The Vegan Thread

I don't know much about nutrition, so can't comment on the article, but I tried Oatly (not the famous 'barista' mix) once and didn't like it. It was probably my least favourite plant drink that I've tried (and I almost never use any others, only occasionally use soya drink in cooking when a recipe calls for it). It would certainly make sense that it's so popular because its sugar content is so high (and that the marketing works and investors have been getting involved partly because of that), but I have no idea one way or the other. As a nutritional ignoramus, the article didn't convince me that Oatly is worse nutritionally than dairy milk, just that there may be a certain logic that to achieve certain properties that people crave ('mouth feel', which I guess probably isn't important to me, and which may be one of the reasons why people insist on continuing to eat meat; 'mouth feel' may be a different thing from finer aspects of taste, e.g. the taste of spices, although of course everybody experiences both to some extent), you are quite likely to end up with things like a certain amount of sugar(s).

I do think the plant 'milk' movement is still in its infancy, despite Plamil having started (six?) decades ago, and that the products will become more refined and with more interesting properties over time. At the moment, they're not something I use much.

Lest we forget, veganism is currently popular mainly on the back of vegan junk food becoming not-quite-but-increasingly ubiquitous. The world is (and has been for a long time) very deep in the hole of a craving/financial need people have for rubbish food.