Vegan Milk vs Cow milk: Which is better and should Amul & India 'switch' as PETA claims?

A fierce battle is brewing online and in vertising forums between India’s dairy icon - Amul co-operative - and what it appears to believe are vested interests hell-bent on discrediting and mooching off milk - dairy variety, ‘only’ variety. This purported lobby, Amul’s venerable chief RS Sodhi roughly feels, is pushing a product that is trying to attach itself to milk on shelves like a parasite and sell plant-based alternatives by simply presenting an option. By ‘encashing equity of milk’, GCMMF Ltd MD says that companies that make se ‘plant-based foods’ are eyeing profitability over livelihoods and are telling at least 2 ‘lies’ in process - that Vegan milk is better than dairy/cow milk and that vegan milk is better suited to India and Indians than real milk.

Plant-based ‘vegan milk’ versus dairy & cow milk: Which is better?

Vegan milk* (it’s not actually allowed to call itself milk in many geographies and is even abortively marketed as 'mylk' in US) is primarily me of a few varieties that are always changing - Almond milk, Soy milk and Coconut milk are predominant varieties, as per latest writings, and Oats and or alternatives, even corn, are catching up for fairly arbitrary reasons (re: fs). Just to be clear, in no circumstance at moment do se vegan milks appear naturally superior to fresh milk from cows. y are lower or at par on energy in terms of calories, as well as fats, carbohydrates, proteins and vitamins, and if ever y are not, that's because re’s a good chance y’re fortified with ditives. It’s not illegal, it’s permissible within limitations as per most accounts ( WHO guidelines are a standard).

Vegan milk nutritional details vary markedly depending on what you buy, but at best y’re as power-packed as dairy milk, and at worst y’re like bottled water emulsion with a few percentage points of ir plant base and some enhancers and or agents including vitamins, flavours, sugars, thickeners, texturisers, etc. Mr Sodhi has said y’re modified lab foods me of chemicals and syntic materials. Perhaps not all of m, but re appears to be a good argument that y may be largely classifiable as ‘beverages’ rar than more rounded ‘food’ category that real milk falls under.

But should you believe this analysis? Well, truth is it’s probably going to be very hard to establish beyond doubt. Like debates into topics like diet colas, re is likely alrey enough research on eir side to render a conclusive answer impossible to find. One can argue on implied question - if re were motivations to ‘findings’? What’s clear is, however, that ‘vegan milk’ has a whiff of being ‘healthy’, ‘sustainable’ and most importantly, ‘woke’, derived as it is from clean-food counterculture that has swept blogosphere and originated allegedly on Instagram. ‘but is it really?’ just writes itself.

Is Vegan milk really good for India? Should India & Amul be thinking about switching?

Clearly, RS Sodhi feels ‘no’ and PETA India feels ‘yes.’ To push its argument, Unilever ories aside, PETA cites a report on Forbes that in many of its arguments cites most shallow outlier lines of attack, including emblazoning Bat-origin ory of COVID-19 front and center. (Don’t even try.)

But coming to main points that should decide ‘dairy milk versus vegan milk’ battle for India, here’s what you need to know.

Is cow & dairy milk b for you?

Essentially, cow milk is latest in a long line of foods that has been revised (smeared) as being b for you. As far as this author could find, it’s contentious. biggest truth re is that re is a good percent of population in many countries that could be lactose intolerant. This also depends on historic, environmental and ethnic factors, but it is biggest question that can be raised against milk. Aside from that, re’s no apparent reason to believe Milk is anything or than net-positive for you. Lactose intolerance is primarily because some peoples’ bodies wean off producing an enzyme that breaks down milk from when we’re babies. If you're not lactose intolerant, by-and-large milk is supposed to be good for you.

Are cow and dairy milk environmentally friendly in India?

answer is in model. India’s dairy industry is not even close to being mechanised enough to cause as big a dent as in many foreign countries in terms of environmental damage. And more importantly, our consumption of beef is negligible and so we don’t contribute to immense harm meat farming causes globally. Like Amul has argued, India’s dairy industry does not follow a factory production model, small individual farmers own ir pairs of cattle and lakhs of m co-operatively contribute to making India by far largest milk producer in world!

PETA and article y rely on to question Amul claim that Vegan milk can easily be me in India. Why, exactly? Look up almonds, soy, oats and even coconuts. India doesn’t even make it into top-10 producers, and in percentile terms, it would be laughable to compare with India’s milk prowess - which owes quite a bit of this competitive vantage to Amul, White Revolution and Operation Flood (all basically interchangeable). Sure, with greenfield investment and marketing (and lobbying apparently) one could turn it into a success story in India, but really, to ask Amul to ditch its operations, dairy model and all good y bring, and ‘switch’ to Vegan milk is not even worth considering at moment. Sure, company is best placed to cannibalise any demand, and even more so, to cater to demand abro, which is copious and could allow farmer an option. But those are decisions RS Sodhi should be taking for his and farmers' reasons, not having to swat away because Instagram influencers and foreign-funded lobbies want to falsely declare death of milk.