 12%. Specially brewed craft beers go as high as 20%, I don’t see why it would stop being beer if you go as low as 0%.
Where this might get contentious is that zero alcohol beer is made the same way as beer but doesn’t serve the same purpose (inebriation), while oat milk is made a different way to milk but does serve the same purpose. I’m of the opinion that you only need one of the two out of {same purpose, same production} to use the same name.
Here's a 5 minute video that would explain why the newer generations are so mad about the unethical practices of Dairy industry. I know it opened my eyes:
If that were true then you wouldn't need to scream it so hard. If people didn't like it, it wouldn't sell, and they'd stop making it.
But it's great! I love milk. Cold. Hot. As-is. In pancakes. Etc.
Alt Milks? Do I want to drink a bag of sugar with some liquid you managed to squeeze out of a root, after much processing and who knows what chemicals? No. No I do not.
> “Aubrey, no!” screamed one TikToker, narrating the Wood Milk campaign video. “Why on earth are you getting in bed with ‘Got Milk?’ Nobody likes milk—like, literally nobody.”
Drinking raw milk seems to be a very American thing? I eat cheese and yogourts, but I have never drank raw milk in a glass, and don't think I have ever seen anyone else do it in real life. It looks really bizarre (and frankly, kind of gross).
Raw milk is frequently used to describe non-pasturised milk - this of course shouldn’t be drunk unless you know exactly where it’s from.
A glass of milk isn’t so strange here in the U.K. I occasionally see people drinking from pint cartons, and occasionally do so myself when I’m walking to work.
But of course the strangeness is likely to depend on demographics of lactose tolerance where you are. Here lactose intolerance is relatively uncommon among the majority
Ah sorry, I didn't mean non-pasteurized, just meant "liquid milk with nothing in it" (as opposed to, say, a milkshake).
I'm French and it seems very uncommon here, but not related to lactose intolerance since most people eat cheese. It's probably a cultural thing.
Maybe it has something to do with temperature and ancient methods of conservation? Milk goes bad very fast, whereas some cheese can be kept for a very long time.
In the US, milk is usually seen as a beverage for children. Adults will consume it with breakfast cereal, but an adult ordering a glass of plain milk to drink would be seen as a bit silly.
It stems from the early 20th century nutrition efforts, where children were thought to need to be convinced to eat enough. (Sounds bizarre here in the 21st century. I believe it has to do with failure of some children to thrive, often due to things like gluten intolerance or other disorders.) Milk was portrayed (by its producers) as absolutely critical to children's health, leading us to subsidize its production.
I can't speak to other countries; I don't know how much milk is consumed in Europe or elsewhere. But Americans grow up drinking milk, and don't think of anything wrong with that. Adults tend to consume it with something else (coffee, cereal), but it's still seen as a major source of calcium, especially for women.
(It's not necessary; plenty of cultures survive without it. But it's good for you, despite obnoxious propaganda to the contrary. I'm a supporter of veganism and think we should all consume less animal products, but I think that's made harder by PETA telling outright lies.)
Raw milk should almost never be drunk in today’s reality, regardless if you know where it came from. There is enough asymptomatic bacteria in cows that is really bad for you. Somehow raw milk became a religion in the US, but it’s really really unhealthy.
"Got Milk?" seems a bit personal. I might ask a new mother that if I knew her really well, but it seems a bit rude otherwise. Pretty strange for an advertising slogan.
Their own subject matter, snark, and I’m not going to bother checking ownership to see if the people who own them fly to Davis but I can easily assume they do.
Although I'm very against the silliness of the "milk is a white poison" crowd, it's important to know that lactose tolerance is mostly found in white people from north European origin. Other ethnicities have way higher levels of intolerance. Asian, Native Americans, African Americans... usually have 70-95% of lactose intolerance.
I think the problem is, cow milk alternatives are becoming a problem for established corporations, since the younger generation isn’t 100% into milk. Demographics problems basically, if your older generation keeps dying, younger ones are not getting in, you lose in revenue and profits.
Aside from that just being plain wrong, depending on who you include in "every single person":
And that's a problem. Milk production causes lots of GHG emissions and is generally quite resource-intensive. (And also quite cruel for the most part, but apparently that argument doesn't count for many.)
We would do well as a species to reduce our milk consumption.
It's dropping steadily. Make sure to "get over" that, too, because some changes to consumer preferences are going to be impossible to bend back to an upward trend.
