Milk has been an agricultural food product that humans have consumed for a pretty long time. It is a liquid that serves as a great source for various nutrients including calcium and protein. In Singapore alone, more than 53,000 tonnes of milk products were consumed in 2016 and this has been increasing yearly (Bhaskaran, 2018). To the majority of us, milk is synonymous to the dairy milk we are commonly used to, usually from cows or goats.
However, from our posts earlier, we have come to terms that cattle ranching for dairy milk production contributes heavily to environmental pollution, both directly by the cattle-raising process and indirectly from the feed, waste and land-use change. According to a 2018 study by Oxford University, the production of just one glass, or 200 mL, of dairy milk would have required over 1.81 sq m of land and 131 L of water while emitting over 0.6 kg of greenhouse gases, mostly methane and carbon dioxide (Poore & Nemecek, 2018). Unfortunately, our food choices with regards to milk have generally served as a pollutive option.
However, in recent times, we have witnessed a ‘gold rush’ of non-dairy milk products in the market that are plant-based. They include but are not limited to soy, almond, oat and even hemp milk. While the majority of the focus of these alternatives are on their health attributes, they also surprisingly provide numerous environmentally friendly options for milk consumers to substitute their pollutive dairy milk. In fact, in the study mentioned above that compared dairy milk with five of the most popular non-dairy milk alternatives found that all of them performed significantly better in all three categories of environmental impacts, namely emissions, land-use and water use (ibid.).
Let’s explore more about these non-dairy milk alternatives on the shelves! You can learn about the nutritional values especially in comparison to cow’s milk in the video below (Science Insider, 2019).
Rice Milk
Rice milk is often one of the less expensive milk alternatives available in the market (McGivney, 2020). However, this alternative does carry some concerns of environmental pollution. Previously, we had established that rice paddies require to be flooded partially for essential growth which means it would require significant water usage, about 56 L per glass of rice milk to be exact (Poore & Nemecek, 2018), while also serving as a potential avenue for pesticides and fertiliser runoff into local water sources. We also found that rice production does have a significant level of methane emission, albeit remarkably lesser than cattle ranching, due to the bacteria in the paddies. This explains how one glass of rice milk can result in about 0.23 kg of emission, the highest among the non-dairy milk alternatives. Nevertheless, it must be noted that rice milk still performs much better than dairy milk in all accounts despite its slight setbacks.
Almond Milk
Almond milk is the ‘hipster’ of milk alternatives which has grown in popularity recently. Known for its silky texture and nutty flavour, it packs all the heart-healthy fats and vitamins. However, the concentration of almond production in the drought-prone Central valley in California raises some questions about the environmental sustainability of almond milk. This is because almond milk requires about 74 L of water to produce 1 glass of it (ibid.).
Oat Milk
As the newcomer to the market, it has become the fastest-growing milk alternative (McGivney, 2020). Oat milk has also been touted as one of the better milk alternatives for its limited environmental impact, with one glass using only 9 L of water and 0.25 sq m producing 0.19 kg greenhouse gases, none of it being methane.
Soy Milk
This by-product of tofu production should not be unfamiliar to many Singaporeans, given that about 25% of the population consumed soy milk locally (Bhaskaran, 2018). While there were past claims about phytoestrogen hormones in soy milk mimic estrogen in the human body and leading to a higher risk of breast cancer, recent studies have shown that in fact, it might help to reduce cancer risk (Messina, 2016).
Additionally, it does well in terms of its contribution to environmental pollution with only requiring 0.23 sq m of land and just 2 L of water while emitting 0.21 kg of greenhouse gases (Poore & Nemecek, 2018). The soybean plants also help to replenish nitrogen content of the soil they are grown on, reducing the need for synthetic fertilisers. While much rainforests have been cleared for soy plantations, most of the produce are used as livestock feed and produce oil. Hence, a switch to soy milk from dairy milk could prove environmentally and economically advantageous as the supply of soy produce can be directed from cattle ranching to soy milk production.
In conclusion, consumers of dairy milk should strongly consider their options to substitute their intake with any of the plant-based milk alternatives out in the market that works with their dietary requirement as any of the options would have at least three times less environmental impact than dairy milk (ibid.). Such a switch would not only bring about some health benefits to the individual, the collective impact on the environment just based on this one choice could result in significant changes in the milk industry and its contributions to environmental pollution.
Trailing off,
Jade and Ridzuan
References
Bhaskaran, K. (2018). Milk Consumption Trends in Singapore. SciFed Food & Dairy Technology Journal, 2(1), pp.1–8.
McGivney, A. (2020). Almonds are out. Dairy is a disaster. So what milk should we drink? The Guardian. [online] 29 Jan. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/28/what-plant-milk-should-i-drink-almond-killing-bees-aoe [Accessed 26 Jul. 2020].
Messina, M. (2016). Soy and Health Update: Evaluation of the Clinical and Epidemiologic Literature. Nutrients, [online] 8(12), p.754. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5188409/ [Accessed 16 Oct. 2020].
Poore, J. and Nemecek, T. (2018). Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, [online] 360(6392), pp.987–992. Available at: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987 [Accessed 15 Oct. 2020].
Science Insider (2019). The Best Vegan Milks, According To A Dietitian. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNw3qsZ55JE&ab_channel=ScienceInsider [Accessed 16 Oct. 2020].
