The Great Milk Showdown: Health, Environment, and Everything In Between

Commentary by Dr. Donald Greig

In recent years, plant-based milks have surged in popularity, often touted as healthier and more eco-friendly alternatives to dairy. But recent research from Oxford University has cast doubt on these assumptions, revealing that not all milk alternatives are created equal. Let’s delve into the health benefits and environmental impacts of various milk options, from cow to coconut.

Cow's Milk

Health: ★★★★★ (Full Fat), ★★★★✰ (Skimmed)

Whole cow’s milk is a powerhouse of nutrients, rich in calcium and vitamin B12. It provides a complete protein source and offers about 68 calories per 100ml. While skimmed milk has fewer calories, it compromises on fat-soluble vitamins.

Environment: ✰✰✰✰✰

Dairy farming significantly contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, requiring extensive land and water resources. Producing cow’s milk generates three times more emissions than most plant-based milks.

Almond Milk

Health: ★★★✰✰

Low in calories but also low in nutrients, almond milk often requires fortification. Most commercial varieties are ultra-processed, which can lead to poorer health outcomes.

Environment: ★✰✰✰✰

Almonds require about 372 liters of water per liter of milk produced, and due to the need for higher volumes to match dairy's nutritional content, almond milk can ultimately use 67% more water than dairy to provide similar benefits.

Oat Milk

Health: ★★✰✰✰

Oat milk, while popular, is high in carbohydrates, which can cause blood sugar spikes. Many commercially available options are also ultra-processed.

Environment: ★★★✰✰

Oats are relatively sustainable, using less water than dairy. However, non-organic oats can contribute to biodiversity loss due to pesticide use.

Soy Milk

Health: ★★★★✰

Soy milk is the closest alternative to cow's milk nutritionally, providing all nine essential amino acids. Unsweetened versions are the best choice.

Environment: ★★★★✰

Soy farming has a mixed reputation due to deforestation concerns, but soy milk uses less water and emits lower greenhouse gases compared to dairy.

Rice Milk

Health: ★★✰✰✰

Rice milk is low in protein and naturally sweet, which may not be suitable for everyone. Concerns about arsenic levels in rice products add to its drawbacks.

Environment: ★✰✰✰✰

Rice milk production is water-intensive and generates significant emissions, making it one of the less sustainable options.

Coconut Milk

Health: ★✰✰✰✰

Coconut milk is often mixed with other ingredients and lacks significant nutritional value unless fortified.

Environment: ★★✰✰✰

While coconut trees help sequester carbon, the environmental impact of coconut farming, including potential harm to wildlife, raises concerns.

Cashew Milk

Health: ★★★✰✰

Creamy and less processed than almond milk, cashew milk offers a decent alternative but lacks comprehensive nutritional information.

Environment: ★★★✰✰

Cashews use less water than almonds but still require more than soy. As demand grows, monitoring environmental impacts becomes crucial.

Choosing the right milk involves balancing health benefits with environmental impact. While dairy remains a nutrient-dense option, its environmental footprint is significant. Plant-based alternatives like soy milk often provide a more sustainable choice, but they are not without their own challenges. As consumers, it's essential to stay informed and choose options that align with both our health needs and environmental values. For a more expansive brief, please read the full article below or click on source.

Source

How good is your milk (for you and for the environment)?

Article by Libby Galvin

The latest research suggests that some milk alternatives are not as good for the planet as we thought

Healthier, eco-friendly, altogether virtuous? If that’s what you think of yourself as you splash almond milk over your porridge or order an oat flat white of a morning, think again. The myth of the milk alternative has been shattered this week by upsetting news from Oxford University declaring that their latest research suggests vegan staples such as almond and oat milks are not as good for the planet as was once thought. This follows growing murmurs that they are not as great for our health as we had hoped, either.

The Oxford scientists discovered that, while it may appear that replacing meat and dairy with plant-based alternatives lightens the load on the planet, when you try to match the calorie content of the replacement milk with what dairy offers, the burden on the environment shoots up.

Their stats showed that switching whole milk with almond milk (of which four servings are needed to replace one serving of milk) increased the average impacts to the environment by 14 per cent overall, due to the huge amount of water required to grow almonds and produce milk from them.

It’s a complex picture with many variables, so what should you stock your fridge with?

