Oat milk is marketed as the sustainable milk alternative. Let’s examine what goes into your £2.50 carton. Swedish oats grown in monoculture requiring pesticides, harvested with diesel machinery, shipped to processing facility. The oats are milled, mixed with water and enzymes, processed to break down starches, mixed with seed oils, fortified with synthetic vitamins, stabilised with additives, packaged in plastic-lined cartons, refrigerated, and distributed. The ingredient list: water, oats, rapeseed oil, calcium carbonate, calcium phosphates, salt, vitamins D2 and B12, potassium iodide, vitamin B2. You’re drinking processed grain slurry with seed oil and synthetic vitamins. This required industrial processing, chemical inputs, fortification to be nutritionally comparable to milk, and packaging in plastic. Compare to milk: Grass grows. Cow eats grass. Cow produces milk. Milk is pasteurised and bottled. Contains complete protein, naturally occurring vitamins, calcium, and dozens of beneficial compounds. No fortification needed. No seed oil added. No processing beyond heat treatment. But oat milk is marketed as sustainable because they counted the cow’s methane and ignored the industrial processing, monoculture oat farming, pesticide use, fortification manufacturing, and seed oil addition required to make oat milk nutritionally incomparable to actual milk. And it’s promoted because the agri-business corporations spend a fortune not just on direct marketing, but also on influencer drives to push silly teenage girls towards eating disorders including vegetarianism and veganism. When you’re next out shopping, tell someone looking at the Oat Milk section that it’s ultra-processed grain slurry. If you’ve got some in the fridge, throw it out and switch to buying real milk. If by chance you’re allergic to cows’ milk, give goats’ milk a try instead. Enjoy! Become a free subscriber to Nick Griffin Beyond the Pale. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
