Oat milk: the liquid equivalent of Laboratory Meat
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idiot juice
More expensive, less nutritious than cow’s milk, and as useless as any other “green” fad.
‘Cow’s milk, for those who can drink it, is part of a healthy diet. Oat milk, I’d suggest, isn’t.’ And, ‘if you think oat milk is healthier than cow’s milk you’ve been sold a pup’. Ultimately, ‘that’s a lot of cash to spend on a slurry of oat carbohydrates and rapeseed oil in water that is unlikely to have any positive health benefits’.
And we’ve not even mentioned the cost. In Tesco, for instance, cow’s milk is £1.20 a litre, Alpro oat milk is £2.10. That’s a lot of cash to spend on said slurry. ‘It’s absurd,’ says Van Tulleken. ‘The profit margin on oat milk is enormous. You have to ask, who is making it and why?’
While cow’s milk, which has been farmed for thousands of years, is a loss leader, ‘oat milk exists to generate revenue for investment funds who’ve bought into these new milk brands,’ says Van Tulleken. ‘They’re not traditional food companies.’
He’s right. Oatly, for example, is owned by a long list of companies including investment firms Verlinvest and Blackstone, which has backers such as Jay-Z and Oprah Winfrey, plus China Resources, a conglomerate owned by the Chinese state. So yes, not a traditional food company.
Lots of oat milk companies might be ‘very chummy on the packet’, says Van Tulleken. (Oatly proudly says on its carton, in kitsch font, ‘no milk, no soy, no bad-ness’.) ‘But the product only exists to generate growth for investment funds. That’s fine! That’s just the way the world works.’
But ‘if you’re drinking it because you’re a vegan, it’s not clear to me that all of these companies will share your ethical values.
