Speak for yourself, it might not have the same nutritional value (but also not the same amount of hormones and/or antibiotics), but there are a few oat based milks (e.g. Alpro This Is Not Milk) that have almost the same mouth feel as cow milk (personally, I find that too fatty and prefer the non-fatty tasting oat milk).

> Its easy to buy bio milk which comes from free grazing cows

Uh huh, and how many people are doing that, especially close to the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder? There are plenty of plant based milk with a hefty trend markup, but least here in Germany the discount supermarkets have plenty of cheap plant based milk that is the same price as cow milk, and you don't have to squeeze milk from an animal for that.

> One of the more bewildering things I see is comparison of mammalian milks to plant milks […]

It is a case of hypocrisy on both sides.

You are correct in your observation that most plant «milks» are nutritionally poor substitutes for mammalian milks. «Milk» perhaps should not be used in this context, but it is an accepted convenience due to the concept of «milk» being well known and recognised. The base of such drinks is effectively a sediment obtained through grinding grains or nuts and fixed with a plant based thickening agent (e.g. tapioca starch or xantham gum) to prevent the grounds from separating from the water. Extra nutrients may be added (cheap maltodextrin as a sweetener or plant oils) and most of them do not increase a nutritional value of such a drink.

Without descending into a debate discussing the merits (or the lack thereof) of the nutritional profile of the cow's milk, the story of it is convoluted at the very least.

The nutritional profile of the cow's milk can vary wildly depending on what the cow was fed with, and grain fed cows and «free range» cows will produce will produce milk with a vastly different balance of fatty acids:

– The former: «forcefully» increased O-6 (through the grain ingestion) and lower O-3 and monounsaturated fatty acids (due to most grains being poor in both) in the content;

– The latter: balanced O-3 and monounsaturated fatty acids composition due to the lack of interference with the cow's biology. The actual balance is a tricky affair as it depends on how nutritionally rich is the soil that the grass has grown on and which the cow has grazed on.

That is the first problem. Secondly, there is an issue of cows being tended to by veterinary professionals and farmers who inject antibiotics for the animal's wellbeing reason (the former) and add growth hormones to encourage faster cow's growth and milk producing readiness (the latter). Whilst the antibiotics are fairly quickly removed from the body (whilst at least temporarily disturbing the biological homeostasis), the hormones are particularly tricky as they have a propensity to stay in the body for a very long time, and they usually disturb the hormonal balance in the body. Hormonal therapy (in humans and in animals) is still not well understood and is an area of active research, hence why hormonal treatments are a sparely used medicine oftentimes laden with complications. Both types of substances, however, leech into the milk and end up in consumer's hands, which has been acknowledged as an issue and even resulted in actions of different governments around the world to put specific regulations into place. And since lactation is also a hormonal process, humans ingesting the mammalian milk have been receiving a steady supply of animal's own hormones that are exogenous to the human body and with largely unknown long term effects. We have certainly not developed horns, tails and udders by virtue of drinking milk, but the long terms effects have been questioned at least.

Therefore, the nutritional composition of the industrially produced cow's milk today is complicated.

The real issue is that both sides push their own respective agenda, oftentimes driven by questionable motives, aiming to win or gain a upper hand at any cost.

> This is a really weird assertion to make when dairy has been a massively important staple of advanced societies for thousands of years, and continues to be in places like rural India, Turkey, Central Asia […]

Goat/buffalo, sheep and camel milk, respectively, – for each named region and in limited amounts. Not even remotely comparable to the Western scale.

Consuming camel milk in Central Asia specifically has been a historical necessity due to it being vast, too dry or too rugged for farming, therefore a quick fix for the malnourishment problem was required. It became the camel, an animal that dwelled in and was adapted for life in a harsh climate and did not require large pastures. Should there have been the lush greenery and an abundance of plants, the history of nutrition in Central Asia would have taken a different turn.

Also, further down below you mention the milk consumption in China.

China is big, the climate is different in different parts of China: northern China has long winters that are cold, dry, below freezing, and long summers that are hot and humid. Southern China, on other hand, is mostly subtropical and evergreen. Nutritional habits are also different in the north and in the south: wheat is used instead of rice in the north as rice requires a lot of water to grow, and wheat is virtually unheard of in the south and rice is ubiquitous. Even if the cow's milk is consumed in China, it would be predominantly in the north but not in the south where it is missing from the local dietary intake altogether.

Having said that, I do not think it is correct to project that, based on the limited milk consumption in a few isolated parts of China, it was a commonplace in the past.

Well given the fact that cow milk exists in nature, has been drank by humans for thousands of years, and the other two are trying to be like cow milk, right off the bat, I think a good working hypothesis is that cow milk is less processed than soy and oat milk. They may pasteurize and homogenize it and add some vitamins, but it is fundamentally pretty close to what came out of the cow. Soy mil and oat milk, need a lot more processing to turn soy and oats into something at resembles milk.

I have no issues with "<plant> milk" products and labeling them like that, but people do get confused about their nutritional profiles, thinking they're substitutes for milk. They're not, and they're chemically different enough that they're not good substitutes for cooking. About the only thing they're good substitutes for is liquid milk, though I hear oat milk foams up well for a cappuccino.

