I was a milking goat-keeper for 2 decades and feel empathy with dairy-farmers who have struggled with foot and mouth, bovine TB  and poor prices. Being blamed for causing climate change could be the last straw! Especially with flocks and herds that graze marginal land, often helping maintain its biodiversity. These grass-fed animals need minimal extra feed, which may be locally grown, rather than based on soya or fishmeal.

At the other extreme are mega-dairies,  like Nocton’s proposal for 3,770 cows (rising to 8,100?) in one “farm”, living almost all their short lives indoors. Animal welfare then becomes an major issue, as highlighted by Compassion in World Farming. Continue reading →

Is it ok to use soy milk? Here’s a way of thinking of it.  Some tomatoes are grown with heavy inputs of energy and/or flown in from abroad. But some are grown locally and seasonally. The moral is not to stop eating any tomatoes but to buy only those which are local and seasonal. Similarly some soy (depressingly vast amounts indeed) is bad news –  grown on cleared rainforest with much fertiliser and then used to feed livestock. But some is grown responsibly and used to feed humans directly, in the form of tofu, soy milk and the like – and when so grown soy is a good nutritious crop, like other beans. So the moral seems to be not to forswear all soy products but to find out which are responsibly produced – and then to support the responsible producers.  So are there any responsible producers? Alpro – and Provamel which is the organic sub-brand of Alpro  - claim to be this.  In particular, Alpro say that they never source beans from deforested rainforest. Should one be cynical about this?  I don’t know of any reason to be.

What milk substitute to go for if one cannot do without something milky in tea, coffee, on one’s cereal etc?  This turns out to be pretty confusing!   There are plenty of varieties to choose from and a lot of considerations to juggle. This last week I have been trying Oatly and also a version of rice milk from Provamel. On the upside for these is that they are environmentally pretty much ok, in that their carbon footprint is much less than that of milk.  And to drink just straight, or to put on cereal, they are fine – if a bit unexciting. So far so good. But, on the downside, nutritionally, as far as protein and calcium are concerned, they contribute much less to diet than milk. So anyone relying on milk for protein and calcium and switching to either of these will need to be careful that they are getting enough from other sources. And for me, in tea and coffee (particularly coffee) they do not do quite what is wanted, and Oatly tends to curdle.  (But perhaps I should get out of the mindset of looking for an exact milk equivalent? My guess is that, with familiarity, both of these could become more acceptable.)

Tonight and tomorrow I’m planning to use up the last bits of butter and cheese I have in the fridge in preparation for going fully dairy-free from Sunday.  There has not been much milk in my fridge for a while – I’ve been using mainly soya milk.  But is soya milk the right thing? It’s dairy free all right, but is it really carbon friendly? I’m beginning to wonder.  Am hoping to do a bit of research – also taste testing! – on milk substitutes and look forward to sharing the results.

OK – so we haven’t started yet!   But my last cheese (for now?) is finished:
I love cheese’s tangy-fatty taste & all the wonderful mouldy varieties. Or when it bubbles under the grill. Are there any good non-dairy “cheeses”?

For cheese-sauce equivalent I like tahini-lemon: when you stir tahini and lemon juice together a reaction rapidly makes the mixture stiff – add water & seasoning to suit – there you are!  It’s got tangy-fattiness & replaces cheese sauce; it’s good on bread, but doesn’t grill like cheese!

I anticipate enticing non-dairy discoveries, as well as wistfully sniffing round cheese stalls. But those farting cows are a suprisingly big problem – 2.7% of all global greenhouse gas emissions from milk products, according to this FAO study (p 33).