In a middle class household, you’re not looking to replace a glass of milk with something of equal calories alone, you just want to match it with a drink with the same sort of vitamins and minerals, pint for pint. In fact, for many of us, fewer calories is a bonus!

So whether your main concern is your own wellness or the wellbeing of the world around you, here’s how the evidence stacks up …

Whole milk is the most energy-dense option across the milk/alternative milk spectrum

Cow’s milk

Health: Full fat ★★★★★, Skimmed ★★★★✰

Whole cow’s milk is an excellent source of nutrients, in particular calcium and B12 (a vitamin vital for energy conversion and nerve function, which many vegan diets lack). It’s a complete protein, providing all the essential amino acids our bodies need for growth. No wonder we feed it to our toddlers in industrial quantities. Whole milk is the most energy-dense option across the milk/alternative milk spectrum, at about 68 calories and 3.5g of fat per 100ml, but this is only a concern if you need to lose weight — otherwise it’s a nutritious energy source.

Skimming the fat from milk is a double-edged sword. It reduces calories per 100ml to 37 and fat to 0.3g, and marginally increases calcium content, but ditching the fat means we can’t as easily absorb the fat-soluble nutrients milk contains, in particular vitamin A.

Of course, if you’re allergic to dairy, neither is an option.

Environment: ✰✰✰✰✰

Dairy falls down spectacularly when it comes to the environment. It is the eco-unfriendly bar against which alternative milks are measured, and it makes even the worst of those look good. In Europe dairy is thought to account for between a quarter and a third of our total carbon footprint from food, and producing it accounts for three times the greenhouse emissions of any of the alternative milks. It also uses as much as ten times more land, between two and twenty times as much water, and contaminates water and ecosystems with two to ten times more nutrient run-off (eutrophication).

However, it’s worth keeping in mind that if researchers plotted the cost to the environment against micronutrient content rather than per litre, the results would be quite different. When this is done for CO2 emissions, some studies have shown that the carbon footprint of dairy milk is reversed to become less than a third that of oat milk. And, as the latest study from Oxford noted, the water use required to make the same quantity of calories from almond milk as provided by whole milk drives up almond milk’s overall environmental impact to be 14 percent worse than dairy.

The only nutrient which almond milk contains significant amounts of naturally is vitamin E

Almond milk

Health: ★★★✰✰

Almond milk is low calorie but it’s also low in pretty much everything else you’d hope for. Most commercial almond milks will be fortified with calcium and other micronutrients, although these are not as easily absorbed by our guts as the natural forms in dairy, and they’ll probably also contain stabilisers and emulsifiers, which makes them UPFs (ultra-processed foods), high consumptions of which have been linked to poorer health outcomes. Check the label, as there are some “simple” organic almond milks out there which contain just almonds, water and perhaps a pinch of salt, if preferred.

The only nutrient which almond milk contains significant amounts of naturally is vitamin E, but again, check the label: a lower-fat brand will mean this fat-soluble vitamin won’t be absorbed unless you have it with something that does contain a few grams of the stuff. And eating a cheese sarnie with your almond drink may defeat the point …

Environment: ★✰✰✰✰

The almond plant is a thirsty one, and growing it uses about 372 litres of water per litre of milk made. This is a lot less than used to make cow’s milk — 628 litres — but because you have to drink four times the amount of (unfortified) almond milk to get similar nutritional benefits, the latest study would say that it actually uses 67 per cent more water than dairy to achieve the same dietary benefits.

However, most of us will not drink this much almond milk to replace our whole milk, we’ll match it roughly millilitre for millilitre, hence I have scored almond milk slightly better for the environment overall.

Another downside is its effect on bees. In the US, beekeepers lose a third of their colonies every year due to pesticides used on almond trees.

Oat milk

Health: ★★✰✰✰

This alt-milk’s health halo has lost its sheen recently, leaving consumers frothing into their oat lattes with frustration. Whole oats are good for you, containing a form of insoluble fibre proven to be great for gut and heart health, but once mashed and manipulated into a milk, the picture becomes less clear. Oat milk is high in carbs (7g per 100ml versus 5g per 100ml in whole milk or 2.5g in almond milk) and may cause blood-sugar spikes. And again, most of the oat milks on the shelves are UPFs, with all the associated added sugars and stabilisers, as well as rapeseed or sunflower oils too. These are used to create that creamy, smooth texture that most alternative milks lack (and it’s one of the reasons oat is more popular for use in coffee than its competitors).

