Western consumer habits are changing. We have seen it many times: veganism has become a rising trend, and it is likely that in the short or medium term it will stop being a niche and become an option with broad social support. Naturally, this process has aroused interest in alternative offers, vegetables, to traditional meat products.
Which includes milk.
Options. The debate about the impact of livestock farming has always focused on meat consumption. We know that industry emissions are around 14% of the annual total and that the manufacture of feed for livestock is one of the largest vectors of deforestation. The recent controversy over the mega-farms illustrates the extent to which the problem confronts the ecological visions of one part of society with others related to the economic utility of the meat industry.
Be that as it may, its impact is undeniable.
Also in dairy. Which includes milk. These elaborate graphs by Hannah Richie, a researcher at Our World in Data, are quite illustrative. From any point of view, the milk produced by cows is more harmful to the planet. The clearest contrast comes from agricultural use: traditional milk uses almost 9 square meters for every liter of milk produced, compared to 0.76 for oat milk or 0.66 for soy milk. That of rice is the most adjusted: 0.34.
at all levels. It’s not just about land use. Also from polluting gases. Cow’s milk emits 3.15 kilos/litre. Almond milk is much more efficient (0.7 kg/l), followed by oatmeal (0.9 kg/l) and soybean milk (0.98 kg/l). If we look at water consumption, the dynamics are repeated: animal milk requires 628 liters for each brick that arrives at the supermarket, compared to 371 for almonds, 269 for rice or the very meager 27 for soy.
We changed? From any point of view, plant-based milks are more efficient in the use of resources. Does this mean that the future passes through them? Not necessarily. To the consumption patterns so established in the West (milk, let us remember, precedes the modern economy and had a key impact on numerous physical and health improvements, such as height) we must add its lower protein load. Something of minor importance in developed countries but vital in underdeveloped ones.
It is there where meat is not such an accessible good, after all. Ritchie herself explains:
From a nutritional point of view, it is unlikely that the replacement of animal milk with plant milk should be a concern for those with a diverse diet (…) The average person in many poor countries gets most of their calories from cheap and high-energy products such as cereals or tubers. Both can account for up to three quarters of an individual’s caloric intake. These types of diets do not offer the diversity of nutrients necessary for good health (…) Without access to foods full of vitamins and minerals, often small doses of animal protein, such as milk, allow them to access one of the few sources of protein and complete micronutrients in their diet.
In short: changing one milk for another may make sense in rich countries, where diets are already very complete and there are many ways to supplement them, but not in poor or developing countries.
avant-garde. The graphs above do serve as a guide for those who, wherever they can and want to afford it, want to reduce the environmental footprint of their diet. In this sense, plant-based milks have been at the forefront of a technological and scientific trend that has been very much in vogue these years: “vegan” plant-based substitutes for meat and fish. They were around long before Beyond Meat caught on, but they fit in with the same trend. An increasingly carbon-neutral diet.
Image: Our World in Data