Kudos for providing a useful answer to a question that doesn’t appear to be asked in good faith.
His reply is good, especially this bit:
> Of course I'm not keen to spend more on plants than I would for an animal product, and one wonders how green something can be when it includes coconut transported via cargo ships and highly refined ingredients.
Further down thread I discuss Oatly and their misleading marketing claims. A healthy amount of skepticism towards magical new solutions is very much in order.
The methane thing is not true and has been debunked as I understand it.
> The most cut and dry benefit to alternatives is far and away animal welfare.
That is... very difficult to debate as it simply depends on where you are getting your milk from. It is certainly possible to produce milk with perfectly happy cows, if that is the main concern could just advocate and insist on that directly.
I think the issue is the way you phrased the question. The use of the word "imaginary" is dismissive. You are asking sensible questions and I agree scepticism is important for new things. But careful use of language so as not to dismiss people is also important so as not to alienate people during an important debate.
It's similar with how you replied to my comment with "please do be careful", you may mean it but it can come off as condescending.
Note that he wrote the word fake. It is a hypothetical fake milk. There was no dismissiveness intended.
> It's similar with how you replied to my comment with "please do be careful", you may mean it but it can come off as condescending.
I do in fact mean it. The whole point is that Oatly and other milk alternatives present themselves as healthier but simply replace one set of disadvantages with another and hide it in the fine print.
I will try to take your advice to heart but I do think folks just don't want to hear bad news anymore and shoot the messenger. I guess that in itself is part of the marketing trickery. :/
Anyway sorry if I am a bummer.
I see no difficulty in it. Alternatives give you 100% confidence of not having animal products in the production chain. The only thing to quibble is the degree to which animals might be harmed in commercial agriculture, which supplies the overwhelming majority of product in North America. Opinionated vegans and consumers in general have a different threshold and definition though (after all bleeding heart vegans would posit that even the "good" sources are harmful in some capacity).
Personally I don't think dairy cows have it that bad, and I'm pro-slaughter. But it's still clear that abstaining from those products gives you far more confidence about animal welfare.
> The methane thing is not true and has been debunked as I understand it.
It's true. The only carbon-neutral cow rearing is in the context of allowing cows to migrate to fertilize different lands. This is not the case in commercial agriculture.