1372: Milk | Skeptical Sunday

12:17Jessica Wynn:No pun intended. That's crazy. $17 billion in just plant, not dairy, not milk, plant-based milk. So that's an absolute, well, literally tons and tons and tons of oat and soy milk. Just tons and tons.

12:31Jordan Harbinger:Well, that's before oat milk was on all the shelves. So by 2023, 15 % of all U.S. milk sales were plant-based. And oat milk's taste, texture, and just the timing of it, it just perfectly placed it as like the top cow.

12:49Jessica Wynn:Yeah, okay. That was utterly unnecessary. So why oat and not almond, soy, coconut? I forgot about coconut. They've been around so much longer. So why did oat trend harder? It's just coffee performance.

13:01Jordan Harbinger:You know, soy milk curdles or separates in hot, acidic coffee.

13:05Jessica Wynn:It is yucky when that happens, isn't it? Yeah.

13:08Jordan Harbinger:The formulation just doesn't work. And then almond milk is really thin. It is thin. It doesn't really change the color of the coffee.

13:16Jessica Wynn:That's right. It doesn't feel like it doesn't really do what it's supposed to do until you add too much, and then you have too much. This tracks.

13:23Jordan Harbinger:Yeah. And then oat milk turns out it doesn't split and it steams into that creamy, silky foam people expect from dairy. And the environmental story that they pushed on us is that it was cleaner than almonds and soybeans. So the taste and the look plus the narrative that wins markets.

13:44Jessica Wynn:Walk me through how oat milk is actually made because the cartons say, hey, it's just oats and water. And I'm like, okay, but I've put oats in other things and they don't just dissolve into uniform. So what's going on?

13:56Jordan Harbinger:Imagine putting oatmeal in your coffee.

13:58Jessica Wynn:Yeah. Well, have you ever had muesli? It's kind of more common in Europe. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, yeah, it doesn't. The whole point is the oats kind of stick around. You could do overnight oats where you put them in milk and that you leave them for 12 or 24 hours. And it's still oats. Like they're still intact and chewy.

14:15Jordan Harbinger:It's still tell. Right.

14:16Jessica Wynn:So what else is going on here?

14:18Jordan Harbinger:So for the milk, the process is to mill the oats and then mix it with water. And then they do something called enzymatic hydrolysis.

14:28Jessica Wynn:That is not wholesome breakfast beverage language. So what does that mean?

14:32Jordan Harbinger:It's just adding an enzyme and it's called alpha amylase. So it breaks the starch in the oats into simpler sugars, glucose and maltose. And this keeps it from turning into paste and it creates sweetness without added sugar.

14:47Jessica Wynn:So the sweetness comes from a byproduct of an industrial process.

14:51Jordan Harbinger:Correct. And then it's filtered, homogenized, and usually blended with oils and emulsifiers for texture.

14:58Jessica Wynn:That part doesn't make it onto the carton, but that makes sense because oats don't really have fat, so you've got to figure that whole thing out.

15:06Jordan Harbinger:Exactly. Unlike almonds or soybeans, oats don't contain enough fat to make something milk-like on their own, so the fat structure has to be built in. The globules we mentioned for dairy milk, that's exactly what gives oat milk its creamy texture. And they're actually constructed from water, sunflower oil, emulsifiers, and other little additives by the manufacturers.

15:31Jessica Wynn:So I'm drinking oat water with engineered fat.

15:34Jordan Harbinger:Yeah. I mean, welcome to food science.

15:36Jessica Wynn:Yeah.

15:37Jordan Harbinger:And to be fair, I'd note that pasteurized, homogenized dairy, it's also heavily processed and engineered.

15:45Jessica Wynn:Yeah, that's true. It's not like, oh, one's natural and the other one's just chemicals, which is kind of what you hear about from when people are competing in the space. Like, hey, this is just, you know, straight from the cow. And then we boil out the infections and stuff in the antibiotics. Yeah. But like each side is trying to be like ours is more natural. And it's like, no, you're processing the crap out of all of this stuff. And probably thankfully so, rightfully so. So what is the difference compared to, I've seen fermented oat milk at the store. That's got to taste revolting, although I haven't tried it.

16:17Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, it's a terrible name, but it's nutritionally interesting. So if you ferment oat milk with probiotic strains like lactobacillus and bifidobacterium, you improve digestibility and micronutrient bioavailability. So the B vitamins increase, the beta-glucan, which is a cholesterol-lowering fiber, that stays intact and antioxidants become more usable.

16:43Jessica Wynn:So the solution to oat milk's nutritional gaps is to let bacteria kind of pregame it. And that's what yogurt and kefir are, right? Dairy, letting microbes do some of the work first, and then it's supposed to be like really good for you.

16:57Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, absolutely. You know, fermentation is ancient processing, and sometimes processing improves food. I mean, don't get me wrong. Sometimes processing is just a way to make junk more marketable. But sometimes it's genuinely useful, like turning milk into a food more people can tolerate. So with fermented oat milk, you keep the fiber, you gain the probiotics, and you improve the bioavailability. That science is genuinely exciting. The market just hasn't caught up because nobody's figured out how to make fermented oat milk sound appetizing to a mass audience.

17:33Jessica Wynn:Yeah, I'll workshop that. Pre-digested by helpful microbes for your convenience. So fermented oat milk is basically oat yogurt that you can drink.

17:41Jordan Harbinger:I mean, in spirit, sure.

17:43Jessica Wynn:Yeah. So nutritional comparison, dairy versus oat, no marketing nonsense. Who wins on this?

