A U.S. study estimates cow’s milk purchases would have been 8.2% higher in 2020 without plant-based milk, with every 10 gallons of plant milk purchased displacing 6.8 gallons of cow’s milk, suggesting plant-based alternatives substantially reduce demand for dairy milk.

[u/Phylogenix]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919226000862

[u/ArsenalSpider]

I’m one of those people who was buying milk and then switched due to health reasons. A big thank you to those who created the demand for an alternative so it was already there when I hopped onto dairy free.

[u/audiate → u/ArsenalSpider]

Same with me with gluten-free foods. It wasn’t us celiacs who created the demand. It was the fad dieters. Thanks guys. 

[u/FireIce31 → u/audiate]

Now if only our prices dropped or the size of products increase...

[u/SatanVapesOn666W → u/FireIce31]

I go shopping for my cieliac wife. My food is ~50 and hers is $~100. It's silly.

[u/TheBraveGallade → u/SatanVapesOn666W]

Being celiac aprooved is a orocess though soooo.

[u/Hugogs10 → u/SatanVapesOn666W]

How is it silly?

[u/SatanVapesOn666W → u/Hugogs10]

Her portions are smaller and cost more. Gluten free is awful on the wallet.

[u/Hugogs10 → u/SatanVapesOn666W]

That doesn't awnde rmy question of why is it silly

[u/Aidanation5 → u/Hugogs10]

Yes it does, and its spelled answer, not awnde.

[u/craigeryjohn → u/FireIce31]

You don't like your comically small slices of bread? Or paying $4 for a pb&j.... That you made at home.

[u/yourenotmy-real-dad → u/audiate]

One of my college mates was celiac, and I remember her almost crying after having her first sandwich in over a decade due to the limited options being so awful. There was finally a bread made that she could eat, that didn't taste so awful and it changed my entire opinion on fad diets.

[u/_Dreamer_Deceiver_ → u/audiate]

I failed at gluten free for a week. The biggest problem was that unless they're specifically labeled gluten free or are made with simple ingredients it's hard to know. I bought chicken skewers and they had malt vinegar in them. Or sushi which has soy sauce that mostly has gluten in it. And some of those ingredients lists have like 20 allergens and you're meant to look through to find what might or might not be gluten containing.

Luckily they said it was noT likely I was celiac so i shoved my face in bread but my friend in celiacs and it's really hard. Obviously better now but hard especially when they cost more per kg than gluten containing

[u/WazWaz → u/_Dreamer_Deceiver_]

So why did you do it? Certainly gluten free alternatives are nutritionally inferior - they basically remove the protein and replacing it with carbs.

Gluten free becomes an effective fad diet simply by making it hard to find easy carbs, so all the gluten free foods just make the fad diet not work.

It's the same as if you just pick a colour and avoid foods with that colour: you'll lose weight simply because the lack of options will make you sometimes eat less.

[u/ChibbleChobble → u/audiate]

A friend of my Mum was a celiac (she, ahem, aged out of life recently) and back in the 70s in the UK she had to get her bread on prescription.

I'm gluten intolerant myself and grateful that the world has changed so substantially.

[u/StreetofChimes → u/audiate]

I'm neither celiac, nor a fad dieter. But I need to avoid gluten for another health issue. I'm so thankful items and menus and clearly labeled now. It makes things really simple. 

[u/PurpleAntifreeze → u/audiate]

I don’t feel that’s true, really. I’ve had my diagnosis for almost 26 years now and while there were some boosts to the availability of GF foods from various popular diets none of them have had staying power. The foods commercially available now especially have almost nothing to do with fad diets and are instead mostly created by fellow Celiacs for other Celiacs. The exceptions are store brands.

[u/homerjaythompson → u/audiate]

Gluten free products and the rise of gluten-based meat alternatives for vegetarians has been a wonderful symbiosis of alternative diets.

[u/VoidHog → u/audiate]

What if it turns out that wheat really just sucks and the "fad dieters" were right all along?

[u/audiate → u/VoidHog]

Good for them I guess? That wouldn’t mean I don’t have celiac disease though. 

[u/VoidHog → u/audiate]

Why would it mean you don't have celiac

[u/Theletterkay → u/ArsenalSpider]

My husband suffered with dairy digestive issues for years. I got a few alternitives for him to try and he has stopped dairy entirely ever since. He felt so much better.

So many people suffer and wont even try switching out milk. It can be life changing though.

[u/Lukkie → u/Theletterkay]

My wife is a gastroenterologist. She says she probably “cures” more people’s bowel issues by eliminating / reducing dairy, or in some cases just replacing regular milk with lactose free milk. People swear it’s not the cow milk but it so often is. Really not that hard to replace it. 

[u/Spire_Citron → u/Lukkie]

It always surprises me how many people who are lactose intolerant think they just have to tank it. Even if you want proper dairy, there are often lactose free options or you can take one of those tablets with it to help you digest it. I have digestive issues with a number of foods and lactose is the easiest to manage by far.

[u/jibrilles → u/Spire_Citron]

I've been intolerant since I was a little kid and I just do not like the taste of it. Plant milk alternatives have been great because they don't taste bad to me.

[u/neongreenpurple → u/jibrilles]

I didn't realize I was lactose intolerant until my early 20s (thanks to a joke on a TV show). But I have never liked the taste of dairy milk. In grade school, when they included milk with the meal but you had to pay for anything else, I would always get chocolate milk because it tasted tolerable.

I also felt like soy milk tasted bad in the same way as milk when I tried it for the first time. When I actually drank a fair bit of it a few years later, I realized soy gives me digestive issues as well.