Environment: ★★★✰✰

At a glance, oat milk appears relatively sustainable. Oats are not a culprit for excessive food miles. They contribute to less than a third of the greenhouse gas emissions of dairy and, although they are the most “land-hungry” of the alt-milks, using 0.76 square metres to produce a litre of oat milk, it’s nothing compared to the 8.95 square metres hoovered up by cows. However, if your oat milk isn’t organic, it will have been sprayed with pesticides that are toxic to all sorts of animals and organisms needed for biodiversity — killing them may lead to a larger oat crop but the earth around them suffers.

Soy milk

Health: ★★★★✰

Like dairy, soy milk provides all nine essential amino acids required for protein synthesis. Fortified versions — although ultra-processed — are the most nutritionally similar to cow’s milk, with even more vitamin D, so an unsweetened off-the-shelf soy milk is the best swap you’ll get. (Do be sure it’s unsweetened, as many soy drinks will otherwise list added sugar as the third ingredient after water and soy beans.) However, soy allergies are not uncommon, and some people are concerned about phyto-oestrogens — plant hormones in soy which mimic human oestrogen — and their impact on us, although the scientific jury is still out on this.

Environment: ★★★★✰

Soy crops have a bad reputation, as the demand for their growth is behind much deforestation, including the destruction of the Amazon. However, the vast majority of soy grown in these regions is for livestock feed, not human use. With this in mind, soy milk compares favourably on all environmental metrics, using the least fresh water, taking up relatively little land and emitting less than a third of the greenhouse gases as cow’s milk. The original alt-milk, perhaps we got it near enough right first time round?

Rice

Health: ★★✰✰✰

Like other alternative milks, rice doesn’t offer much on its own but, fortified, its nutritional profile is not a million miles from dairy. However, it contains next to no protein and even unsweetened versions are naturally sugary (at about 10g per 100ml) and there are concerns about arsenic levels in rice products. Some dieticians describe it as just slightly sweet water, and they’re not wrong.

Environment: ★✰✰✰✰

Rice milk is probably the hardest on the environment of all the milk alternatives (though still better than dairy). It is almost as thirsty a crop as almond milk, drinking up 270 litres of freshwater per litre of milk made (compared to almond’s 372 and dairy’s 628 litres that sounds good; next to oat and soy at 48 and 28 respectively, it’s awful). It is the second worst for nutrient pollution run-off, and marginally the worst alt-milk for emissions. All that for almost no nutrient value.

Some sources say the impact of coconut cultivation on wildlife is worse than that of palm oil

Coconut

Health: ★✰✰✰✰

Coconut milk is rarely on the shelves in unalloyed form (unless you go for the tinned stuff, which is not what we’re talking about). While it might say coconut on the front of the carton, turn it over and check out the ingredients for the facts. I haven’t seen a single coconut milk on the market that doesn’t contain rice as well, probably for the sweetness. Other than containing a little more natural fat than other milk alternatives, and sugar from the rice, it is similarly processed and similar in nutritional profile, thanks to fortification.

Environment: ★★✰✰✰

On the surface, coconut production does not look too bad for the environment, placing conservative demands on water and growing as they do on trees which trap carbon dioxide. However, some sources say the impact of coconut cultivation on wildlife is worse than that of palm oil, and demand for coconut products leads to exploitation of indigenous workers.

Cashew milk is creamier than almond milk

Cashew

Health: ★★★✰✰

Go into the bigger supermarkets and you might find cashew in the dairy aisle too. It’s not a huge contender yet — and behind it still are milks such as pea, hemp and potato — but it’s growing. Creamier than almond milk, the only versions widely available right now are organic brands, meaning they are not fortified. Not a bad thing, as these drinks are also not ultra-processed, and do contain just water, cashew and a little salt — but the micronutrient profile is not clear, and it’s not a “replacement” for dairy.

Environment: ★★★✰✰

Cashews use less water than almonds but they’re still much thirstier plants than, say, soy. Food miles are also considerable but, on the plus side, they require very little land to produce. However, as the popularity of any foodstuff grows, so inevitably does its unforeseen impact.