Like an estimated two-thirds of the world’s population, I don’t digest lactose well, which makes the occasional latte an especially pricey proposition. So it was a pleasant surprise when, shortly after moving to San Francisco, I ordered a drink at Blue Bottle Coffee and didn’t have to ask—or pay extra—for a milk alternative. Since 2022, the once Oakland-based, now Nestlé-owned cafe chain has defaulted to oat milk, both to cut carbon emissions and because lots of its affluent-tending customers were already choosing it as their go-to.
Plant-based milks, a multibillion-dollar global market, aren’t just good for the lactose intolerant: They’re also better for the climate. Dairy cows belch a lot of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide; they contribute at least 7 percent of US methane output, the equivalent emissions of 10 million cars. Cattle need a lot of room to graze, too: Plant-based milks use about a tenth as much land to produce the same quantity of milk. And it takes almost a thousand gallons of water to manufacture a gallon of dairy milk—four times the water cost of alt-milk from oats or soy.
But if climate concerns push us toward the alt-milk aisle, dairy still has price on its side. Even though plant-based milks are generally much less resource-intensive, they’re often more expensive. Walk into any Starbucks, and you’ll likely pay around 70 cents extra for nondairy options.
. Dairy’s affordability edge, explains María Mascaraque, an analyst at market research firm Euromonitor International, relies on the industry’s ability to produce “at larger volumes, which drives down the cost per carton.” American demand for milk alternatives, though expected to grow by 10 percent a year through 2030, can’t beat those economies of scale. (Globally, alt-milks aren’t new on the scene—coconut milk is even mentioned in the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata, which is thousands of years old.)
What else contributes to cow milk’s dominance? Dairy farmers are “political favorites,” says Daniel Sumner, a University of California, Davis, agricultural economist. In addition to support like the “Dairy Checkoff,” a joint government-industry program to promote milk products (including the “Got Milk?” campaign), they’ve long raked in direct subsidies currently worth around $1 billion a year.
Big Milk fights hard to maintain those benefits, spending more than $7 million a year on lobbying. That might help explain why the US Department of Agriculture has talked around the climate virtues of meat and dairy alternatives, refusing to factor sustainability into its dietary guidelines—and why it has featured content, such as a 2013 article by then–Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, trumpeting the dairy industry as “leading the way in sustainable innovation.”
But the USDA doesn’t directly support plant-based milk. It does subsidize some alt-milk ingredients—soybean producers, like dairy, net close to $1 billion a year on average, but that crop largely goes to feeding meat- and dairy-producing livestock and extracting oil. A 2021 report by industry analysts Mintec Limited and Frost Procurement Adventurer also notes that, while the inputs for dairy (such as cattle feed) for dairy are a little more expensive than typical plant-milk ingredients, plant alternatives face higher manufacturing costs. Alt-milk makers, Sumner says, may also have thinner profit margins: Their “strategy for growth is advertisement and promotion and publicity,” which isn’t cheap.
Starbucks, though, does benefit from economies of scale. In Europe, the company is slowly dropping premiums for alt-milks, a move it attributes to wanting to lower corporate emissions. “Market-level conditions allow us to move more quickly” than other companies, a spokesperson for the coffee giant told me, but didn’t say if or when the price drop would happen elsewhere.
In the United States, meanwhile, it’s a waiting game to see whether the government or corporations drive down alt-milk costs. Currently, Sumner says, plant-based milk producers operate under an assumption that “price isn’t the main thing” for their buyers—as long as enough privileged consumers will pay up, alt-milk can fill a premium niche. But it’s going to take a bigger market than that to make real progress in curbing emissions from food.
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.
It seems like you like vanilla and chocolate and not plant “milk.”
True, idk how much of the content is actually milk, some milk has tasted watery, especially rice milk and almond milk.
It varies from brand to brand. Some, usually the cheaper ones, are really just water and the flavor carrying plant and those are gonna be watery. The more “milk-like” tasting brands add canola oil to make it more fatty, just like milk has fats.
Just like buttermilk is more watery than whole milk since it contains less fat.
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I like silk too! But I don’t find it to be very good for baking or cooking.
I’ve found oat milk (specifically Oatly) to cook fairly well. I’ve made bechamel based sauces, puddings, custards, etc. with it plenty of times and always had good results.
I thought for puddings soy works better because of a enzyme in oat milk that prevents pudding from going solid. If it works for you, great.
It depends on the brand of oat milk, some work, some don’t.
Oh the one time I used instant pudding mix it didn’t work. It only works with mixes that you cook or making it fully from scratch. Works great with rice pudding!
Fuck yeah. I had Oatly once like 3 years ago and decided that was the end of sucking on cow tits for me.
Same that is my favorite and I don’t think we are alone because its always sold out at the stores while the other plant milks remain untouched.
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Strongly disagree on it tasting better, the only thing I like anywhere near as much is chocolate almond.
I understand. It is a matter of personal preference. Chocolate almond is pretty good and I liked dark chocolate almond even more.
There is zero reason to drink milk past infancy. Plant based milks suck for cooking.
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That came across wrong. If you like drinking milk, so be it. There used to be a big push that you need to drink milk. Some of it by the dairy lobby, but also the food pyramid thing. Milk is dense nutritionally, yes, but we don’t have a need to drink it, was the point I was trying to say. I know that isn’t pushed as much today, but I was definitely a generation raised being told that you must drink milk, it’s a necessity.
Or you could just live and let live, fam. Why be so judgmental?
I said the same thing to my neighbor when he caught me tossing my trash in his back yard. Like, what the fuck dude? Just chill.
grrr someone likes something I don’t like grrr
Most people prefer the taste and it’s often more calorically dense? And yeah, plant based sucks for cooking. I mostly use milk products (half and half, cream) in cooking, and plant based is not it for cooking.
I’m a pretty devout meat eater, I will 10000% give up eating meat before giving up dairy. Also, fwiw, we do need to eat less meat and use fewer animal products, but lets not gaslight ourselves about it.
There are plant milks and creams for cooking purposes. As for the taste, if you feel plant milks have overpowering taste, you can mix multiple different types. For example, when we have made white sauce for lasagna, we use soy-, oat- and almond milk.
I haven’t used dairy in a long time, so I can’t think of anything where plant based products couldn’t be used as a reasonable replacement (apart from cheese, there the options are severely lacking)