17:49Jordan Harbinger:I mean, it depends entirely on what you're measuring. So on protein, dairy wins. It's not even close. Cow's milk has about eight grams of protein per cup versus one to two for most oat milks. And the protein quality really matters. So the DIAAS, which you'll see on labels, is the Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score, which measures how usable the protein actually is. And that runs between 123 to 144 for dairy, and then 57 to 67 for oats. So not even understanding really what those numbers are representing, you can see it's double, at least.

18:33Jessica Wynn:Okay.

18:33Jordan Harbinger:So oats are deficient in lysine, which is an essential amino acid. Your body just can't synthesize.

18:39Jessica Wynn:Too bad they can't just add that in there. I don't know. Maybe that doesn't even help. So people switching from dairy to oat milk thinking they're getting equivalent protein are not getting equivalent protein.

18:49Jordan Harbinger:No, no. They'll have to go elsewhere for protein. But oat milk does have genuine strengths. So the beta-glucan, that soluble dietary fiber we mentioned, That has strong clinical evidence for LDL reduction at meaningful intake levels. So most of the strongest trials used oat bran or concentrated beta-glucan rather than oat milk itself. But a smaller set of studies on oat milk specifically found that roughly three quarters of a liter of oat milk daily for five weeks meaningfully reduces your LDL cholesterol. I mean, that's real.

19:27Jessica Wynn:Yeah.

19:27Jordan Harbinger:And oat milk's also higher in vitamin E, potassium, and iron. It's lower in saturated fat. It has no cholesterol, and it can be higher in other micronutrients, depending on the manufacturer and the fortification.

19:42Jessica Wynn:Do you get any calcium from oat milk? I know from commercials in the 80s that milk is loaded with calcium, and that's important.

19:48Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, right. I mean, it's complicated. So oats contain compounds that bind to calcium and block absorption. So even when fortified, bioavailability is definitely lower than dairy, where casein enhances absorption. So the calcium is there technically, you just, your body's not going to use it as efficiently.

20:11Jessica Wynn:So oat milk, not great for growing kids or whatever instead of regular milk.

20:16Jordan Harbinger:It's not appropriate as a complete milk replacement. So pediatric groups, they caution parents who want to raise their kids dairy-free that protein quality and calcium are especially important for kids. So they need to do really deliberate planning. The protein quality, amino acid profile, calcium content, none of it is adequate for early childhood development, which is fine if you understand you need to supply those things from other foods. So this is a conversation parents need to have with a pediatrician, not with some random barista.

20:51Jessica Wynn:Yeah, I guess some people see the word milk and just assume it's the same thing, just made out of different stuff. So is it different with the OG milk replacement, alternate milk, whatever you want to call it, soy milk? Is that better?

21:05Jordan Harbinger:Well, soy milk is the nutritional gold standard of plant-based milks. So it's the only plant-based milk that genuinely rivals dairy on protein quality. There's about 8 grams of complete protein per cup, and it includes all 9 essential amino acids. It's naturally rich in potassium. It's often fortified with calcium, vitamin D, B12, all things people who are dairy-free need. And it's the best for someone who just can't or won't drink dairy.

21:35Jessica Wynn:It seems like it's fallen out of fashion, though, compared to oat milk and almond milk. You just don't hear about it anymore.

21:40Jordan Harbinger:I know, for sure. Sure. I mean, it's dropped from about 25 % of the plant milk market to about 10%. And there's two reasons for this. First, the taste. Some people find it chalky, particularly in coffee. And then second, there's this whole phytoestrogen controversy. So soy contains compounds called isoflavones that can weakly mimic estrogen in the body. that led to years of rumors that drinking soy milk would lower testosterone yeah make men more feminine or even cause breast growth this is i just want everybody to know this is ridiculous

22:19Jessica Wynn:i remember researching this because you know fitness stuff and i you have to drink so much so you'd have to drink like an un totally ungodly amount of soy milk really and you'd also have to be eating tons of tofu and made like vegan. Maybe if you were super vegan and only ate soy products, you could run into some sort of thing with this. But like if you're just throwing this in your coffee.

22:44Jordan Harbinger:Super vegan. Yeah. Worst superhero. The worst kind.

22:47Jessica Wynn:Yeah. The lamest superhero. Sorry, vegans. I'm just kidding. But if you're throwing this in your coffee or you're having a couple glasses a day, it's you're not growing boobs off of this.

22:57Jordan Harbinger:Sure. But the dairy industry certainly didn't discourage those fears. And they even pushed the narrative that cow milk is good, soy milk is girly. And a lot of people trust that. They don't do their own research. But study after study has found that moderate soy consumption, it doesn't have feminizing effects in men. It might even provide cardiovascular benefits. So the science has moved on, but unfortunately, the reputation and cultural fear did not.

23:30Jessica Wynn:That must be where the insult soy boy. So it's like, oh, you're just really soft or, you know, emotional. So soy lost the popularity contest despite being the nutritional heavyweight. Interesting.

23:42Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, pretty much. I mean, the irony is, like you said, it's just outrageous amounts of soy you'd have to be consuming to see even a little hormonal effect. The Harvard School of Public Health, They say moderate soy consumption is 100 % safe. And like I said, multiple studies do.

24:02Jessica Wynn:Much of this episode is water, marketing, and questionable additives. Speaking of which, I'm going to go grab a glass of that because I'm better than you. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by SimpliSafe. Most home security systems react after the damage is already happening, after the window breaks, after somebody gets inside, after the alert reaches your phone. SimpliSafe is designed to help stop a break-in before it even starts. A friend of ours left home around 7 one evening for a school event, and while they were out, an alert appeared on their phone. Their alarm had been triggered, and they immediately called emergency services, but hey, by the time help arrived, it was way too late.

