From Adam Croucher, London, UK
Thank you for Chelsea Whyte's article on milk alternatives (22 September, p 22). It is high time that the question about the ecological and health impact of “alt-milks” is addressed in more detail – please write more!
The perceived benefits and harms of these “milks” have been left to marketing and the fashions of conscience. As a consumer and fan of soy and oat milks (the latter comfortingly similar in flavour to Coffee-Mate), I still wonder often at the sense of consuming milk of any kind at all.
Alt-milks typically have complex and highly robust packaging that is neither compostable nor recyclable, and far bulkier than that used for milk, especially as alt-milks seem to come only in 1 litre packs.
Is it time for alt-milk producers to shorten their supply chains, package more renewably, and tell us more about what happens to all the bits of nut, bean, grain that don't end up in their products?
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