
A Swedish farmer using oats to make milk - rmason
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/aug/26/wow-no-cow-swedish-farmer-oats-milk-oatly
======
towb
From what it looks like reading swedish news over the years, there is no money
in running a traditional farm, german milk is cheaper, danish meat is cheaper
and so on. I'm sure that's the main reason a farmer would go for something
like this, rather than for saving the planet or whatever.

And my personal experience with this Oatly milk, it tastes like hay. Which
makes me wonder where this demand came from.

~~~
draugadrotten
These oat-based products are popular because allergies are common. People
allergic to milk and/or soy proteins can drink this milk, eat this ice-cream
etc

~~~
Double_a_92
But why would you then drink some product that tastes nothing like real milk?
Just because it is white, sweetish and marketing people called it "<something>
milk"?

~~~
tuukkah
Two broad alternatives: because it's the best substitute ("somewhat like milk
in some way"), or because it's good. It's not like "milk" in "<something>
milk" has to refer to the taste of, or to cow's milk at all.

~~~
nailer
Exactly. Milk means you can put it on your cereal and use it in your flat
white. It doesn't mean you can turn a 50kg calf into a 500kg bull.

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troels
Just got to add that Oatly is a great product. Unlike most other plant based
substitute for milk, it isn't overly sweet.

~~~
twobyfour
How thick is it? Other plant "milks" I've tried (almond, rice, soy) seem to
resemble skim milk in texture, and you have to get something labeled "creamer"
to find a consistency that resembles 2%, let alone whole milk.

~~~
will_brown
A non-creamer plant based milk with a thicker texture is Califia Farms Toasted
Coconut Almond Milk, highlights 0 grams of sugar, 50% more calcium than milk
and 45 calories/cup.

~~~
evincarofautumn
Coconut fat (milk) works well to bring up the thickness of almond milk. Makes
it work significantly better in coffee.

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wybiral
Plant based milks have been around for ages and they work great to substitute
milk that you drink or put on your cereal or something.

But they aren't going to replace milk that we use in, say, the production of
butter, cheese, casein, or lactose products.

I'd be curious to see what a pie chart of the end products from our milk
production looks like.

~~~
twobyfour
For the vast majority of uses, butter can be replaced by vegetable-based
shortenings like margarine. There is non-dairy (usually soy-based) cheese,
too. Not that either of those tastes remotely as good as the dairy-based
versions, but I can imagine it's possible to improve on them with concerted
effort.

~~~
yorwba
I have never noticed a difference in taste between butter and margarine, and I
have eaten both with a spoon after coming home to an otherwise empty fridge.
It's just fat.

Or maybe you are just talking about "soy cheese"? I agree that pure tofu is
pretty bland, but with various seasonings (I'm partial to Chili oil), it can
be quite good.

~~~
twobyfour
To my palate, butter tends to be a little bit sweeter and less oily than
margarine. It tastes lighter and richer.

It's not as obvious as, say, olive oil vs. canola oil, but it is
distinguishable. I can imagine giving up butter in favor of margarine... but
then I also doubt the half pound I go through per year has a major impact in
the big picture.

As for cheese... I do eat tofu sometimes in place of meats, but don't see it
as a good substitute for cheese, except for perhaps a very narrow selection of
cheese varieties (perhaps paneer).

I've yet to find a soy substitute for a cheddar or brie. What I have had is
soy ricotta, which is about 80% of the way to matching the real thing in terms
of texture and about 50% there in terms of flavor. I have no doubt it will be
done eventually, but we're still a _very_ long way from replacing a cheese
lover's dairy consumption with alternatives.

------
nikolay
First, it's not "milk" only because it's a white liquid. Second, if people are
so grossed out by milk, why do they want to drink surrogates of it?! I
understand that there are lactose intolerant people, too, but I'm not talking
about them if it's unclear. I've seen lactose-free milk at stores recently.

~~~
erikpukinskis
> First, it's not "milk" only because it's a white liquid

That's exactly why it's milk actually. Just like coconut milk, which has
existed forever, milk of magnesia which has existed since 1875, and soy milk
which has been widely consumed since the 1800s.

Oat milk is not milk. But it's milk. English has no problem with that. Pizza
pie is not pie. Boot camp is not camp. A house boat is not a boat. We
understand each other just fine. You add a word to another word and you get a
third word that's unique from both of its parts.

~~~
perilunar
Actually the EU recently ruled that "Plant-based foods cannot be sold in the
European Union using terms such as milk, butter and cheese". There are some
exceptions though. See
[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40274645](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-40274645)

There's a similar push happening in Australia.