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26:32Jessica Wynn:Don't forget about our newsletter, We Bit Wiser. It's almost every Wednesday. It's a two-minute read. Very practical. JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday. I mean, it was clear for me looking this up years ago. Maybe there's more info now, but all these bodybuilder guys panicking over a splash of soy milk in their coffee were clearly concerned. You know, it's funny. You'll get a guy who injects anabolic steroids and then you order soy milk for your coffee. And he's like, dude, be careful. That's going to mess up your hormones. And I'm like, hey, man, you're growing boobs without soy.

27:05Jessica Wynn:I don't know if you should be warning me about my morning coffee over here. Maybe handle your weird nipples that have been growing that are an extra inch long since you started cycling on with whatever it is you're taking. Anyway, so soy milk. Soy milk is probably the nutritional benchmark. But almond milk was the king of nut milks before oat milk. And then the Internet suddenly declared it an ecological crime of some. And unfortunately, I played a part in that, I think. Oops, because I think we did an episode on almonds and just, you know, raked them over the coals.

27:35Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, again, I mean, it's the dairy industry coming after these alternatives. So almond milk had about 76 percent of the plant-based market at its peak. And then Big Dairy put out this successful smear campaign. Yes, almonds require significant amounts of water. A commonly cited figure is around three to four gallons per almond.

28:00Jessica Wynn:I see. So that sounds catastrophic coming from a California standpoint.

28:03Jordan Harbinger:It sounds catastrophic because it's framed per almond, not per glass, not per liter, not per gram of protein, and not compared to dairy. So most almond milk is about 2 % almonds, which means the water embedded in a serving is far lower than multiplying three gallons by whatever number you imagine in your latte. And here's what rarely travels with that viral statistic. dairy production also requires substantial water, not just for the cows to drink, but for irrigating the feed crops. So when researchers run full life cycle analysis, dairy always, 100 % of the time, uses more total water per liter than almond milk.

28:49Jessica Wynn:Wow, okay. So why does everybody always pick on almonds and how much water they are using?

28:54Jordan Harbinger:I mean, because the optics are brutal. But optics are not the same as comparative data. So sure, almonds are a thirsty crop, and around 80 % of the world's almonds are grown here in drought-prone California. And as plant-based milk started taking meaningful market share, environmental critiques of specific alternatives became politically and economically useful. Big dairy is a really powerful lobby.

29:21Jessica Wynn:So the water statistic isn't fake. It's just manipulated to demonize almond milk, basically.

29:25Jordan Harbinger:Dairy has really good PR. are. If we did a campaign about dairy's water usage, it would be way worse than what almonds do. So in competitive markets, there's incomplete statistics that travel faster than nuanced ones. You know, look, almond milk's not environmentally perfect. No crop is. It's more water intensive than pea or oat milk. I mean, that part's real. But framing almond milk as uniquely irresponsible while treating dairy as environmentally neutral. It's just not supported by the data. So if you compare greenhouse gases, land use, and total water footprint, dairy remains the most resource-intensive option.

30:09Jessica Wynn:Wow, so the real story is not that almonds are villains. It's that milk is a multi-billion dollar publicity machine. For the record, I'm now back to team dairy. Like, I just drink tons of milk. Which is fine, yeah. Yeah, I like me as a milk, I don't know. And I need the protein. And it's like, it's really hard to get elsewhere unless you're going to eat a ton of chicken, which like, is that better? I don't really think so.

30:30Jordan Harbinger:Then you're really worrying about the source of your protein.

30:33Jessica Wynn:But yeah, chickens are treated. I mean, this goes along with your factory farming. But I mean, they're just treated like you couldn't treat a living thing worse if you tried. I don't know. Maybe back to dairy.

30:43Jordan Harbinger:If you see an environmental statistic that goes viral right when a category threatens an incumbent industry, it's worth asking who's funding that infographic that's popping up in your feed. Because almond milk is still over 70 % of plant-based milk sales because people like how it tastes in their coffee.

31:04Jessica Wynn:Okay, so if almond is the environmental controversy, what's coconut's thing? I actually do like coconut milk, but it's disgusting in coffee. I don't put in my coffee.

31:14Jordan Harbinger:Do they even offer that at cafes? I can't imagine.

31:17Jessica Wynn:They do. Yeah, around here they do. And I'm thinking, what weirdo orders that? It's like dropping an egg in your coffee. It's so strange.

31:25Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, yeah, they must waste a lot. But coconut milk's really different. So the carton version, not the canned coconut milk, that's the only plant milk genuinely high in saturated fat. So there's about four grams per cup. That's really close to whole dairy.

31:42Jessica Wynn:I'm not sure where you're going with this. Is saturated fat good for you? I thought it was not good for you.

31:46Jordan Harbinger:I mean, there's an ongoing debate about whether coconuts, medium chain triglycerides, behave differently in the body than saturated animal fat. And the evidence is really mixed. I can't find a concrete definitive answer on it. So if you're switching milks for heart health reasons, coconut milk, probably not the best choice.

32:09Jessica Wynn:I see. Yeah, but I guess if you're vegan and you don't eat any animal products at all, maybe you need some saturated fat and coconut milk is a place to get... Okay, so is coconut milk allergen-free? Because I feel like I've heard that before. So better if you have a soy or nut allergy, you can go with coconut milk. I guess people like that have unique concerns.

