Why is it bullshit to not want your food to cause unnecessary suffering? If I have the choice of eating a burger from a cow that suffered it’s whole life or one that was treated well, why would I not choose less suffering?
Oh! You’re one of those who things we should all be vegan…not gonna happen for so so many reasons, so why not compromise and reduce suffering in the world?
Life eats life, that’s how it works. Organisms evolved to eat meat are not inherently inhumane for following their biological imperative. Our factory farming system IS inhumane in that it causes unnecessary suffering, but that’s a result of the scale of operations and our economic system.
The acidity of our stomach alone is clear evidence we are evolved to eat meat, combine that with our need for B12, our teeth, length of intestines relative to other herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores puts the nail in the coffin for the idea that we are not meant to eat meat.
The acidity of our stomach alone is clear evidence we are evolved to eat meat, combine that with our need for B12, our teeth, length of intestines relative to other herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores puts the nail in the coffin for the idea that we are not meant to eat meat.
You wear shoes, statistically you probably wear glasses or contacts, all of us have back problems as we ags the idea that we should do what our body evolved to is honestly kinda ludicrous. I mean heck, we are talking through wifi, wires and electricity. We both drive a car to get food through major distribution chains. Nothing in our lives is natural.
Take some damn b12 supplements, the overwhelming majority of people, vegans and carnist alike, have a deficiency anyways.
Life eats life, that’s how it works.
Yeah, but beans don’t have a brain, nerve endings or a nervous system. Sure they are alive, but it’s intellectual dishonest to think that a pigs and beans interact with the world in the same way. So yes, life eats life, but my life sustaining food doesn’t feel pain. It has for over a decade now.
Like, I feel you should read the article? The idea that you can kill something ethically is cognitive dissonance.
Yeah, but beans don’t have a brain, nerve endings or a nervous system. Sure they are alive, but it’s intellectual dishonest to think that a pigs and beans interact with the world in the same way. So yes, life eats life, but my life sustaining food doesn’t feel pain. It has for over a decade now.
Ever heard of these things called “cats”? They eat things with brains and nerve endings.
Cats have no sense of morality, civilization, empathy, or agriculture. Our understanding of the world is greater and thus so is our responsibility to act more intelligently. I can’t have a discussion with a cat, but you aren’t a cat so it’s asinine to use them as a metric on rational behavior.
Our understanding of the world is greater and thus so is our responsibility to act more intelligently
Agree, I just don’t think expecting all or even most of the human population to become vegan is a practical reality in the near future, so let’s try to reduce suffering in ways that are more likely to happen such as consuming fewer animal products and being less cruel when we do. For those that are willing and able to be vegan that’s great, but humans driven to eat meat and without extremely strict enforcement global veganism is a fantasy. That’s like expecting the world to go without sex, reasons don’t matter, not gonna happen.
but humans driven to eat meat and without extremely strict enforcement global veganism is a fantasy.
I never said anything of the sort. Right from the start you’ve assumed a lot about me, I left a one sentance reply to an article I agreed with and you’ve built a straw version of me to argue with your over the top talking points. Stop putting words in my mouth because I agree that it’s not realistic of feasebile for humanity to go off meat in either of our lifetimes.
What I am saying is that calling meat “humane” is an inherent contradiction and just a marketing term so people can feel better about their choice to eat meat. Just as “free range” or “cage free” chickens absolutely still live their lives in appaling conditions. It’s whitewashing away treating life as a commodity.
I never said anything of the sort. Right from the start you’ve assumed a lot about me
You’re right I did, I’ve talked to many people and get nearly identical responses often and I assumed this of you, sorry.
What I am saying is that calling meat “humane” is an inherent contradiction
Ok, that makes sense. Life is inherently not “humane”, even when a lion hunts and eats it’s hard to call that “humane”.
so people can feel better about their choice to eat meat
Why should people feel bad about eating what their body has evolved to eat? Feel bad about participating in a disgusting capitalist animal agriculture sure, but not about following biological imperatives we all have.
