To be considering ditching cows milk?

[incognitomum]

I've been hearing so many bad things about it lately and after drinking it, mainly in hot drinks, I'm thinking of giving it up.

Stories of pus in the milk has put me off. Plus the whole way the dairy industry is.

I need to find a decent alternative for coffee though as struggle taking it without milk.

@Luaa calcium, protein, iodine, potassium, phosphorus and vitamins B2 and B12 maybe? Yes you can get these from other sources but milk is an easy way to get a lot of nutrients in. Milk is good for you.

Thanks for posting OP, I didn't know calves were separated at birth from their mothers. Despite farmers sayings they're fine, cows are intelligent so it doesn't sit well with me. I'm going to try oat milk as others have suggested!

I switched to soy milk and cut out dairy products in June. I Cannot tell the difference, soy milk tastes exactly like cows milk and 'behaves' like cows milk. When I very occasionally eat dairy now, my rosacea flares up on my cheeks within a few hours and takes 2 weeks to go down. The only thing I really miss is full fat yogurt as there is no alternative that's as nice that doesn't have sugar in.

Plant-based "milk" is utter garbage. Honestly, seeing the plant-based shit people consume these days, it's no wonder more and more people have mental health issues. The human species is not herbivore, so why are people behaving like we are? Second of all, in what world does it make sense to consume processed plant water that is fortified with chemicals over just consuming milk from animals? Mind is blown at this kind of stupidity.

And no, plant "milks" taste absolutely nothing like animal milk. I have tried soy, oat, rice and coconut milk, and none of them taste remotely like real milk. In fact, most of them have no taste at all. Yuck.

DD is Lactose intolerant so we just use Lactose Free dairy products, lots around now.

So much bad information on google, so much based on US or other countries standards and practices. So much out of date information.

Personally I always buy British, generally try to buy local. As a pp comments, male calves can be reared to full size for beef, or culled for veal. I do eat rose veal, and have no problem with that. Many farmers now sex for semen, producing only female calves. Same in the egg industry, there is a move towards sexing eggs, so only female eggs are hatched. I think farming is trying really hard to change to modern and compassionate practices, and I will continue to support those that do.

I’ve tried to get used to a dairy milk replacement with limited success. So rather than train my taste buds to get used to it, I’ve just trained them to get used to drinking black coffee/tea, which I was fine with after a couple of weeks.

Just need to cut out cheese now , that’ll be difficult, I love cheese.

This was a very interesting read. Presents some clear, persuasive evidence against the 'buy local' mantra (from a carbon footprint standpoint, anyway). It breaks down greenhouse gas emissions across the whole supply chain, including transport - which in nearly every case apart from cane sugar, contributes a tiny fraction of emissions compared to land use, farming, and processing. Beef and dairy are the very worst things you could be eating, whether it's from the farm next door or from Argentina.

ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

Plant-based "milk" isn't just not for me, it isn't for any human being. It's shit, and all you have to do to know that is to read the ingredient lists of these alternative "milks". Garbage. And no, cow's milk is not just for baby cows. Nothing in this world suggests or proves cow's milk isn't suitable for humans and other animals.

You OK hun?

Artemis are you drunk?😂

What suggests I'm drunk? Because I tell people to read the ingredient list of what they consume?

But no, I don't drink alcohol at all. I care about my body and only consume things that nourish me, keeps me happy, healthy and fit. So no alcohol or soy slop for me.

Or buy oat milk using oats grown in the UK and support those farmers

Your oats though, are an annual crop, meaning the land has to be cultivated every year. This cultivation turns soil over and releases carbon back into the atmosphere. Diesel is burned by the tractors carrying out the cultivation and the combines harvesting the oats. Grass just keeps growing! And the cows walk to eat it and walk back to the milking Parlour - no diesel required! I'm not trying to demonise arable farmers, just pointing out that it is more complex.

That’s an interesting piece of work @MaggieandHopey but it does have slight flaws in that it masks the link between local production and farming systems - where by choosing meat from more expensive farming systems that don’t lead to net LUC, buying locally in a country like the UK does more than reduce transport emissions. That requires an educated, savvy and fairly prosperous consumer, though.

To be clear: from an environmental perspective meat consumed in the quantities we do not, and in the systems driven by those quantities, is a disaster. Chicken is getting to be worse than red meat on an overall impact level because so many are switching to chicken and intensive chicken farming is a huge consumer of soy. But it’s not cut and dried on a hierarchy of red meat - white meat - plants.

When I’m lazy and buy oat milk it contains oats, water, calcium carbonate, iodised salt, vit D2, vit B12 and riboflavin.

When I make it myself it contains oats and tapwater.

I'm sure it definitely is more complex than that @JassyRadlett on a micro level, and I know that some meat is produced using more sensitive/ecologically sound farming methods. But the vast majority of beef produced globally isn't farmed this way.

Of course there are other reasons to buy local apart from reducing carbon emissions - and I'm all for that! But I think people get hung up on food miles when it's only a little part of the whole picture.

Oat milk is very good, both for taste and the environment. It keeps for about 5 days after opening which is good if you’re just using a small
Amount each day.

Totally agree on food miles as a be all and end all rather than understanding the farming systems that produce our food, which can be so wildly variable.

Ultimately it’s totally unrealistic to put that responsibility on consumers - we need governments to legislate on farming systems (and imports) that won’t wreck the climate. And supermarkets refusing to stock the most destructive foods.

My daughter is allergic to dairy and she loves oat milk so I’d recommend giving that a try :) We use Oatly Barista!

My twice/thrice weekly migraines disappeared altogether when I gave up dairy.

I used to love oatly barrista in coffee and tea, but it's sometimes hard to get hold of from supermarkets so I stopped taking any plant milk unless I'm paying a coffee shop to make me a frothy one.
I now have porridge with water and black tea/coffee. Life's much easier. I do need a fair bit of sugar on my porridge because of how sweet milk and plant milk make it, but that's being cut down to a reasonable amount over the next few weeks.

That's not correct though it depends entirely on what the cows have been fed on.

What UK dairy herd feed has an adverse affect on rain forests?

I have the Oatly or the Alpro oat milk. Cow milk just tastes "off" to me now.

There are some shops near me that sell fresh milk from a dispenser so it is local and hasn't travelled a great distance. However, I intend to stick to the oat milk.

I drink oat milk that I make myself. It was only when I stopped drinking regular milk that I realised all my stomach pain had stopped. It seems more common now, I notice on the odd occasion I venture into Costa everyone asks for soy or other plant milks