32:27Jordan Harbinger:Coconut milk is just so complicated. I mean, technically, coconut is classified as a tree nut by the FDA, but most people with tree nut allergies, they tolerate it. And flavor-wise, it's so good in curries. It can be really good in smoothies and desserts. In coffee, though, no thank you.

32:46Jessica Wynn:So it's a delicious specialty product pretending to be a milk substitute, in my opinion. Rice milk is another one that I feel like used to be, it had a five-minute in the sunshine kind of moment. I don't see that anywhere anymore. I forgot it existed, actually until this episode.

33:00Jordan Harbinger:I know it'll be like pushed back on the shelf at the market or something.

33:04Jessica Wynn:I'm like thinking, who buys this? What is this even for?

33:06Jordan Harbinger:I mean, now we're getting into these niche milks. So they're not trying to beat dairy and accommodate everyone. They're trying to solve specific problems. And rice milk is like this forgotten middle milk child or something.

33:21Jessica Wynn:Yeah.

33:21Jordan Harbinger:But it's the most hypoallergenic option. So there's no soy, there's no nuts, there's no gluten. That's its niche. But nutritionally, it's pretty weak. There's almost no protein. It has the highest carbohydrates of the plant milks. And anyone who's had it knows it's bizarrely thin. But the big problem with it, though, is that rice absorbs more arsenic from soil than other grains.

33:47Jessica Wynn:Oh, no. Okay.

33:48Jordan Harbinger:I mean, don't be scared about that.

33:51Jessica Wynn:Is that one of those, if you eat 10 ,000 tons of it in a year, you'll get arsenic poisoning?

33:56Jordan Harbinger:like it's like the soy thing right there's also arsenic in apple seeds and cherry pits and things you know but yeah so but if it's a staple in your house it's just best to pace yourself i thought

34:07Jessica Wynn:there was cyanide in apple seeds it's arsenic is that what it is not arsenic i don't know there's something that if you ate a million of them they would kill you yeah okay but you'd explode from the amount that i talked about this with neil degrasse tyson years ago i think it's called the LD50 or something, right? And it's like, oh, there's Roundup in these flavors of Ben and Jerry's ice cream or something. And he's like, your stomach and gut would explode physically from the amount that you have to eat before you got the amount of whatever chemical from Roundup could even be detected in your bloodstream, basically.

34:42Jessica Wynn:And he's like, oh, and by the way, the sugar would kill you well before any of those things happen, right? So it's like an unrealistic thing to worry about. Yeah, just a scary word, yeah. Yeah, they told me that boba from bubble tea also has heavy metals in it and stuff. I'm like, well, that's kind of terrifying. Anyway, rice milk, so good in rice pudding, I suppose. Or maybe that's the buttload of butter they put in there now that I think about it.

35:07Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I don't really like rice pudding. I don't know. Oh my gosh, I love it. Yeah.

35:11Jessica Wynn:That's like one of my favorite things.

35:12Jordan Harbinger:But anything's good with enough butter, right? So true. I mean, rice milk, it's good if you have allergies, but not good for texture. So the creamiest nut milk is cashew milk.

35:24Jessica Wynn:I was thinking when you were researching your Google targeted ads must be so weird.

35:30Jordan Harbinger:And it's so funny how they change for each episode.

35:33Jessica Wynn:Like you're looking for creamy nut milk. God knows what's popping up in your ads now, but it's like human trafficking, creamy nut milk, factory farming, like their Google's got a, there's a red flag on your google search oh there's a file on me yeah um i've had cashew milk it's surprisingly creamy like you said and i can't help but think it's got a crap load of fat

35:56Jordan Harbinger:in it yeah i mean it has a higher fat content than most nut milks around 10 grams per cup which is a lot and that gives it this genuinely thick creamy texture though it's also the lowest calorie option, which is surprising because it's low in protein and carbohydrates. There's only about one gram of each per cup.

36:20Jessica Wynn:How can it be high fat and low calorie? What's that?

36:24Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I mean, the trade-off is that it's not nutritionally dense. So you're getting creaminess without much else. So unfortified cashew milk, it's low in calcium at around 14 milligrams per cup versus 482 milligrams in fortified almond milk.

36:44Jessica Wynn:Okay, so it's good for sauces and lattes, but not for your bones.

36:48Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, exactly.

36:49Jessica Wynn:So we've covered the tastiest milks. What's the most nutritious milk?

36:53Jordan Harbinger:The most nutritionally underrated plant-based milk is pea milk. and the biggest thing working against it is the name.

37:02Jessica Wynn:The fact that it's called pea milk? Yeah, I have questions starting with why would you name it that? I mean, I get it, but come on.

37:07Jordan Harbinger:I mean, nutritionally, it's really excellent. It's made from yellow split peas, not the green peas you're imagining.

37:14Jessica Wynn:Oh, yeah, okay.

37:15Jordan Harbinger:And then they're ground into flour. The protein's extracted and then that's mixed with water, sunflower oil, and several different kinds of vitamins. And the result has eight grams of protein per cup, which equals soy milk. And the protein is, it's a complete protein and it's lower in carbohydrates than oat or rice milk.

37:36Jessica Wynn:I don't love that they're dumping a bunch of sunflower oil in there, although I don't really know if that might not make a difference, but it just sounds kind of gross and possibly not super good for you. Are peas high in calcium? Because isn't that what we want from our milk sometimes?

37:48Jordan Harbinger:It's often fortified with more calcium than dairy milk, like 50 % more. and it's also friendly to people with nuts, soy, and gluten allergies.