. It’s whitewashing away treating life as a commodity
Yep, that’s capitalism and the scale of humanity that’s the problem, not people eating what our bodies are meant to.
The US is the 2nd largest milk producer on the planet…and that’s only IF you count the EU as a single entity. Otherwise, it’s 1st. Also, the largest economy on the planet. Things that happen in America matter elsewhere.
I’m pissed off that when I move out of the USA because it’s turned into a fucking nightmare, I’ll still be affected by things happening in the USA. The outsized effect that it has makes me mad.
While that may be true, the title and article act as if the US is the world, as if “the most humane dairy farms” in the US are the most humane dairy farms in the world, which is clearly not even remotely close to the truth.
It might be the 2nd largest milk producing country, but they couldn’t sell the milk in the EU due to the unethical and unhygienic way it’s produced. That’s OP’s point
…milk isn’t even necessary for us after we are no longer toddlers…wtf? I know it’s necessary for desserts but are people really drinking milk voluntarily in their daily lives as adults or teenagers?
Milk is a super food that is only supplanted IMHO by kefir. That shit is incredible.
I get both my whole milk and kefir from local farms. One is in town, and the other is only about 15 miles away. It’s the freshest, most delicious milk I’ve ever had and I can hardly stomach the store bought stuff anymore.
Neither am I and I didn’t get brittle bones after I stopped drinking milk. I just ate normal balanced meals. Getting weak bones after ditching milk might be an american skill issue
Not only that but the calves would require a large percentage of that milk, and so a byproduct of dairy farms is often veal, at least for the male calves.
I agree. I really like soy milk and was always so confused by the hype for new alternatives—not confused that people might like something else, mind you, just confused at the overall hype, to the extent that people forget soy exists and is better at many of the things the newer alternatives lack. Protein content and water usage being chief among them.
You can buy various flavors, though? Just like any other types of alt milks, there’s kinds that are sweetened and made to taste like vanilla, or kind that’s just sweetened, or chocolate soy, or unsweetened
What funny soy milk are you drinking? It tastes distinct, for sure, rather than being sweetish like oat or almond milk. But in terms of viscosity soy milk has them beat.
My personal opinion is that soy milk tastes like grass… I’ve tried it in coffee, alone, on cereal, but I just can’t avoid feeling like someone dumped a handful of freshly cut grass in…
Almond is pretty good on it’s own, but in coffee it tastes like marzipan… It’s not bad, but not the taste I want in my coffee.
I tried hard to switch to almond/oat milk but the crazy thing is that it expires much more quickly than whole milk. So it was defeating the purpose because I wasn’t drinking it fast enough and ended up wasting a ton of it. Wish they’d make them in smaller jugs or whatever.
Don’t know where you are from but here there’s a brand called Earth’s Own that makes a Barista Oat Milk which is my favorite. The box is around 900ml and it is the best tasting oat milk I’ve ever had and it is also made to steam well when making drinks.
My oat milk lasts a month or so. Planet Oat is the one I use most. Far less sugar than almond milk and is fortified. A half-gallon I will usually finish up a few days prior to the date, but then I am only an occasional cereal killer.
You know, I am just accustomed to calling it a “half-gallon” as that’s the general size of the containers that used to truly be 64 ounces. I am fully aware of shrinkflation. This current one (Chobani) is 52 ounces.
I thought the same but once you open the carton it’s 7 days from the date you open it. At least that was the case with almond milk. I thought they lasted a lot longer especially since they are shelf stable etc. I had a ton of black mold on and around the rim of my almond milk well before the expiration date and that is because I’m fine print it says date of expiration is 7 days after opening.
I have some Chobani oat milk at the moment. It says June 12 for an expiration. I’ll finish it long before that, but it does always last over a month for me. I don’t normally have almond milk, so I can’t say there. Maybe the sugars contribute to your issue? No sugar in the oat milks I usually drink.
