Which plant-based milk is right for you
For a lot of people, choosing a plant-based milk is no easy task. Here, Oatly milk takes its message to Kings Cross underground station in London. Photo credit
The demand for plant-based beverages no longer seems like just another urban food trend, like avocado toast or acai bowls. With dairy sales in steady decline and artisanal coffee drinkers consuming oat milk faster than it can be produced, it is safe to say that the plant based milk revolution is well underway.
“Amid the oat milk crazes and almond milk bashing, there you are, standing in the milk aisle, paralyzed by choices.”
Choosing oat or cashew milk over cow milk is now seen as a meaningful step towards supporting a more environmentally sound food system. Plant-based milks use a fraction of the land and water that dairy milk requires and they eliminate any concerns about animal welfare by virtue of their cowlessness.
Dairy milk also produces three times as many carbon emissions as non-dairy milks, according to studies by noted researcher Joseph Poore, with oat milk and almond milk using up the least of the four plant-based milks he tested.
Still, concerns about plant-based alternatives have been raised—and not just by members of the ‘Got Milk?’ generation. Some people fear the nutritional content of these alternatives is sub-par. Almond milk is cited for facilitating the extinction of bees in the California Valley and sucking down lots water. Soy has been flagged for being engineered to be Roundup-ready and withstand high doses of the herbicide.
So amid the oat milk crazes and almond milk bashing, there you are, standing in the milk aisle, paralyzed by choices simply for wondering what plant-based alternative would taste best with your morning joe.
All of the plant-based milks tested in a recent study had a lower carbon footprint than cow’s milk, and used less land and water.
You are not alone. Many of us trying to do the right thing have dealt with the same supermarket struggle. Complicating the decision is that the science on plant-based milks is hard to pin down.
In one such example, a group of researchers in 2017 compared plant-based options to dairy and reported it took much longer than expected. The process by which dairy-free milks are produced can vary dramatically, and parsing out the specific nutrients requires understanding how they interact with each other. Still, the researchers came down on the side of plant-based.
“Judging from the very limited literature,” they concluded, “plant milk substitutes have a lower impact on the climate and require less land to produce, but the issue is more complex as cow’s milk contains several key nutrients that are challenging to replace.”
I’m not gonna lie, getting to the bottom of how plant-based milks stack up against each other is pretty challenging. Nutrition science often is. And the number of new entries coming onto the market makes even recent studies feel dated. But every study we reviewed concluded that when it comes to lightening your environmental impact, non-dairy milk is the way to go.
High in PROTEIN
Ripple, made with pea protein, matches the protein content of regular milk, and soy comes very close.
If it’s protein you want, pea milk and soy milk are the best options—for now. New plant milks that have yet to be studied closely are coming onto the market all the time. (Hello, potato milk and hemp milk!) Soy milk offers seven grams of protein to dairy milk’s eight grams of protein. Ripple, a pea protein drink that debuted in 2014, offers eight grams of protein.
Many plant-based milks actually offer similar nutritional profiles to dairy because they have been fortified to various degrees with vitamins, minerals, and calcium.
Choose “unsweetened” plant based milks—they’re lower in sugar than dairy milk, with the exception of oat milk and hazelnut milk. Plant based milks are typically lower in fat when compared to dairy milk, unless you choose skim.
Most similar in taste
This is a tough one, considering the flavor profile of dairy milk varies from person to person. Generally, dairy milk is described as a viscous drink with a fatty, mildly sweet (to some) flavor.
For now, dairy milk’s taste is unmatched. Pick the plant-based milk that tastes best to you.
Based on this profile, some plant-based milks can be immediately disqualified because of their watery texture. Others, like soy milk and oat milk, capture the thickness of dairy milk, according to consumer tastings conducted by Food & Wine and Insider.
When it comes to taste, however, few plant-based milks meet dairy’s particular brand of satisfying tastelessness. Soy milk, for instance, is generally considered to be much sweeter. So maybe forget about trying to match dairy milk’s taste. Focus instead on finding the alternative milk that you think tastes good.
Least water-intensive
Almond milk is infamous for using up more water than any other plant-based milk. It still calls for less than half what it takes to produce cow’s milk.
Soy milk requires the least amount of water, with oat milk a close second, according to Joseph Poore, who conducted a comprehensive life cycle analysis of a large array of food staples, with information regarding soy milk, rice milk, oat milk, and almond milk.
The subject of the amount of water used in plant-based milk production is rarely raised without mentioning almond milk. In the last year, the disdain for its water-intensive process has become almost malicious, with one Mother Jones reporter branding those who drink it as “ignorant hipsters.”
Almond milk does use up more water than any plant-based option—about 23 gallons per glass to soy milk’s nine gallons. But more than twice that amount, or 54 gallons, go into making a single glass of milk.
Note: There are valid concerns about almond milk. Spraying almond trees with neonicotinoids, a nasty pesticide, is one reason so many honey bees used for agriculture are dying out—85 percent of all commercial honey bees in the United States are used to pollinate California’s almonds. To support the nascent move toward organic almond growing, search for “organic” almond milk. One suggestion is Three Trees.
Least land-intensive
Dairy is about nine-times more land-intensive than most plant-based milks. Photo credit
Most alternative milks require less than a ninth of the land that dairy milk does, according to Poore’s research. This dramatic difference is because dairy needs not only the land to raise cows, but also the land to grow the crops that cows eat.
Soy milk is one alternative that has come under fire for having a larger land footprint than others. Poore has touched on this, saying that soy’s environmental “Achilles heel” is that it requires significantly more land than almond or oats. But at least many companies source beans only from the U.S. and Canada; read the labels to make sure your soy milk habit is not contributing to rainforest destruction.
For the sake of this friendly competition, we’re going to name rice milk among the ones using the least amount of land, according to Poore.
Best for lattes
Oat milk and almond milk are the most popular plant-based alternatives among burristas.
Oat milk is a top choice for coffee drinkers, according to some news outlets, namely because its creamy, neutral taste does not overpower the taste of coffee. The lack of protein in oat milk does not make for the most ideal foam-play, but with a little bit of extra effort, oat milk can get the job done, according to the Barista Institute.
Almond milk is another favorite based on sales alone, although some complain that the flavor of almond milk distracts from the coffee taste. For this arguably less high stakes decision, I recommend a little experimenting to get the best results.
Most transparent ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
Not every plant-based milk company makes it easy to find out the environmental impact of its products. But big companies, including Silk, tend to take the concern about herbicides and soybeans seriously and make soy milk using organic or non-GMO soybeans. And Oatly and Ripple have made their production process transparent, sharing analyses of carbon and water useage on their websites.
It’s likely more companies will make this kind of information available to consumers in the near future. After all, most of us are drinking plant-based milks for the health of the planet, and not only our own.
A live infographic on Ripple’s website shows the environmental and nutritional impacts of its consumption in real time (stats above captured on 3.3.2020). Source.