37:59Jessica Wynn:And nobody buys it because it's called pea milk. Got it. Yeah.

38:03Jordan Harbinger:Branding matters. They need to hire that Oatly graphic designer, I guess. That's right. Yeah. So the leading company that makes pea milk is called Ripple, and it avoids the word pea on the front label.

38:14Jessica Wynn:So does that mean that people buy hemp milk more because they think it'll get them high? I mean, is that... I know there's hemp milk, which I was weirded out by, honestly.

38:22Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, if that's why they're buying it, they're going to be pretty disappointed. So hemp milk is made from hulled hemp seeds. So I guess technically there are trace amounts of THC, but the content is far too low to have any psychoactive effect.

38:39Jessica Wynn:So why buy hemp milk?

38:40Jordan Harbinger:Because it's actually a really solid milk. It naturally contains omega-3 fatty acids. It has about five grams of protein per cup. And environmentally, it's one of the better options. The problem isn't the milk. It's that most people associate the word hemp with marijuana.

38:58Jessica Wynn:Yeah, so hemp milk also has an image problem.

39:00Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, right. I mean, and markets reward familiar, affordable, and coffee-compatible milks. And hemp milk isn't really any of those. Same with, like, macadamia milk.

39:12Jessica Wynn:Macadamia milk. That feels aspirational. That's a milk that requires a lifestyle. Ooh la la. I see that popping up at the store. That's got to be super expensive.

39:21Jordan Harbinger:It is, yeah. And it's probably the best tasting of what they call luxury milk.

39:29Jessica Wynn:Okay.

39:30Jordan Harbinger:I know. What a world. It's rich. It's buttery. It's actually really great in coffee because it's high in monounsaturated fats. Plus, it's really low in calories. But the downside is simple. It's expensive, and it doesn't offer much protein. So you're really paying for texture, not any kind of nutrition.

39:50Jessica Wynn:I see. Okay, so it's the Rolls Royce of nut milks. Looks great, doesn't carry much.

39:57Jordan Harbinger:Exactly. And if you're supplementing protein elsewhere and want the best latte texture, go for macadamia milk. It's great. But if you're drinking milk for nutrition, it's definitely not the right choice.

40:09Jessica Wynn:I see. Okay. Man, so many milks. We've gone through every plant milk imaginable. but let's zoom out because when we say milk, people probably actually think dairy after all.

40:18Jordan Harbinger:Of course. I mean, remember, every mammal produces milk to nourish their young. In fact, the name mammal comes from the Latin word mama, meaning breast. So there are standards like cow, sheep and goat, but other animal milks are out there. You know, start looking on the shelves for camel milk. It's becoming this niche health product because it's naturally higher in vitamin and sea and lower in saturated fat than cow's milk. It's also an essential source of dairy in parts of the world where cows simply don't thrive or exist.

40:52Jessica Wynn:Camel milk might be a hard sell to Americans who only see camels at the zoo and don't really think of them as farm animals.

41:00Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I mean, that might be true at first, but a camel milk latte, that would probably sell, honestly.

41:07Jessica Wynn:You might be able to pull it off, sure.

41:09Jordan Harbinger:I mean, we tend to think cow's milk is normal because that's what we grew up with. But what's, you know, quote unquote normal, it depends on where you live. So goat and sheep are dietary staples in much of the Mediterranean and Middle East. And camel milk is really common across parts of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. There's actually mare's milk, which is traditionally fermented into a drink called kumis in Central Asia. And even yak milk is important in Tibet and Mongolia. So cow's milk dominates because cows produce enormous volumes efficiently, not because they're the only mammals making milk worth drinking.

41:52Jessica Wynn:I see. And people look at the dairy aisle and assume nothing's really changed. This is like a permanent, untouchable thing. So is it?

42:00Jordan Harbinger:Yeah. I mean, Well, in 1999, the United States had over 87 ,000 dairy farms. And by 2019, before oat milk became this household word, that number of dairy farms dropped more than half. It became closer to 34 ,000. So that's a huge difference in 20 years, but also opens up the market for all different kinds of animal milks.

42:26Jessica Wynn:Yeah, wow. Wow. OK, so half of the dairy farms in America disappeared.

42:31Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, and per cow milk production rose dramatically. So the industry consolidated into these large industrial operations that could achieve major cost efficiencies. And new technology makes large farms dramatically more efficient. But it's too expensive for small farms to adopt. So they shut down, you know, they either sold out or they went under.

42:54Jessica Wynn:And this was all pre-COVID. What was happening at the dairy farms in 2019?

42:57Jordan Harbinger:So right before COVID, there were structural failures. So Dean Foods and Borden, which are two of the biggest dairy farm names, they both filed for bankruptcy. I don't know if they saw the writing on the wall, but Dean Foods filed in November 2019 and Borden filed in January 2020.

43:18Jessica Wynn:So when I grew up being told Milk was this wholesome, stable American institution, that was all just marketing BS from Big Dairy or something like that or what?

43:27Jordan Harbinger:At the time, the institution was stable. It's just the business wasn't. So it had quietly been fracturing for, you know, over two decades.

43:37Jessica Wynn:While Got Milk ads were playing on my TV and in magazines, which still existed nonstop. And those are in my brain. I mean, that marketing campaign is legendary. And if you were a celebrity that was anybody, you had one of those.

43:50Jordan Harbinger:Oh, absolutely. But before we get to the marketing campaign, you know, when COVID hit, it stress test the system that was not built to pivot. And a huge share of the dairy demand flows through food service, restaurants, schools, cafeterias. So those lockdowns halted all of that overnight. And producers were left sitting on surplus. Plus, they can't reroute fast enough. And in April 2020, right when the pandemic started, millions of gallons of milk were literally dumped because processing and distribution just couldn't absorb it, especially in Wisconsin and New York, the major cheese states.