I’m genuinely confused by this statement. Plant based milk lasts SUBSTANTIALITY longer than cows milk. I can leave it in my fridge for weeks, maybe a month and its still good. I legit have not ever looked at an expiry date since switching to soy milk.
That’s not even to mention that you can buy them in unrefrigerated, shelf stable cartons. It’s longer lasting in every imaginable way.
They expire 7 days from the date you open the carton. Atleast for almond milk and I’m fairly certain that applies to oat milk as well. I thought the same as you. But one bad experience is all you need.
My family makes almond milk with our blender. It’s actually quite easy and not as expensive as buying the carton or gallon. It’s really just almonds and water (and salt or vanilla if you’re into other flavors).
Internet vegans need to stop telling me to be unhealthy and go all in on fucking up the dairy industry. The average person can see it's horrific, how hard could it be to get a big fucking win without getting normal people offside?
I'm saying attacking the dairy industry is a winnable battle and a step in the right direction but vegans are operating on pure emotion, it's all or nothing for them and I think we all know which it currently is.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it: in order to extract milk you must r— the cow and then kill its baby, then if you don’t milk them, they die.
The treatment of animals is so bad that b-------ty laws have literally failed to pass because they would have criminalized the whole industry, and that’s not even to mention the times when people who call out overt, malicious abuse suffer more consequences than the ones doing it.
Basically; the sooner we shut the system down the better. It’s unsustainable and only being held together by subsidies anyway.
and “killing the baby”, you mean like later in life to eat?
At least in the Netherlands, the species of dairy cows are focused on dairy. If a bull is born it is raised for about half a year, then slaughtered and most often the meat is exported since calf meat isn’t popular here.
At that point they are basically still babies, or at least the meat is called “calf meat”.
Not milking a dairy cow, can cause a lot of problems. A dairy cow will produce about 8 gallons or 30 litres a day. Adding to the problem of not milking is the missing calf, as they are normally kept separately to ensure higher milk yields.
If you stop milking this cow altogether, milk production will continue until the pressure starts to build up. This process normally starts a dry up phase, which will prevent the cow from producing more milk.
Because of modern breeding practices, it’s impossible for dairy cows to dry up naturally in a high production phase before facing serious problems. As, extending this phase increase the milk output of a cow, making it more profitable to keep this state as long as possible.
For those cows, stopping to milk them will cause the udder to increase is size until it can not expand any further. This cow will be in serious pain at this point. Caused by the enormous size of the udder it will also be in the way of everyday activities, preventing the cow from properly standing, sitting or laying.
If pressure still isn’t released then the udder can rupture or get infected. Ultimately leading to the death of the cow, if she is not treated and pressure is released.
Even with meat cows, the average farmer pays for an outside stud, who’s some really elite show animal that fucks all day, and that it is hoped will generate really fast growing, tasty offspring.
If you don’t do that, either you’re ranching wrong, or you own the stud and rent it to other people.
If this was a use of Cunningham’s law, it was very well done. It really read like someone regurgitating all the stuff the animal farming industry can’t legally say (because it’s false) but implies really hard in advertising.
A lot of baby cows are just straight up kidnapped from mom and killed. No way around that. Some are raised to adulthood, but on most dairy operations the kidnapping still happens even then, otherwise the calf ends up drinking the farmer’s ‘product’ and cutting into profits. Look up footage of a calf being taken from its mom in this process. Absolutely fucking devastating.
From personal observation, non-meat farm animals are lean, sinewy and taste like shit. I’m not actually sure what they do with the calves but it’s not growing them as normal meat cows.
Also, how does eating the corpse make killing more (or less) okay?
From personal observation, non-meat farm animals are lean, sinewy and taste like shit. I’m not actually sure what they do with the calves but it’s not growing them as normal meat cows.
Also, how does eating the corpse make killing more (or less) okay?
