To think that cows milk is so bad… yet tastes so good

[Escapefromhell]

I need to give up dairy for my health (and the dairy industry is pretty vile when you look at it). All fine, except I have milk on coffee. Good coffee is one of the crucial things in life. AIBU to think with all the technological advances humanity has made, someone would have come up with a milk replacement that tastes good in coffee without adding a load of sugar. I know there are worse problems in the world.

AIBU to think that all cow milk replacements can only be described as ‘sadness water’?

I used to use milk in coffee but since I stopped and gave oat milk, cows milk tastes really weird and disgusting. It tastes like I remember ‘off’ milk smelling if that makes sense?

I don’t think it’s mental to not want animals to suffer for your diet, and for most vegans I know, it’s as simple as that. I don’t think exploiting and killing animals for food can be justified in developed nations. People are eating less animal products and I think that will continue. Others will continue hiding behind health and nutrition like my in-laws. Like I say, my experience of them is they’re often overweight and eat rubbish. I can’t argue with stupid.

Also, I make my own oat milk so don’t have any issues with oil or sugar etc

I've been vegetarian since I was 10 and now vegan (ish) and I was exactly the same. I loved cows milk, especially in tea. I couldn't give it up for years even thought it actually really hurts my tummy too. Anyway I finally managed to find a replacement in my tea and it's been maybe 18 months since I last drank it in tea and now the thought, smell to taste of cows milk I find super disgusting and wouldn't drink it and my gut is much more happy after giving it up. So maybe try to find a type and brand you're happy with. And then after a while the same might happen as I know other people it's happened to as well. I love oat barista milk in coffee it's so creamy. Definitely worth trying different brands as some are nicer than others.

I think it’s just what you’re used to. I used to love cows milk in tea coffee but changed to using oat milk in an attempt to be better environmentally. At first the oat milk wasn’t as nice but now I find that I actually prefer it. I don’t like cow’s milk in tea at all anymore. It does depend on the oat milk though, Oatly Barista is great in coffee but Aldi’s own version for example is not nice at all.

You could just as well argue fields should have been left as forests. Nothing about agriculture is how nature intended - it all involves huge amounts of science. Milk from a grass fed cow produced in the local area seems much less unnatural to me than highly processed plant milks shipped halfway round the world. Fair enough if people don't want to eat cows milk but artificial replacements are weirder still.

Try barista oatley. I'm a coffee maniac and that's the only thing that works for me!

I hear you, OP. I’m veggie and I feel bad that I’m not vegan, but I could not give up cows’ milk. I have blue milk for cereal and as s drink on its own. I could live without cheese but I couldn’t give up milk, cream & ice cream.

Of course it is, breeding cows endlessly takes up more energy and it’s cruel to keep getting op them pregnant.

There is plenty wrong with cows milk. Go and read up on prostate cancer, poor ppl being misinformed by dimwits like you.

No. But cutting out all products containing milk is a game changer if you want to lose weight, improve cholesterol, lower blood pressure etc. No more cakes (unless you want to pay through the nose for a vegan one) restaurant desserts typically limited to sorbet or fruit salad, few biscuits or crisp options, chocolate that's not worth eating, nothing with cheese, butter or cream. Checking food labels and having to decline so many foods you'd otherwise have accepted.
So many of the foods we find very palatable and therefore overeat and impact our health contain dairy products.

Odds are no-one on this thread will ever get prostate cancer.

Why do you keep referring to milk alternatives as sadness milk? Are you ok hun?

You know a huge amount of wild animals are killed in industrial scale crop production right? Huge. There isn't really any way to eat without it involving the death of a very significant number of animals. I get you not personally wanting to eat flesh or dairy but if you think animals aren't killed in massive numbers for your diet then you are extremely, extremely naive.

Honestly, the number one way to have the biggest impact, in terms of food production, on the environment and animal deaths is to reduce food waste and publicise the fact that it's to reduce food waste. Then eat as much locally sourced, season food as possible. And the biggest thing we could do in terms of reducing livestock numbers worldwide is to improve the efficiency of the Indian dairy farming industry. Anything else is just shuffling pieces around a chess board.

Yes dear we know. Apologies for not being perfect like you.

It doesn’t actually taste “so good” though. Oat milk is loads nicer.

I am not sure why you have wrote chocolate in quotation marks but most dark chocolate is dairy free and accidentally vegan.

I gave up dairy for a time, while investigating possible causes of some stomach issues. I experimented with different plant 'milks' and found soya the only one that worked for me in tea and coffee, because it was the only one that wasn't sweet. I hate sugar in tea and coffee, so all the others were too sweet for me. I got totally used to soya milk, to the point that I didn't notice the difference any more.

I'm back on dairy now though! It was cheese and chocolate I really missed. Vegan chocolate is very meh, and vegan 'cheese' is utterly and completely revolting! I'll eat almost anything, but I actually had to spit that out!

Are you ok hun?

The fact is life is full of uncomfortable truths and as long as we avoid them by pretending that we are achieving something that we aren't, like thinking our diet doesn't our cause animal deaths when we aren't. Thinking our diet is healthy when it isn't and thinking we are making environmentally superior choices when we aren't. Then we will never actually make the changes needed to make things better.

You're quite right, it is. But my preference was for creamy milk chocolate. So when I try to get my fix of that via vegan chocolate it always feels unworthy of the name, so is 'chocolate' to me.

But do you honestly think vegans are not aware of the fact animals are killed in crop production? People love to remind us of it constantly.

On the subject of vegan cheese, the cathedral city plant based is a game changer.

It’s really good isn’t it. 😊

I think the history is fascinating! Humans have been consuming dairy products as adults for thousands of years and many communities evolved the ability to do so without issue (though some pastoral communities appear to have continued to consume dairy without ever developing lactose persistence… maybe by fermenting milk before drinking/eating it).

It makes sense that people would want to get all the nutrition possible from cattle when they were rearing them for meat. And not only does dairy have vitamins and fat that would have helped prevent starvation, but it was probably a cleaner drink than water a lot of the time.

I think some people have suggested that drinking cows milk could have protected pastoral communities from cross species infections from things like cow pox (like how breastfeeding passes antibodies from the mother to baby).

Now it’s so culturally entrenched for many people that it just doesn’t factor as weird 🤷‍♀️

I had to stop buying hazelnut milk because of this! Got a little bit addicted!

I really do think that they think we don’t know. 😅 I put it on par with humans have been eating meat for years which proves we’re meant to... blah blah....canine teeth....blah blah...lions eat zebras...blah blah....if we didn’t eat them, what would happen..extinct...overpopulation...what both?...blah blah....it’s not healthy....blah blah....

Anyway, that cathedral city plant based is fab.