44:31Jessica Wynn:So farmers were just pouring milk on the ground. I mean, what do you even do with it?

44:35Jordan Harbinger:Pretty much. The demand didn't disappear. It just moved. So instead of restaurants and cafes buying these pallets of milk, grocery stores suddenly couldn't keep it on the shelves. They needed more. And the dairy industry was built for one kind of distribution system. But just overnight, it needed a completely different one.

44:55Jessica Wynn:Every milk has a downside. Dairy has methane. Almond has water use. Oat has people who won't shut up about drinking oat milk. Anyway, we'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by ZipRecruiter. Time is the one resource we can never make more of. That's why I'm always looking for ways to optimize my day. I use tools that help me expedite emails, do my calls while I'm walking. Those extra minutes add up, and I'd rather spend that time with family. We all have our own time-saving hacks for everyday life. But if you're a business owner, how can you save time hiring? ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter has a new feature that quickly lets you see the most interested, qualified candidates first, so you save time by meeting the right people faster.

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46:10Jessica Wynn:This episode is also sponsored by Concierge MD. We're pretty good about maintaining the important things in our lives. We service our cars, update our technology, fix things around the house before they become expensive disasters. But with our health, it's easy to wait until something feels wrong before taking a closer look. That's one reason I've become more proactive about my health as I've gotten older and why I started working with Concierge MD. Their approach goes well beyond a quick appointment and basic set of labs. Concierge MD takes the time to build a more complete picture of what's happening with your health, including areas like hormones, energy, sleep, recovery, longevity.

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47:09Jessica Wynn:It's really important that you get a handle on this stuff, guys. I mean, if you're in your 30s, 40s, your hormones can be out of whack. You can be deficient in things like vitamin B, vitamin D, all kinds of weird stuff that you would never think of and that regular doctors often don't even check for unless you're on your deathbed. So go to conciergemd.com, use code Jordan for 20 % off all services, including memberships. We've got a subreddit if you want to discuss the show with other show fans or even with us. Me and Gabriel are in there. That's the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. See you there. Now, back to Skeptical Sunday.

47:39Jessica Wynn:So dairy was being dumped and shelves were empty in the same country at the same time. That's not a supply problem. That's a distribution system failure. I remember trying to buy milk during COVID and you'd see these people walking around with carts with 12 gallons of milk and you couldn't even get one. And I'm like, hey, manager, you need to limit this. I have babies and this guy bought 12. You know, he's dumping eight of those out at the end of like the two weeks. And sure enough, I went back there and the manager a couple of weeks later, I saw him and I go, hey, man, you know, is COVID crazy over?

48:12Jessica Wynn:And he's like, now we're onto toilet paper. Remember that whole thing? And I said, yeah. And he goes, by the way, you were right. He's like, our dumpster has tons of people coming to buy milk again. and they'll leave like six gallons of milk that are expired just next to the dumpster. He's like, there's a hundred gallons of milk in the dumpster.

48:30Jordan Harbinger:We were all just out of our minds.

48:32Jessica Wynn:Yeah. And I was like, hey, man, maybe limit it to even something crazy, like four gallons of milk for a large family. You've got people buying 16 gallons of milk at a time. You don't think they're panic buying like this is not normal.

48:44Jordan Harbinger:Right. And the system just wasn't calibrated for a split between food service and retail. and it just didn't pivot fast enough. And, you know, the balance just completely shattered.

48:56Jessica Wynn:Yeah, it's weird. During that time, I went to a bar and I was chatting up the Lebanese bartender and he's like, what can I get you? After like chatting with him and I go, this is weird, but I really need a glass of milk for my baby. And he goes, I got you. And he just gave me the milk. And I was like, I would love to come back for a drink, but I can't, I gotta drive back. And he's like, don't worry about it. And then I went the next day and got a drink and he's like, do you want milk with that? And I was like, actually, yes, I do. I need it.

49:26Jordan Harbinger:That's so smart, though.

49:28Jessica Wynn:Well, bars always have some milk, right, for their drinks. And it doesn't get used super fast because it's a bar. And, you know, when you put milk in a white Russian, it's a splash of holes. So I was just like, this guy's got two gallons of milk sitting back there for sure. And he's like, I have plenty of milk. If you need any, just come in and see me. You don't have to buy a drink. He was so kind. And I remember being like, this Lebanese bartender is saving my life right now. Because my kids, they won't sleep at the time. They wouldn't sleep without milk. I hope he lasted. Did his bar last? Yeah, yeah.

49:58Jessica Wynn:It was a hotel bar, so he was all right. Yeah, I wasn't rolling into like some dive that was closed for COVID. It was a hotel and they were open. I don't know how that was allowed, but whatever. Who cares?

50:07Jordan Harbinger:Getting your back alley milk?

50:09Jessica Wynn:Yeah, getting my back alley milk. He would fill the bottle himself, right? Because he's like, not going to give me a carton of milk. He's like, then give me the bottle. and he's a bartender pouring a glass of milk for my kid into a bottle. I wish I had a video because it was quite funny. He did it with like a little flair, like he'd raise the milk up really high and let it splash into the bottle. Like what's that movie with Tom Cruise where he's juggling a cocktail? Yeah, exactly. Hilarious. What a great guy that was. Okay, so dairy was being dumped. Shells were empty at the same time. Distribution issue.

