[gorilla_fight]

> I'd take lactose over fructose or glucose any day.

I came to the same conclusion, to expand on this point: lactose = glucose + galactose, and there is some interesting research on the benefits of galactose:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3240634/ Galactose Enhances Oxidative Metabolism and Reveals Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Human Primary Muscle Cells

normally it is broken down to glucose, which can be quickly used for energy by the muscular system. In contrast, sucrose = glucose + fructose, the fructose requiring a complex breakdown process by the liver (see Robert Lustig's research, especially his 2009 lecture _Sugar: The Bitter Truth_).

Milk can actually be quite healthful, an excellent source of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K2, depending on the conditions the cow was raised in and the forage and pasture she was fed. It is also absent of many of the compounds found in nut-based products, including phytoestrogens: plant-based estrogen found in soybeans, phytic acid: inhibits absorption of dietary minerals calcium/iron/zinc found in oats (although the phytate content can be reduced by soaking the oats overnight, how many producers of oat-based products do this?) and almonds/hazelnuts/peanuts/tiger nuts/walnuts/cashews, lectins: carbohydrate-binding proteins found in legumes including peas and soybeans.

From a purely nutritional standpoint, these alternative "mylks" (hat tip to the EU for preventing a corruption of the meaning of the word "milk") seem to be strictly inferior: lower in the good stuff, higher in the bad stuff.

> Otherwise, I might as well drink soda,--from looking at the sugar content of most of these "milks" it's roughly as healthy.

This reminds me of the push to replace soda with fruit juice, but then it turned out they both often have a comparable sugar content: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/06/09/319230765/fr...

History repeats, and yet again we see a similar push. Personally I am sticking with good old-fashioned milk myself, the bar to replace a 10,000 year old (estimated 9000-7000 BCE) food is quite high.

[selimthegrim]

Overnight oats are quite a popular product...

[gorilla_fight]

Yes traditionally oatmeal is soaked overnight, but how many of these producers of oat "milk" products will take the time to perform this extra step?

I first found out about soaked oats from _Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods_ by Sandor Ellix Katz, but interestingly it is an older practice, we now know improves digestability (excerpt from page 118):

> Oatmeal (or "oytmeal", as my father always calls it, in imitation of his immigrant grandmother) is the quintessential comfort food. It is soft and mushy, harkening back to that long ago time of infancy, when all our food was of such a consistency and lovingly spoon-fed to us. In early modern Europe, according to an article by Elizabeth Meyer-Renschhausen in the anthropology journal _Food and Foodways_, porridges were generally fermented and eaten as a "sour soup"[10]. Fermenting oats before cooking them not only makes them more nutritious and digestible, it makes the resulting oatmeal much creamer as well. For the freshest, most nutritious oatmlea, coarsely grind whole oats yourself when you are ready to use them, though steel-cut oats or rolled oats will work fine, too.

[10] _Food and Foodways_: "New Chapter Health Report", Elizabeth Meyer-Renschhausen, 2000