This process of decline in popularity brought to its conclusion is why millennials and Gen Z won't any time soon be eating weird savory gelatin dishes, bizarre Great Depression era recipes, or processed meats other than pepperoni, salami, and sausage.
I think mechanically-separated chicken nuggets are probably at the same stage of this process that cow milk is at right now.
Cow milk is a part of human culture that has enabled us to settle in places where we otherwise couldn't have.
There's a reason lactose tolerance in Scandinavia is so high. In Winter, you can't get enough calories from crops. The only thing you have is inedible (to you) grass and bushes. Cattle is a way to convert that to something that can provide calories to you.
The lactose intolerant in those places have been wiped out by millenia of natural selection.
Sure is, milk is drunk all over the world in large quantities. I can speak for Portugal, the milk aisles in the supermarkets are an order of magnitude larger than the soy, almond, etc "milks".
Without milk you won't have butter, mascarpone, cream, cheese and yogurt (and many spreads).
Milk is also the basis of most breakfasts around here, with granola and other cereals. We also give milk to children in school to help those that are poor and may not be eating properly at home.
On a lighter note, milk is essential for the confection of many cakes, for chocolate, ice cream, as well as for many recipes, sweet and sour.
Because it created an entire culture around it, our people's history. Parmigiano Reggiano was loved by Boccaccio already. Homer's Odyssey talks of what we would call Feta today. Egyptian murals detail cheesemaking.
Today, too, dairy is an important aspect of many cultures.
> Sandra Ott’s fascinating ethnography of Basque shepherds (Ott 1981) reveals much about the central role cheese can have in everyday life. In the remote French Basque Pyrenean village of Sainte-Engrâce, the cheeses that local syndicates of shepherds produce from their mountain huts takes so much care and attention that the resulting product is treated both metaphorically and ritually as their “children”. The formation of both babies and mountain cheeses alike are seen as analogous processes in the local worldview: “men’s generative creativity in procreation as in cheesemaking is believed to convey not only form but also identity. Basque cheeses, no less than children, have paternity and come from patrilineages (Paxson 2013: 52)”.
Of course they are, nobody said anything suggesting otherwise.
However, saying "cow milk is for baby cows" is a silly reductive take that ignores pretty much the entirety of human history and the heritage we've built around it.
Oat grains are for baby oat plants! - See how silly that sounds?
I generally prefer the taste of cashew or almond milk, but the whole "Cow milk is for baby cows" is really weak logic. Chickens don't lay eggs for us, potatoes don't root for us, most of our food is not produced by it's source intended for our nutrition. If something is healthy for us or not has little to do with it being "for us".
Nutrition tip of the day: if someone is spending serious ad money to try to get you to eat or drink something, don’t. What ever it is. Don’t. It’s not going to be good for you
How about water ads? Can you specifically address how water isn't good for us, leaving aside absurd arguments such as "drink too much, and you'll drown!"
I've never seen an ad for fresh running water from the tap. Bottled water on the other hand, in addition to being overpriced, often contains microplastics.
Cheeky caveat: the government here spends a lot of money to get people to eat more greens.
Then, what it does it actually means to be good for you? Clearly, people consumme milk/vegetable milk because they like the taste of it and not because it's healthy.
I mean, milk is completely dispensable and some people can't digest it but it's not particularly bad either. It gots sugar and fat, a lot of calcium, not a panacea but nothing particularly awful. You could do worse. The issue mostly boils down to how it's produced.
Meanwhile, nutritionally speaking, most vegetable milks end up in the same dispensable category as far as I'm concerned. Oat milk for exemple is mostly water, sugar and supplements. I think soy milk does better protein wise but not by much.
It’s not really a cheeky caveat. The parent commenter is just making silly unfounded claims, supported mainly be their use of the word “don’t” as an entire sentence. Plenty of healthy products are marketed to the public. There’s plenty of nutritional value in milk too, and nothing fundamentally wrong with it.
"Lactase nonpersistence is most prevalent in people of East Asian descent, with 70 to 100 percent of people affected in these communities."
Masai herdsmen are East Africans; so I find that statistic bewildering. "Lactase nonpersistence" means the decline of the production of the enzyme lactase beyond infancy. I don't know whether lactase nonpersistence is equivalent to lactose intolerance.
