HOW DO MILKS MEASURE UP?
SOYA
Soya milk scores well in terms of sustainability and is the next best thing to dairy in terms of protein content. But vast tracts of rainforest have been cleared to grow soya to feed animals for meat and dairy production. If you opt for soya milk, make sure it’s made from beans grown outside South America.
Carbon emissions:
1kg/litre
Land use: Water use:
0.7m2 /litre
28 litres of water/litre of milk
OAT
Oat milk is widely regarded as one of the most sustainable and ethical plant milk choices and is not linked to deforestation in developing countries. In terms of nutrition, it’s no match for cow’s milk. Oat milk is low in calcium and other nutrients, meaning it isn’t an adequate cow’s milk replacement for infant children and teens unless it’s fortified with added nutrients.
Carbon emissions:
0.9kg/litre
Almond trees are waterguzzlers, especially in drought-prone California, where 80 per cent of the world’s almonds are grown. Intensively farmed, they need irrigation unlike almond trees traditionally grown in the Mediterranean. Surging demand for almond milk is also threatening California’s bees, which are essential for pollinating the trees. Almond milk is a good source of vitamin E.
Carbon emissions:
0.7kg/litre 0.5m2/litre
371 litres of water/litre of milk
Land use: Water use: RICE
Rice milk is arguably the least environmentally friendly option, as rice is water hungry and produces more greenhouse gases than other plant milks.
Carbon emissions:
1.2kg/litre
0.3m2 /litre
270 litres of water/litre of milk
Land use: Water use: DAIRY
Cow’s milk takes a heavy toll on the planet: producing one litre is roughly equivalent to driving a family car 10 miles. However, cow’s milk is a good source of protein and calcium, as well as nutrients including vitamin B12 and iodine.
Carbon emissions:
3.2kg/litre 9m2/litre
628 litres of water/litre of milk
All figures from an extension to the 2018 Oxford University Study, ‘Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers’, by JPoore and T Nemecek.
Land use: Water use: COCONUT MILK
Not covered in the Oxford study, but surging demand for coconut products has seen the exploitation of workers in the Philippines, Indonesia and India. More recently, the animal welfare group Peta raised concerns that monkeys were being used to pick the fruit. Opt for coconut milk certified Fair Trade.
Sales of alternative milks, such as Alpro soya, below, have soared
“But it is generally accepted that nutrients that are added via fortification are less accessible to the body,” Medlin says.
She urges anyone who ditches dairy for the supposed health benefits to think carefully. “It is really important to remember that there are no nutritional benefits to removing dairy from your diet unless you are allergic or intolerant, which should be diagnosed by a healthcare professional,” she says.
“If you choose to take dairy out of your diet for ethical reasons, taking great care to source plenty of calcium from elsewhere is essential. Lower intakes of dairy are associated with lower bone density, which leads to osteoporosis in later life.”
Are plant milks the only environmentally friendly option? Some dairy producers are working hard to reduce the environmental impact of their operations. Brades Farm in Lancashire, which specialises in producing highprotein milk for baristas, adds a special supplement to its cow feed called Mootral, which has been shown to reduce methane emissions by 30 per cent. Other research is under way to explore whether cows’ gut microbes can be genetically modified to reduce methane emissions.
In the meantime, if you do drink plant milk and want to be sure of its green credentials, you might have to do some research. Avoid soya milk made from beans grown in South America (most of the soya milk available in Britain should be fine), or almond milk sourced from water-hungry Californian plantations. Or think twice about how you take your coffee – it’s no longer a black or white issue.
‘In terms of climate change, the best dairy milk is generally worse than the worst soya’