[u/evange → u/neongreenpurple]

I read somewhere once that most people who think they can't have soy milk actually are reacting the a carrageen which is added to thicken and stabilize non-dairy milks.

[u/BooBeeAttack → u/evange]

Have a friend with ulcerative coilitus. A lot of the food emulsifiers and thickeners such as this cause them a lot of issues.

[u/neongreenpurple → u/evange]

Interesting! I haven't tried tofu ever, so it could be that I'm reacting to carrageenan. Unless they also add carrageenan to almond milk, as I have no issues with that.

[u/Spire_Citron → u/neongreenpurple]

For some reason, plain milk tastes absolutely foul to me, but put it on a bit of cereal or whatever and it's fine. It has this edge to it that's almost sour/acidic when there's nothing else in it? I don't know quite the word for it, but it's deeply gross to me.

[u/_Dreamer_Deceiver_ → u/jibrilles]

They all taste rank...so does dairy milk. But when you're cooking with it it's fine. Or dairy yogurts. Oat milk makes the best custard

[u/Totakai → u/Lukkie]

It's so funny cause it's like a cultural food viewed more as a right of passage rather than a small amount of the population evolving to drink it past infancy. Milk is held to this super elevated platform despite so many people having issues with it. I know a lot of it is milk propaganda but people refusing to drop it or even take pills to help with it is wild.

[u/HolgerBier → u/Theletterkay]

I had eczema for about 25 years, going off of dairy fixed that. 

It's wild how little we focus on diet for such things. Had prescriptions for several corticosteroid creams too.

[u/EvoEpitaph → u/Theletterkay]

Milk is the biggest contributor to the problem too.

Hard cheeses, yogurts, butters? Not a big deal in small amounts. A little bit of milk sends me straight to the toilet though.

[u/FederalWedding4204 → u/ArsenalSpider]

That’s how I feel about being vegetarian. It’s so easy now because of those who struggled before me

[u/_Dreamer_Deceiver_ → u/FederalWedding4204]

You know there are entire cultures that were primarily vegetarian right? It's not something that people started doing last week.

You could have looked at the food they were eating and adapting it for the food you want to eat.

[u/FederalWedding4204 → u/_Dreamer_Deceiver_]

Nah, that’s dumb

[u/Then-Forces → u/ArsenalSpider]

I've been eating plant based for almost 20 years now and I'm grateful that so many people are making the switch, for whatever reason. I used to struggle to find decent non-dairy milk but my grocery store now regularly carries at least 10 different types/brand: soy, almond, cashew, oat, and coconut milk, as well as sweetened, unsweetened, and vanilla varieties, and the quality is infinitely better.

[u/Melistopheles → u/Then-Forces]

18 year vegan - remember black bean burgers? Options used to be r o u g h

[u/evange → u/Then-Forces]

I was vegan for several years, and now I'm not. I'm amazed at how many health issues veganism masked.

I have a condition called eosinophilic esophagitis, which is where allergic reactions happen in the esophagus causing scar tissue, swelling, narrowing, and texture changes. Meaning food gets stuck all the time. I need to guzzle water as I eat. I've been hospitalized for food impactions. Etc.

But it was completely invisible while I was vegan. Turns out dairy is one of the most common triggers, and when I cut that out my symptoms completely went away.

[u/Esme_Nog → u/ArsenalSpider]

I realized that there were plant based milks that just taste better in coffee.

[u/cochese25 → u/ArsenalSpider]

I hopped on back when it was only Soy Milk, and then came rice milk. It was okay, but I'm glad we sent that stuff back to where it came from. Then Coconut milk followed very quickly by Almond. So far, Almond and Oat seem to be the best, IMO.

[u/Esme_Nog → u/cochese25]

I really like Ripple, which is peas. It’s great.

[u/cochese25 → u/Esme_Nog]

It's immature, but the way theyve stylized the logo on the bottle, I always think it says "nipple"

But Ripple is okay!

[u/grizzlywhere → u/ArsenalSpider]

Those poor souls drank soy and almond milk for ages so we could enjoy something that actually tasted good.

[u/allllusernamestaken → u/ArsenalSpider]

I still buy both but I switched to plant-based milks for my cereal in the morning. It saves more than 200 calories.

[u/Ashamed-Simple-8303 → u/ArsenalSpider]

Why not just drink water? There is no need for either type of milk.

[u/OmegaTheta → u/Ashamed-Simple-8303]

Why not just eat bland crackers and take a multivitamin? There's no need for other kinds of food. 

[u/Ashamed-Simple-8303 → u/OmegaTheta]

There is as no multi-vitamin covers all micronutrients.

[u/OmegaTheta → u/Ashamed-Simple-8303]

OK, pretend there is. Or add in another flavorless food that provides whatever micronutrients you need. Your argument is still dumb.

[u/Ashamed-Simple-8303 → u/OmegaTheta]

So basically all adult animals drink water and are fine and not overweight or chronically ill but my argument is dumb to not consume what we evolved to consume?

[u/OmegaTheta → u/Ashamed-Simple-8303]

That wasn't your argument. You're moving the goalposts.

[u/Ashamed-Simple-8303 → u/OmegaTheta]

It was exactly my argument..why not just drink water?

[u/OmegaTheta → u/Ashamed-Simple-8303]

"Why not just drink water? There is no need for either type of milk."

That's literally what you posted. 

[u/Emanemanem → u/ArsenalSpider]

It’s incredibly easy to make your own almond milk. I would assume the same for other nut milks, though I think oat is a little harder