Not trynna be the token vegan/health nut - just wanted to share:
I fuck with oatmilk- it’s pretty fuckin good for what it is and it’s bomb in some cereal. Don’t gotta cut out milk but maybe instead of 2 gallons you do one of each or somethin idk
The problem is that dairy subsides make cow milk less expensive than it should be. Those subsidies should be reallocated to environmentally-friendly alternatives. The average shopper at the store is going to look at the price tags and pick the one that’s like half the cost.
Yeah that’s always the tricky bit with making “change” - not everybody can afford it, but those who can should keep that in mind and maybe bump a bit more for those who can’t
I am also simultaneously asking myself if prices for oatmilk are fair. Where I live the cheapest option is 1€ for a liter. But if you ever made oatmilk by yourself, you know how cheap it is do do it at home. I know I’m just lazy as f*, so I am not doing it and therefore should not rant. But I am really curious what’s behind this pricing, other than higher tax than on milk.
Logistics. It’s just oat water but it comes from far away. Just make it yourself.
You would make your own oatmeal, right? Who tf would buy premade oatmeal with the water already in it? If a few people start doing it themselves, they will drop the price of the ready-made stuff.
I’ve done this before and it is very simple, but you do need a blender. It works in a pinch but I’d much rather just buy a carton of it.
The problem I’ve found is that it’s very tricky to filter properly. If you don’t filter it at all then you end up with a grainy product, but it’s far too thick to go through something like a coffee filter without clogging it up so you need to use cheesecloth.
Another problem is storage. Making it in small quantities as you need it is fine as long as you’re ok with it being room temperature, but if you want to make enough to keep in the fridge then the oats are going to begin to separate from the water almost immediately unless you add an emulsifier.
Economies of scale. Oatmilk is not nearly as big of a market and therefore tends to be more expensive per gallon
Dairy subsidies. Dairy farmers can be pretty heavily subsidized, depending on the country, making the milk artificially cheap
Marketing. Oatmilk is mostly consumed by upper middle class (sub)urban folks who have enough disposable income to worry about things like animal welfare and the environment, and thus are willing to pay a premium for eco-friendly products. Companies know this so a lot of oatmilk is positioned and priced as a premium product.
In a way it’s sort of disgusting that capitalism is exploiting your desire to save the planet for extra profits, however that’s how it is generally designed to operate: nothing happens unless there is a profit to be made from it.
okay, apparently the homemade stuff isn’t fortified with calcium & iron (which plain homemade oat milk wouldn’t have) - so you’d have to make that up with other parts of your diet - so Chia, cheese, yogurt (yes, I sense the irony), kale/collards (spinach has stuff that make the calcium harder to absorb), rhubarb, tofu - as far as iron… beans, spinach (for the iron), pumpkin, quinoa
Right, but you should try to have a balanced diet anyway. Of course some people have dietary restrictions, but a lot of us would generally benefit by diversifying the types of food that we cook with.
I did a quick search on my trusty DuckDuckGo, but all I could find was “blend oats for 30-60 seconds”, and a lot of disclaimers.
I would assume for a good tasting recipe you should add a little bit of sugar, maybe you have some recommendations about the oats that you use. Can you store it for a few days? Idk, you most likely have more experience on the subject.
If it takes longer than 5 minutes to prepare (also including the cleanup process) I can see why people would rather consume a pre-made product.
Anyways it’s worth to try, if you have a specific recommendation I would appreciate it greatly. Otherwise I will go for one of the recipes I can find.
Dude this bugs me so much. More so when it’s in a personal conversation, and the person says idk Google it. Particularly if it’s something they’re clearly interested in. I’m not looking for the information as much as I am the dialogue.
I get the social part, but to me it seemed here that the person was not even trying to inform themselves about the basics a bit before engaging in a discussion. This way you’re just getting the same questions over and over again and the same answers.
Out of respect I always at least try to get some info before asking people questions. This way both sides may profit because you might also be able to contribute new information they didn’t know about.
