avatarMarkham Heid

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Oatly vs. Milk: Is Plant-Based Dairy Healthier?

Most plant-based dairy alternatives are ultra-processed foods.

Photo by Daniel Sinoca on Unsplash

When he was very young, one of my sons had a dairy allergy. He’s since grown out of it, but he still prefers the taste of alternative dairy to regular, and so we usually have some Oatly and soy yogurt in our fridge.

More and more, I’ve been eating these plant-based alternatives myself. I made the switch partly for environmental reasons; by most measures, plant-based alternatives are much better for the planet than the stuff we get from cows. But I also figured that plant-based dairy was better for me than conventional dairy.

I think I was wrong about that.

‘Replacing milk and dairy products with plant-based alternatives will necessarily involve the use of ultra-processed foods.’

I recently wrote a piece (published last week on Medium) about ultra-processed foods.

“The evidence against ultra-processed foods is compelling,” one of my sources told me. “We know that these emulsifiers and thickeners and other additives [used in processed foods] are linked to myriad diseases, and we’ve shown in animal models how they can induce disease states.”

Working on that story made me rethink my lazy logic regarding plant-based dairy, and I decided to do some digging.

Research on the short- and long-term health effects of consuming plant-based dairy alternatives is meagre. But I found that — by any definition — a majority of these products are ultra-processed foods.

“Plant milks are typically produced by isolating oils from plant sources through soaking, grinding, and heating, sometimes under high pressure,” wrote Adam Drewnowski, PhD, in a 2021 Advances in Nutrition study on plant-based milk alternatives. “[The] oil globules remain in colloidal suspension, but only in the presence of chemical stabilizers and emulsifiers. The final plant-based product is rounded off with thickening substances and hydrocolloid stabilizing agents.”

That does not read like a recipe for something you’d want to put in your body.

Drewnowski is a biochemist, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington, and, according to his academic bio, a “world-renowned” leader in the study of obesity. Per his study: “Ultra-processed foods are products that are created mostly or entirely from substances extracted from foods, contain added sugar and salt, and also contain flavors and additives that imitate sensory qualities of the original product.” That exactly describes Oatly and most other plant-based dairy alternatives.

“Replacing milk and dairy products with plant-based alternatives will necessarily involve the use of ultra-processed foods,” he said.

To be clear, Drewnowski did not conclude that plant-based milks are less healthy than traditional dairy. And for good reason: there isn’t direct evidence to support such a claim — meaning we don’t have solid observational data linking the consumption of non-dairy alternatives to health problems.

It’s also worth emphasizing that many of the conventional dairy foods sold in supermarkets — yogurts in particular — are themselves ultra-processed foods loaded with flavoring agents, stabilizers, and other additives. Also, dairy foods do not appear to be a necessary part of any person’s diet.

But if you’re comparing plain old dairy with most plant-based offerings, only the plant-based alternatives are ultra-processed. That should be enough to make any health-conscious person wary of them.

It’s going to be very difficult for researchers to show with high confidence that plant-based alternatives are better or worse than traditional dairy.

Now, some plant-based dairy alternatives are not made with emulsifiers, thickeners, and other additives. They’re trickier to find and, in my experience, they don’t taste great. But they’re out there.

Also, there’s a lot of research comparing cow-based and plant-based dairy in terms of their macro- and micro-nutrient profiles. Some of that work finds that the products are similar (although it’s not clear if the human body can absorb the stuff added to plant milks in the same way that it takes up the nutrients found naturally in dairy). Meanwhile, some researchers have found that conventional dairy is a more complete source of essential nutrients, namely minerals.

I could pick through all that nutrient research in more depth, but I don’t think that would be very helpful. Focusing narrowly on a food’s nutrient content can be misleading. Nutrition research is plagued by inconsistencies and contradictory findings, and a lot of that confusion appears to stem from the legacy belief that you can break a food down into its component parts, assess those parts individually, and extrapolate from those assessments meaningful conclusions about a food’s health profile. By and large, you can’t.

Looking ahead, I think it’s going to be difficult for researchers to show with high confidence that plant-based alternatives are better or worse than traditional dairy. The diversity of products within each category makes any comparison fraught: soy milk is not oat milk is not almond milk, and there’s also heterogeneity within commercial cow-based dairy offerings. Likewise, any observational data is going to be muddled by confounders.

There are yet more considerations here — including whether the conventional dairy you’re consuming comes from cows treated with hormones, or from cows fed a diet rich in genetically modified grains. But for me, the essential takeaway is that — for the most part — plant-based milks and yogurts land squarely in the ultra-processed food camp. Conventional dairy doesn’t.

For the planet, I plan to eat dairy sparingly. But for my health, the dairy I eat from now on— and the dairy I feed my kids — is going to come from cows.

Health
Plant Based
Milk
Diet
Nutrition
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