[prepend]

The article is about the failings of Oatly, not the failures of milk.

There’s lots of milk substitutes that aren’t as bad for you as Oatly.

I read the comparison to milk as just a comparison to the baseline or what Oatly wants to taste like, not as an endorsement of cow milk.

[rattray]

Which milk substitutes are better? Especially in the sense that they wouldn't be able to accrue complaints from an assailant as dogged as this writer.

[rconti]

I think almond milk tastes awful, Oatly was the first milk substitute I actually liked (maybe preferred!) to dairy milk.

Currently I rotate through Oatly, Califa farms, and Silk oat milks depending on what's available.

The water footprint of almond milk is just mind-blowing. I can't fathom ripping out other productive agriculture so that we can suck up more water than other crops just to sell almonds overseas and turn it into.. milk.

[Freak_NL]

Of all the mammal milk alternatives oat milk seems the most environmentally friendly in temperate climates, as it can be grown regionally.

Although some point out that any plant-based milk is significantly better for the environment than mammal milk:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/28/what-pla...

[howlin]

Soy milk is just as reasonable environmentally and probably a little healthier as a nutrition source compared to oat milk. Though the flavor of soy is a little harder to get used to.

[themgt]

I think unsweetened almond milk is maybe the best overall pick if you want a milk substitute. From my understanding it's fairly healthy, natural, and the taste / "mouth feel" is good. Downsides are cost and maybe the amount of water/bees used to make the almonds.

[rattray]

I'm also a fan of almond milk from a taste perspective, but I've always been a bit unsure about how it is processed – and the amount of water used is definitely an ethical downside in my book (I used to live in California, where this was a controversy during times of drought).

After a bit of research just now, though, there don't seem to be many credible claims of commercial Almond Milk's chemical processing being very scary (at least compared to Oatly, which also has a few additives) so that doesn't seem too problematic to me.

This article discusses the environmental impact of various milk alternatives:

https://medium.com/@tabitha.whiting/what-milk-should-you-buy....

> Greenhouse gas emissions: a 200ml glass of oat milk is responsible for around 0.18kg of CO2e. That’s slightly more than almond milk, but less than soy or cow’s milk.

> Swedish oat milk producer Oatly put the greenhouse gas emissions of a litre of their oat milk at 0.34kg, which is a lot less than the general estimate above of 0.18kg per 200ml

> Water: a litre of oat milk needs about 48 litres of water produce. In terms of water, then, oat milk is much lower impact than other milks.

In comparison, a liter of almond milk needs 386 liters of water to produce, and cow's milk, 1016, as per https://treadingmyownpath.com/2017/04/20/is-almond-milk-bad-....

The takeaway for me is that I might prefer oat milk to almond milk for "health/eco impact" reasons by a very narrow margin, but would strongly prefer either to cow's milk for those reasons.

[Nursie]

"Innocent" branded oat milk-substitute contains no added oil of any kind, so all of his canola objections would be moot there.

I guess it still contains oat sugars though, at 3.2g per 100ml (of 7g carbs per 100ml)

[rattray]

100ml == ~3.4oz, so that's probably still a pretty equivalent amount of sugar to oatly. Either way, they're pretty negligible – most juices have at least 20g sugar in a cup.

[Nursie]

I personally really enjoy hazelnut milk too. It has oils and sugars from the nuts, I have no idea if it's 'good' for you, but it is delicious.

[prepend]

There are many milk substitutes that don’t have the sugar of Oatly, the ones I’ve tried are the unsweetened almond and coconut milks.

I think they suck in coffee (so does Oatly) but they are good for cereal or smoothies or just liquid protein.

[itsoktocry]

>just liquid protein.

Almond and coconut milk have very limited amounts of protein.

[distances]

> I think they suck in coffee (so does Oatly)

Are you referring to the normal Oatly or the Barista version? Because the normal one doesn't work for coffee, but the latter is the best coffee milk I've had. I used to use real cream but actually now prefer that Oatly, it's that good.

[chrisweekly]

Califia unsweetened almond milk is delicious.