And if you don’t wanna use YouTube you can still use Newpipe/Startpage e.g… it’s not impossible to find alternative means.
Right that’s the problem I had with it - you make the assumption that people are choosing to be ignorant rather than the reality which is that they’re choosing to be social.
Better to assume the best of people, flies w/ honey not vinegar etc etc
Yeah like I said, I think the person was being social and ignorant at the same time. The world is not black and white and I’m not saying they did bad. I just think a lazy question deserves a lazy answer.
And YouTube actually has videos about this exact process. It’s not like I’m shitposting by pointing towards some abstract entity with no meaningful help or knowledge.
Things said, no hate or anything from me ♥️ hope everyone finds what they looking for and people have more patience than me, with those preferring conversation over quick answers to their questions ;)
It really is as simple as blending rolled oats and water in a 1:4-ish ratio for 30 seconds or so, and straining the result twice. Adding sugar is optional. It stores pretty well in the fridge, maybe up to 5 days. Trust your nose!
Personally I don’t make it very often, as my main use for milk is in cappuccino, and plain oat milk doesn’t steam very well. The barista editions you can buy have some added extras (fat, sugar, proteins, stabilisers) to improve the characteristics for steaming.
I totally understand the convenience factor of store-bought too. If you don’t have a blender on standby it’s a bit of a hassle. And the store bought stuff is shelf-stable for weeks when sealed.
Oh, I don’t think you need to add any sugar. Well, if you’re putting it on cereal that’s already sweetened, you definitely don’t need to add any sugar.
Just look out that oat is a carb. If you’re having oat milk with cereal then you’re having carb with carb.
This is another straw on the camels back to svrewing up your sugar levels and potentially giving you diabetes.
I’m no super healthy guy, but a friend of mine had this issue where they were on the high glucose side due to their diet, this was one of the things they needed to cut out.
It does still use less water than cow milk though, so if someone switches from cow milk to almond milk then it's still a net improvement in terms of water usage
True but the cow is also used for things like beef once slaughtered. A nut on the other hand is simply used up after being harvested.
A lot of the cow water figures get complicated quickly as well since various calculations either include or ignore indirect water usage. Things like water usage for their feed. Or whether the water usage is counting across an entire cows average lifespan, including slaughter and all byproducts, or just the water usage while the cow is producing milk.
This makes it hard to directly compare to something more simple like growing a nut or oats where the end product is essentially singular. There are a lot of variables to consider when trying to compare to a product from a farmed animal.
The more steps of complexity there are in the system the less efficient it is, this seems incredibly obvious to me? Turning plants into cow flesh is less efficient than just eating plants.
I mean, if oat milk is going to make you less healthy, why are we concerned about the water usage if it’s still a better alternative to cows milk on both counts?
There’s no industrial water usage in sticks I find when out walking. That doesn’t mean I’m going to put them in my cereal (intentional hyperbole to make the point).
That’s also the case for animal milk. And compared to what’s in the average cereal you can forget about the oat milk. Just take a little bit less of your cereal (and maybe add a bit of nuts/seeds) and you should be good to go.
The fact that people are waving this hard for oatmilk, shows me that there must be a genetical component of people, who can’t taste certain elements of oatmilk. For me it it tastes watery, like even below 1,5% fat and it smells unpleasant, with a subtile kind of moldy/rotten in it. I drink about a liter of milk every day and I would not want that even in my coffee, let alone pure or in my cornflakes.
This shouldn’t mean people shouldn’t try or even like oatmilk, but it’s no replacement for me, not even close.
I find it really depends on the brand. I have no idea what the differences really are (or even how it’s made in the first place) but in my experience around half are as you describe and half are delicious
Do as you want but for everyone reading this thread, I thought it was a good resource to add. And also keep in mind, the animal agriculture lobby is huge and they publish biased counter studies with questionable methods.