50:40Jessica Wynn:You're right. They couldn't pivot fast enough. But I want to pause on the farmers because the political conversation about dairy, it tends to flip between big corporate villain and wholesome family farm. And anytime I cover this, I get dairy farmers who email me and they're like, hey, I'm a 33 year old dairy farmer. This is a family business. Why you got to crap all over it? And I'm like, oh, I'm pretty sure I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about the faceless corporation with 10 ,000 cows that makes Highway 5 smell for 100 miles. But neither sort of Wholesome Family Farm or Corporate Villain, neither of that captures what actually happened to real people with the whole dairy consolidation thing.

51:18Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, of course. I mean, the consolidation story is just genuinely complicated. So these large industrial dairies, they survived and expanded. But the small farms got squeezed out and not because of your podcast, you know. And then COVID hit the remaining small and midsize operations the hardest. But some of them did something remarkable. So the Dairy Farmers of America bought$15 ,000 of milk in upstate New York, specifically to donate to local residents rather than dump it. So in Syracuse, they held a drive-through milk giveaway. Over 8 ,000 gallons were distributed to low-income families.

52:04Jessica Wynn:That's pretty cool. So that's not a PR stunt. That's people who grew up farming, deciding to feed their neighbors. That's pretty darn cool. I like hearing that.

52:11Jordan Harbinger:Some people did good things during the pandemic, and it created direct relationships between producers and consumers that hadn't existed in the modern food system. So the farmer driving milk to a food bank, it's a very different story than being foods lobbying Congress, right?

52:29Jessica Wynn:Right. Same industry, completely different realities. Yeah.

52:32Jordan Harbinger:And then going back to how the industry works and just gets into communities, you mentioned the Got Milk campaigns. I mean, that was America being sold milk by just the most successful ad campaign that ever was created.

52:47Jessica Wynn:Oh, yeah. The Got Milk ads, like I said, those were everywhere. Every celebrity had one. It was at every magazine. It was all over TV. It was on billboards everywhere. How do you dominate the culture and still lose the industry? That's confusing to me, I suppose.

52:59Jordan Harbinger:I think my brother had a Got Milk t-shirt.

53:02Jessica Wynn:Yeah, but it was probably one of those pervy ones where it was like, what's her name from Baywatch was on there.

53:07Jordan Harbinger:But yeah, I mean, it completely dominated the culture. So it started in 1993 when Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, which was an ad company, they created the original Got Milk campaign for the California Milk Processor Board. And the key insight was don't sell milk, sell the anxiety of not having milk. In the very first commercial, you guys might remember this. It was directed by Michael Bay. The explosions guy? It follows a guy who knows the answer to a radio trivia contest, which was about Alexander Hamilton. But he can't say it because his mouth is full of peanut butter and he's out of milk.

53:50Jordan Harbinger:Oh, yeah. He loses the radio prize because he doesn't.

53:55Jessica Wynn:He's doing that and he's saying it over and over. And they're like, sir, are you there? Yeah, yeah. That's deprivation marketing, man. If they just waited for COVID, they could have been like, you're going to die if you don't got milk.

54:06Jordan Harbinger:And it worked on another level. So the campaign recognized that people almost never drink milk by itself. They drink it with cereal, cookies and peanut butter. So it wasn't selling milk. It was selling milk as the thing that completes other foods.

54:23Jessica Wynn:So milk's entire marketing strategy is you need me because your cookies are lonely. Oh, God.

54:30Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, the thought of lonely cookies. That's so sad, right?

54:33Jessica Wynn:Indeed, yeah.

54:33Jordan Harbinger:But then that campaign went national. So Milk PEP, which is the Milk Processor Education Program, which is this Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, it's funded by U.S. milk companies to boost milk consumption. That's what launched the celebrity milk mustache ads in 1995. They were photographed by Annie Leibovitz and eventually folded the California Got Milk logo into those ads. So between the two campaigns, Americans were seeing milk advertising constantly. And at its height, more than 80 % of Americans saw a milk ad at least once a day. Over 300 celebrities posed with milk mustaches. and the campaign just became so ubiquitous, it triggered a Supreme Court case about how the hell it was funded.

55:27Jessica Wynn:I kind of want to pull on that thread, but I also kind of don't. That's crazy, because I was going to say that must have cost like a billion dollars or something because it was everywhere. But also, if you want the entire cast of friends to pose for your guy, I mean, that alone is millions of dollars per person. Exactly. Right, to do that, I would imagine. So even that ad alone.

55:48Jordan Harbinger:Oh, yeah, it was the it was the biggest celebrities.

55:51Jessica Wynn:And then you got to put it on 5000 billboards across the United States and or on television and or in magazine. You have to pay for each one of those. And that stuff adds up fast. I mean, when they use my voice for stuff, I get paid an amount of money where I go, well, I didn't even do any extra work. And they're like, oh, it's a licensing fee and a talent fee. And I'm nobody. So if you're somebody who's really famous and it's like, oh, they're using your voice for this, you're making tens of millions of dollars potentially off of just the usage rights for something like that. Anyway, so it's an expensive campaign and that all those partners at that ad firm are fantastically wealthy just based off of that one campaign, I'm sure.

56:30Jessica Wynn:And still, though, consumption dropped sharply with milk. 20 years of the most recognized ad campaign in history and the decline continued. So it basically didn't work.

56:39Jordan Harbinger:Right. I mean, because it was a marketing solution to a structural problem. So the Got Milk campaign could slow the decline, but it couldn't reverse the fact that dietary habits were shifting. So alternatives were gaining ground and the industry wasn't adapting its actual product strategy. And now the dairy industry has almost no meaningful social media presence. I mean, when's the last time you saw a milk ad?

