In a sustainable and ethical view, consuming animal's milk can cause so many damages to the environment and our health due to the utilization of degenerative livestock factories that use too much land and water-and usually over-breeds-that cause too much methane released into the atmosphere. Animal's milk, for example, cow's milk has richness in protein, fat, carbohydrate, minerals and vitamins that are fairly good for human consumption, yet it also generates 70% of high hormones that could increase the risk of breast, uterine, and prostate cancer. Many people might not have noticed that cow's milk contains 12 grams of carbohydrate from the lactose (sugar), which we all know is pretty harmful for our health.
On the other side of the pan, in whichever diet you are, considering the animal's welfare and the environmental impacts should be enough to try switching to plant based milk alternatives, that are far healthier and more ethical in many ways. Plant based milk derives from several categories; such as, fruit (e.g. coconut), grain (e.g. rice and oat), legume (e.g. soy), and nut (e.g. almond), which contain no hormones, low in fat and calories, less sugar, require less land, water, and fewer if not zero emission.
Let's dive into these dairy alternatives and let's see which one suits your ethical preference-from the less sustainable to the most.
Coconut Milk
In terms of emission, coconut is low on chart; yet due to its growing location (mostly in tropical countries, like India, Philippines, and Indonesia), where the pickers are often paid less than the minimum, the groves' industries are no paradise. It needs to travel so many miles and requires massive refrigeration and puts 70% of global production demand of the production countries, which generates damaging repercussions to the environment and fair trade.
Almond Milk
Even though almond milk production requires less land, it has a large water footprint just like any other nuts. It generally requires 130 pints of water just to produce a single glass of almond milk. Ouch! Not to mention the deadly impact it has made on honeybees that nearly 70% of commercial bees in the US drafted every spring to pollinate almonds.
Rice Milk
Rice provides 16% of the calorie consumed even though the production can count to be inexpensive, yet it's a water hog, it takes 54 liters of water to produce a single cup of rice milk. Compared to other plant based milk, rice produces more greenhouse gas emissions, where the bacteria breeding in rice paddies pump methane up and when using large amounts of fertilizers (degenerative agriculture) it pollutes waterways badly.
Soy Milk
When it comes to water consumption, soy milk production uses tenth less than almond milk. When it comes to protein per content, soy is victorious. Producing soy milk cuts down the need of nitrogen fertilizers that pollute waterways like groundwater, streams, oceans, and drinking water. The major drawback of soy milk is that it takes bigger lands to produce.
Oat Milk
The newest and most rapid growing slash trendy dairy alternatives, oat milk has the most sustainable metric of them all. It has comparable nutrients, and allergy-friendly form, and the production doesn't drain the water supply and land use. Oats can be grown locally globally, and are valuable for farm rotation systems due to their ability to improve agrobiodiversity, and break pest cycles that benefit the soil and minimize the need of nitrogen fertilizers.
There you have it! So please choose your milk wisely, don't forget to consider your own taste buds, read the nutritional facts carefully for your best diet, and keep your eyes on the value of money.