The osteoporosis thing has mostly be debunked. It’s old women who can be effected by it, most everyone else isn’t. Of course living vegan can be healthier if you get your blood levels checked regularly and take supplements, but most of the food tastes worse too. It depends on what’s more important to you personally. The linked article’s study, to me, is compromised, they even admit it themselves by acknowledging it’s more a general animal protein thing.
I think a lot of people who switch to non-dairy milk never really liked to drink milk in the first place. It was easy for them to switch. I had to cut dairy when I had a baby with a milk allergy and it was so hard. None of the milk alternatives taste anything like cow milk. I hated all of them. Vegan cheese is pretty terrible, too. Even the most expensive fancy cashew ones taste significantly worse than the cheapest cow milk cheese. I did like Daiya’s smoked gouda and nutritional yeast is pretty good, but other than that I was so glad to have cow milk back in my diet after a year of being dairy-free. I like meat alternatives but dairy alternatives are just bad. I hope science figures it out.
That baby with the dairy allergy outgrew the allergy but still prefers oat milk.
For the record I grew up drinking 2-3 glasses of whole milk a day. Your conclusion may be logical, but I don’t think that means it represents the populace by any means just because it makes sense.
That’s quite a logic leap there if I’m being honest.
I grey up drinking whole milk and having 2-3 glasses a day, I love milk.
I buy the purple Silk brand that has the extra protein in it (red ribbon printed on the carton) and I’m telling you it’s gas in cereal. By itself, it’s still not whole milk - don’t get me wrong, it’s just 30x less watery than almond milk was but maybe the protein one is thicker or something idk.
I’m hoping they sell this good stuff here too at some point. I haven’t stopped trying to find an alternative, I too would like to reduce animal suffering.
Personally I prefer soy milk since it generally requires the least resources and also has the highest amount of bioavailable protein.
Oat is pretty good though.
I didn’t like soy milk at all when I was younger (like a teenager). It had a weird aftertaste and texture. I don’t know if it has changed since then or not, but now I also find it generally the tastiest.
I also use organic soy milk (since it is usually the only type that doesn’t have gums or other ingredients…just soybeans and water) to make really simple plain yogurt too. I just break open a probiotic capsule or two into a 1qt tetrapak bottle, shake it up really good, divy up into 1c mason jars, and run the Instant Pot Yogurt setting for 15-16 hours.
That yogurt gets made into parfaits or overnight oats (with some date syrup if I can’t find it…or just maple syrup to sweeten). Sometimes I’ll even make a really good soft serve frozen yogurt (mix 1 part sugar to 4 parts yogurt, freeze 6+ hours, put it in a good blender, add fruit or vanilla or cocoa (or all!) as desired.
Mmm I sorta agree with you but soy milk and soy plantations in general (or whatever the proper name is for a farm of soybeans) definitely contribute to deforestation it takes a lot of land to turn out enough product
Here’s a quick mention in a posting I found - I’m sure there are some studies out there if you’re interested
Can’t opt out of capitalism while living under it imo. Especially when it’s as systemic as it is. Not opting for any other governing style or economy really - I’m pretty ignorant on alternatives besides traditonal bartering. I just think it’s pretty obvious to anyone under the boot that this isn’t working.
I’d say the best course would be to beat them at their own game and rewrite the rules yourself I guess
Man, nut milks (hah) and oat milk are fantastic. I’m not vegan, but I absolutely support reducing the animal products you consume. Milk is a big deal for me, and while they don’t always quite satisfy in the same way, animal milk alternatives are pretty awesome.
i went vegetarian a few months ago and ive been losing weight and muscle like crazy. i haven’t figured out how to maintain it. everything tastes good though
It’s really tough. There’s a lot we’re still learning about the gut and nutrient absorption- but as long as we protect science, we can expect improvements.
The work with gene editing and growing meats and whatnot has been a long time coming - stay optimistic, stay curious! ❤️
Adjust your diet. Add pea or soy protein powder if you need to and make sure you’re eating a lot of beans and tofu and tempeh. Most likely losing muscle is due to protein deficiency so that’s your answer.