BTW, I think pizza is only called 'pizza pie' in the US? And a house boat is
definitely a boat if it floats.

~~~
tom_mellior
True about the EU ruling, but legal language is often different than more
informal everyday language. Obviously the Court of Justice did not rule that
you are forbidden from using the word "milk" when speaking to your friends
about soy milk :-)

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dreamcompiler
I grew up on a farm and we did this all the time. We just fed the oats to
cows. < _ducks_ >

~~~
cperciva
You won't get milk from ducks, no matter how many oats you feed them.

~~~
saalweachter
Now I'm wondering what platypus milk tastes like.

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JonoBB
My daughter had an intolerance to cow's milk. We were advised to try soya
instead, which her tummy also didn't like. Next we tried oat milk (Oatly being
one of the brands) and she loved it. Actually, the rest of us tried it too,
and liked it so much that we no longer have any cow's milk in the house.

~~~
agumonkey
I like goat cheese.. never tried goat milk, now I'm curious.

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vbuwivbiu
The only problem with oat and almond milk is that they're mostly a suspension
of cheap vegetable oil in water. Vegetable oils like sunflower oil aren't
healthy.

~~~
cropsieboss
Is there a way to measure healthiness of a single ingredient? I didn't find
anything allowing me to label stuff as healthy or unhealthy. At least not
scientific. I do not even think there's a scientific definition of healthiness
of one single ingredient. I guess by your definition (vegetable oils
increasing risk of some cardiovascular diseases) makes all meat, animal breast
milk, eggs unhealthy.

I thought only diets and lifestyle can be healthy, regardless of what a single
ingredient can do.

Also, if it is vegetable oil, how come there's protein in it? I thought oil is
just fat? There's 4 grams of protein in 100mL of soy/oat milk (about the same
as cow breast milk). Almonds on the other hand are a big scam with only 0.x
protein, water with some flavour.

~~~
bagacrap
Industrially produced seed oils are thought to be unhealthy due to an over-
abundance of Omega 6. But some regulatory authorities still cling to the
decades-old wisdom that basically boils down to avoiding saturated fat at all
costs, so they'll recommend vegetable oils over animal products.

There are definitely healthy fats and unhealthy ones, for example everyone can
agree trans fats are in the latter category. The perfect fatty acid profile is
a matter for debate but it's definitely possible to isolate bad ingredients by
a variety of means (populational studies, etc). It's not easy though, if it
were then there wouldn't be so much debate in this space.

~~~
tuukkah
If you're afraid of consuming too much Omega 6, choose oils with more Omega 3
such as flaxseed and rapeseed. Also:

 _" [We] have known about the harms of fatty acid imbalance, and an excess of
omega-6, for a long time. So much so that sunflower oil in the US was
'upgraded' through selective breeding to produce a high-oleic-acid variety
(high monounsaturated fatty acid) that now prevails, and AVOIDS the potential
harms noted in this paper. The same thing is now being done to soybean oil,
and the high monounsaturated fatty acid version of that will soon replace the
old variety.”_ [https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2016/04/13/the-
ani...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2016/04/13/the-animal-vs-
vegetable-fat-saga-continues/)

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rowyourboat
How is this different from any other oat milk?

~~~
tom_mellior
Surprised by the hype in this thread, I was wondering the same, so I went out
and bought some. I've had oat and other grain milks before, and I'm not a fan
nor an expert. Also, I didn't do a direct comparison with another oat milk.

That said, I find Oatly less watery and much less sweet than the last oat milk
I remember trying. It has a darker greenish-gray color than other plant milks
(maybe from the added algae?). It still tastes like oats (though less than
others) and not like milk. In a blind tasting, I think I would prefer it to
other oat and similar milks because of the more rounded, less earthy and less
sweet taste than the others I have had.

Overall, it's better than the competition, but it won't become something I
will buy regularly (as opposed to cow's milk).

------
tuukkah
One of their competitors, Planti, uses oats to make a great alternative to
vanilla yoghurt called YogOat: [http://planti.se/Vaara-produkter/YogOat-
Vanilj](http://planti.se/Vaara-produkter/YogOat-Vanilj)

------
wohlergehen
I dont think this will be adopted broadly unless it matches the price of real
milk.

Given that oat milk cuts out the middleman (middlecow?), should this not be
cheaper anyway, or are there scale effects preventing it from reaching price
parity?

~~~
BenjiWiebe
As far as the middleman, at least cows don't typically charge money for their
services.

~~~
anotherbrownguy
Well, cows do cost money to keep, which is what wohlergehen must be referring
to.