A (very small) percentage of the population is alergic to peanuts. They can even die if they ingest a peanut by accident. Does it make so that "peanuts are bad for you"? Can I make this argument? Milk is perfectly fine and is an important part of a healthy diet, for 90% of the population of the Americas, Europe, Africa etc. The magnitude of the propaganda to make people think otherwise simply baffles me.
> Tell that to the Massai, that live basically on a diet of milk, meat and blood
They also live a mainly active, nomadic lifestyle herding cows rather than sitting down staring at a computer screen - and usually die in their forties.
They specifically adapted to survive on that diet due to both group level isolation and individual upbringing (gut bacteria development). Different socio-cultural groups often have different tolerance for common food items.
It's indifferent to the question. Some food is either healthy for human consumption or it's not. The argument is: if a population of humans exist that makes milk a very substantial portion of their diet, and is perfectly fine, arguing that it's bad for humans is complete stupidity.
I'm with her. Once proponents of allegedly more ecological alternative products come up with their own names, I'll start considering them. Not being able to market their products on their own merits and instead piggybacking on popular categories like milk, steak, meat, burger, etc., usually just means that you won't get what you're looking for.
Wikipedia says 'In English, the word "milk" has been used to refer to "milk-like plant juices" since 1200 CE' so I think that boat sailed a long time ago.
Soy milk is not too far off. Almond milk seems to be more diluted and has no simple sugars, so it might be the outlier here. Still has a decent amount of fat, more than I expected, but half as much isn't going to satisfy some people.
As an argument, that's rather thin. You'd need to show that it has been used "often" over the last decade or so to argue that it is common usage. That said, the use of coconut milk would suffice to prove your point.
Steak, burger, meat, etc., don't fall in this category, but personally, I find vegan burger more understandable than the technically/conventionally more precise plant-based patty. It also doesn't distract from the original word: if something is called burger, you can be pretty sure it's meat.
But fake “milk” is used basically as a drop in replacement for milk. For example, I take “oat milk” in my coffee every morning. Realistically, most would never have tried it if it was “liquid oat product for coffee” (since you presumably can’t call it “creamer” even though that also contains no dairy). This edict is also totality ignoring that “soy milk” is quite old and has long retained that name to minimal confusion.
I haven’t seen anyone claim to make a fake steak using the word “steak”. I have seen “impossible burgers” but IMO “burger” is a food shape like “sandwich” or “pie”. I’ve also never seen “fake meat” use any wording to imply it’s meat. In fact, “meat substitute” is a pretty common phrase that is also apt in describing it exactly on its own merits. To be clear, replacing a popular category 1:1 is the merit.
That's exactly what I mean by "come up with their own names" - "liquid oat product for coffee" sounds terrible. The least you can expect is for them to come up with a good name. The Indian cuisine has come up with their own vegan and vegetarian food for 2000 years, it's delicious, and they don't need to call it "vegan sausages."
The problem I have with all these products (as a frequent consumer) is that you never know what you get. Some fake meat is delicious, other sorts are horrible, almost inedible. Soy "milk" makes me throw my guts out, almond "milk" tastes great.
Well eeeeh, I'd say that's not a great point. If we're strict with etymology, maybe maybe those meat products should stop piggybacking and come with their own names. I'm pretty sure McDonald's patties aren't coming from Hamburg.
The old english origin for meat meant "food", for steak meant "fry or roast"... and lots of those words have been used since looong time ago to refer to similar substances or that look alike, i.e. milk.
Also, using vegetable products isn't only because of being "allegedly more ecological", there are lot's of different reasons, typically : can't/shouldn't/won't eat animal products of some or all kinds. Or, just liking them, you know.
Not sure why so downvoted. My kid said a neighbor had almond milk in his fridge, and she hated it. I asked her how she would milk an almond, playing dumbfounded.
She said she doesn't think you can, and it's probably just almonds in water. And I told her she's probably right, and it's not milk.
She loves milk, fwiw. Consider her one pissed off consumer. Why are these jackasses trying to piggyback?
Oh the bovinity
There's some OK analysis further in, though I think they overlook the impact of demographic changes, lactose intolerance, and some other factors. The main problem for US milk providers is that most milk sold in the US is not very good. Farmers like Holstein cows which give maximum yield but the milk is not very creamy. If you can get milk from Jersey cows it's like night and day - big gobs of cream floating in it, and you can appreciate how milk functions as food. Don't get me started on 2% milk, which should simply not exist.
As so often, profits are shrinking because an industry got greedy and took up the pursuit of the lowest common denominator instead of the highest common factor. See also: journalism.