As a lactose intolerant person personally I love the fact that there is now a wide proliferation of non-diary creamers that aren't gross french vanilla coffee mate stuff. I used to drink my coffee black because that stuff always made me feel sick. Now I can enjoy it with some almond or oat milk.
Lactose free milk, cream and many other dairy products are widely available.
I’m not lactose intolerant but I do buy lactofree milk I find it to last a bit longer and I see no reason to temp fate as you can become more and more intolerant as you grow older and I do like my cheeses.
"Milk" still means "cows milk" at every coffee shop I've been to, and I would be embarrassed to say "cows milk", as if I'm importing some internet culture war into the real world. Literally everyone will know what you mean if you say "with milk", unless you are at some specifically vegan coffee shop.
In NYC, and this is no longer true or assumed. I think oat milk is the most commonly used now. I have to say cow's milk pretty frequently just to get cow's milk, though I could probably get away with saying "regular milk."
Yes; "milk" with no qualifier is what comes out of the dangly bits of cows. If you order "eggs" at a restaurant, expect something that's been inside a chicken.
I'm not a vegan and I'm not lactose intolerant, but I'm 100% convinced that oat milk in coffee tastes much better than other options. It smoothes out the acidity and adds a mild nutty aroma. Almond milk and soy milk are good too, but oat is the best.
Cafe was out of cows milk one day, so i had oat milk instead. It was fine - it was different but I could get used to it. Prefer cow milk, but just because that's what im used to right now.