The author arrives at this conclusion because dairy milk contains more protein than almond and oat milk. Somehow they manage to leave soy milk out of the discussion, which is curious given soy milk contains roughly the same amount of protein as whole milk from a cow, and is possibly the most popular form of plant milk (depending on whose stats you believe).

Not that it likely matters much. They set up a conflict with themselves a few myths later, while breaking down myth #8:

> Luckily, most Americans get more than enough protein each day. “It’s easier than most people think,” Dr. Gardner said.

But back to myth #5,

> While the nutrition of plant-based beverages can vary, Dr. Merrigan said, many have more added ingredients — like sodium and added sugars, which can contribute to poor health — than cow’s milk.

Sodium and sugar are by no means necessary in plant-based milk. If that's any kind of argument it's obligatory to also mention that plant-based milk doesn't contain growth hormones and antibiotic residue.

It's almost like alternative milks have around 30 calories per cup and real milk has 160 calories. That's a huge difference because you're likely to give your child "a glass of milk", not ask them to drink 5 glasses because the alt milk has basically no nutritional value.

Source: my gf swears by alt milks so I have a fridge full of them. I borrow them sometimes when I run out of real milk.

PS: Yes I'm comparing to "full" fat 3.5% milk. Not that watered down stuff that seems to be super popular for some reason. And while I'd love to use real full fat milk, 3.5% is the most I have easy access to in the absence of owning a cow.

When it comes to feeding infants, sure, but my usage of soy milk as an adult is definitely as a substitute for milk. I use it in virtually all the places cow's milk is typically used: in my cereal, coffee, mixed with chocolate syrup, in most recipes that call for milk.... No need to get so up in arms about call things like soy milk a "milk" drink/substitute. In the vast majority of cases, it functions exactly the same.

Surely the environmental costs associated with feeding and raising cows far outweigh whatever environmental impact of Oatly’s plant-based ingredients. Not sure about the health aspect though.

I'm don't disagree with the rest of your comment, but I think the better comparison here would be to compare nut milk to what it's substituting for, which in this case is regular milk.

why do you need to? it's understandable that others want alternatives for whatever reason, but there's no shame in liking cow milk. it's delicious.

sometimes the next new thing really is better (to you), but worrying about what's fashionable becomes a tiresome treadmill.

No one is properly adapted, that why milk consumption is associated with shorter lifespan and some diseases.

> And, aside from meat, milk is one of the few single foods that you can largely sustain yourself on (I think of it as mother nature’s Soylent).

What? Do yo mean to only drink milk (or eat meat)? In that case you lack fiber, big time. I've mentioned, and provided you with a video revealing how damaging milk is to the human body.

It will sustain your medical bill, until you die. :)

> It adds a wonderful dimension to so many recipes.

That's an opinion, and I must say I also really like the taste of some milk products.

If all dairy cows were treated exactly the same as the cows you're getting milk from, would milk be sufficiently plentiful and affordable for everyone to be able to get milk?

If you really want something that's better for cows and the environment, why not just drink soy milk (or any of a pretty big variety of milk that doesn't come from cows)?

> Lactose-free

They don't know what identical means.

From the article: containing nearly four times the protein of cow’s milk

And we needn't get into how "coconut milk", "almond milk", etc. are somehow inappropriate uses of "milk" despite their entry into the lexicon millennia ago.

As someone who has tried a lot of non-dairy creamers, I have yet to find a single one that "works great". There's something very characteristic about both the taste and the consistency of milk and most replacement products are nowhere close. That's not to say milk is irreplaceable for all applications, but there's a tendency to over-hype healthy and organic replacement products that try to be "just as good" because we all want a sustainable, healthy replacement without sacrificing anything at all, but belying reality is hardly going to get us there.

Personally, I feel more attracted to the idea that it's better to do something than nothing at all. You don't have to go vegan tomorrow, if people just ate less meat and started thinking about this type of stuff as a luxury and not a right, we would've come a long way. Personally, milk in my coffee is non-negotiable. Bacon for breakfast? Well, I hardly need it every day, or even every week, so I'm open to discuss frequency.

Because there are some foods that only make sense with a milk substance added (eg cereal). Almond milk, alone, isn't very ... tasty. Usually there are variants (sweetened, vanilla, chocolate) because it's not great. Almonds are also terrible for the environment, vis a vis water conservation, given what it takes to grow them.

I currently prefer Flaxseed milk.

Do you have a source on that statement? What are the quantities that are usually recommended, and by whom are they recommended?

>There’s a good reason why nobody else drinks milk like Americans do.

That's simply not true. The Scandinavian countries all consume more milk per capita than the US. Coincidentally, Scandinavia is also where Oatly is from.

10,000 years isn't a short time. The same could probably be said about potatoes or cereals.

> most humanity is still lactose intolerant.

It really depends where. Eg. among Northern Europeans it affects only about 5% of the population.

>It's just not normal to drink the milk of another species, especially in the massive amounts that we do.

I may be mistaken, but the backlash against cow's milk seems to often have an ideological component to it.

The article links to an entire other article discussing cow milk's health implications.

> If both options are equally unhealthy (which is at the minimum the biased impression the article gives by not discussing cow milk), at the minimum the moral one should be chosen.

Cow's milk and oat milk aren't the only two alternatives, though. Milk substitutes abound, some of them having much better health and moral implications (and as discussed in this thread, milk substitutes can be made at home).