------
twobyfour
Does the process use the whole oat? If not, what's done with the solids left
over after processing?

~~~
tom_mellior
The French version of their FAQ at
[http://www.oatly.com/faq/](http://www.oatly.com/faq/) (but not other language
versions, for whatever reason) says that they feed whatever is left to
animals. Here is the whole question ran through Google Translate:

What do we do with waste from the manufacture of oat beverages?

We work as much for sustainable consumption of food as for a sustainable
production of these products. Regarding the consumption of food, it is
indisputable that a sustainable diet for the future contains far fewer animal
products than we eat today, there is even a great unanimity on this subject in
all sciences of this disciplined. In sustainable food production, we believe
that the crops of the future will be much more than they are today, focusing
directly on food rather than animal feed.

Any production of food products, even based on vegetable raw materials, also
generates waste. It is not always possible to use the entire raw material in
the final product. In the case of oat beverages, we remove some of the
insoluble fiber which results in a loss of nutrients, which are extracted with
the insoluble fraction. Efforts to achieve sustainable food production are
largely based on sobriety in the use of resources. Regarding waste, we believe
that their most sustainable management is to exploit the remaining food and
energy in the form of food by making them the ingredients of animal fodder
that are still high. All this to benefit from the food produced. In the next
step, when all the food has been used as fodder, the final waste is biogas.

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petecox
is café con horchata a big thing in the US? I don't remember seeing it on my
travels.

It's not widely known in Australia (to us Anglos) but a Mexican friend
supplied me with some and it tasted better than the almond or soy substitutes
I've had!

~~~
jiggunjer
I googled horchata and apparently it is any milk made from nuts of cereal.
Including almonds.

~~~
gordaco
Horchata varies by region. The one I'm familiar with, from Spain, is based on
tigernuts. It's a very traditional summer drink and frankly you won't find a
different kind of horchata in Spain, unless you search for it in ethnic stores
(and even so I'm not sure where I would look for it). Apparently horchata in
Mexico is based on rice, and I don't know if there aren't any other versions.
I haven't tried rice based horchata, but it soudns very different from the
Spanish one, and I'd like to try it some day.

I don't know about how has the term evolved in the English speaking word, but
_no one_ in Spain will refer to horchata as milk, nor do we use it as a milk
replacement (nobody would mix it with coffee, for example). Also we don't use
the term as a generic word for vegetal milk at all. Milk and horchata don't
really have anything in common aside from being white drinkable liquids.

------
cirrus-clouds
I drink milk, but we (as in "we in the Western World"), could all do with
drinking less of it.

You would be surprised by how many people are unaware of how milk is produced.
Only a pregnant female cow can produce milk [Edit: as BenjiWiebe correctly
states below, cows lactate after they give birth). So a female dairy cow will
spend most of her adult life in a pregnant state. Once she gives birth, she is
separated from her calf usually within a few hours (sometimes she'll be
together with her offspring for 24 hours, but never more than that).

Then she'll be artificially inseminated again (normally within 3 months of
giving birth) so she can start producing milk again. And so the cycle repeats.

The reason milk is so cheap (at least in Europe) is because we aren't prepared
to pay for higher welfare conditions. We say we care for farm welfare, but our
behaviour shows otherwise. Maybe we care a little bit, but we care even more
for cheap prices. (And yes, I confess I am as guilty as the rest of us).

In many European countries, increasing numbers of dairy cows spend their
entire lives indoors ("zero grazing"). For example, Germany is the EU's
largest milk producer and the majority of dairy cows spend their entire lives
indoors with no access to outdoor pasture. This is perfectly legal under EU
regulations.

~~~
BenjiWiebe
Um, the first part of your comment is a common misunderstanding. Female cows
produce milk only _after_ they've had a calf. Not _during_. And they continue
producing milk generally for as long as you milk them. Their production does
go down over time, but they can be milked for a year after one calf, sometimes
two years. Production does go down when they are pregnant, though. :) Source:
20 years on a dairy

~~~
amelius
Also, typically, only the milk after the second calf is used. Milk obtained
between first and second calf contains proteins that are unsuitable for human
consumption.

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powertower
These types of drinks have _nothing_ in common with milk...

The manufacturing process involves grinding almonds, oats, etc, into a very
fine particulate powder, mixing it into water.

Then adding in all things necessary to keep it in suspension, and making it
drinkable (try "almond milk" without the sugar and see how long it takes you
to regurgitate it back out).

Almond-milk wasn't even selling until they placed it into the refrigerated
section of the store next to real milk - to confuse the buyers with what it
actually was-not.

It is likely that most consumers think the manufacturers press or squeeze the
almonds to get at its "milk", and have no idea they are just drinking a few
grams of powdered almonds.

~~~
mollusk
I don't think anyone confuses nut milk for cow milk in stores. It's usually
more expensive than cow milk and clearly labeled with the specific main
ingredient. I don't think these companies are trying to deceive anyone.
There's a relatively small subset of consumers, who are interested in milk
substitutes, so it's a niche product that serves them well. And cow milk
contains sugars too, lactose, which is a disaccharide of galactose and
glucose. Finally, the thought that they would squeeze almonds to get milk also
never even crossed my mind. I know it's a suspension of powdered almonds in
water. There's even recipes of DIY nut milk, that are essentially "grind
almonds, add water, stir". So your whole argument seems just ridiculous to me.