57:06Jessica Wynn:I don't even see ads, right? Because I don't watch TV and I buy the YouTube that doesn't have ads on it. So I don't have to watch a Lexus ad if I'm watching an interview with somebody. I just don't see that many ads. Anything I use, I use a premium version. So I don't have to see ads, Netflix, Reddit, whatever it is, right?

57:23Jordan Harbinger:Sure, but even billboards when you're driving down the street. Oh, true.

57:27Jessica Wynn:This is Silicon Valley. All the billboards are like, is your AI 401c compatible? That's what I thought. And I'm like, I never understand what I'm reading or anything. Yeah, and it's just like a weird graphic or a meme.

57:40Jordan Harbinger:The wild thing about those campaigns, too, was that it was just for milk. It's not like one specific farm or brand, which always, you know, what you think about is so weird. But, you know, they won the 20th century with those ads, but they showed up to the 21st century with essentially a print campaign.

57:59Jessica Wynn:They needed milk cryptocurrency, milk coin. I think there's an assumption that people switching to oat milk or any of these alternatives are making a rational, well-considered, nutritionally informed decision. I suspect that's not what's happening at all, right? You just ask a barista and she's like, all the cool kids drink oat milk now. And you're like, do it.

58:16Jordan Harbinger:It's almost never purely nutritional. So people switch for a cluster of reasons. There's health conditions. There's environmental values. There's a lot of identity and social signaling and all of that. Often all four combined.

58:30Jessica Wynn:So start us with the legitimate health stuff.

58:33Jordan Harbinger:So nearly 70 % of the global adult population has some degree of reduced ability to digest lactose. Huh.

58:42Jessica Wynn:Okay.

58:42Jordan Harbinger:In East Asian populations, it's as high as 70 to 100 % who just can't tolerate it. And these are people for whom dairy genuinely causes discomfort. For them, switching to a plant-based alternative, that's not an identity statement. It's relief, right? And the emergence of palatable alternatives has genuinely improved quality of life for a significant portion of humanity. That part of the story is real.

59:11Jessica Wynn:And before oat milk, what did they do?

59:13Jordan Harbinger:They suffered through it. You know, they took lactose supplements or they just gave up eating cereal or putting milk in their coffee.

59:19Jessica Wynn:So if lactose is the issue, why isn't the answer just lactose-free milk?

59:24Jordan Harbinger:I mean, that's such a great question. For a lot of people, it is the cleanest solution. There is lactose-free dairy and it's still dairy. It's got the same protein, same calcium, same overall nutrition. It's just treated with lactase. So the lactose is already broken down.

59:42Jessica Wynn:So nutritionally, it's basically milk, but partially pre-digested. Exactly.

59:46Jordan Harbinger:And for many people, it solves the problem without switching to plant-based.

59:51Jessica Wynn:So plant-based isn't the solution, it's just a solution. And lactose-free milk is the kind of the boring one that works. So what are the environmental motivations for this?

1:00:01Jordan Harbinger:Well, that's increasingly the primary driver for younger consumers. So overall, the environmental case for plant-based milks over dairy, it's pretty strong, but they aren't all created equal. So oat and pea milk are the cleanest environmental options because they use relatively little water and produce low greenhouse gas emissions. Soy also scores pretty well, though in some regions it's associated with deforestation. Almond milk has a much larger water footprint like we discussed. And coconut milk actually uses relatively little water, but it's often shipped long distances and raises concerns about biodiversity and labor practices in some producing countries.

1:00:47Jordan Harbinger:And cashew milk has similar concerns because the nuts are labor intensive to process and they're often sourced from regions with documented worker safety issues.

1:00:58Jessica Wynn:Okay. And the less flattering reasons that people switch are what? Identity is the one.

1:01:04Jordan Harbinger:Oat milk in your coffee, it became this cultural signal. It said something about who you are. It gave the impression you were health conscious and environmentally aware, maybe a little ahead of the curve. Sure. Buying pallets from your local cafe. That's right. Yeah, exactly. But brands like Oatly, they really leaned into that. And they weren't just selling oat milk. They were selling the kind of person who drinks oat milk. For sure. Yeah, I mean, that product became a badge.

1:01:32Jessica Wynn:And the dairy industry's response to losing the culture war wasn't to win it back.

1:01:36Jordan Harbinger:I mean, essentially.

1:01:38Jessica Wynn:What about people on the other side, people who tried oat milk or almond milk once, made a phase, never went back? I mean, I tried it a lot of times and I was on that train and now I'm just like, no, I just want regular milk. I want regular protein. I don't need anything fancy.

1:01:49Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I mean, also it has to do with the same diet doesn't work for us our entire lives. So you should listen to your body of what you want and go back to things that you didn't used to eat or, you know, whatever. It's okay to go back and forth. But there's a documented psychological phenomenon called food neophobia, which is a fear of novel foods. This is real. And it's measurable. And it's particularly strong around foods that replace something familiar. So when you substitute almond milk for dairy and cereal, the experience is objectively different. It's thinner with a subtle nuttiness that some people might find pleasant, but others just don't.

1:02:31Jordan Harbinger:And when you put oat milk in hot coffee, it can be sweeter and more viscous than expected. So these aren't imaginary complaints from people.

1:02:39Jessica Wynn:So people aren't wrong that it tastes different, because it does.

1:02:43Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, of course they're not wrong. And some oat milks have a genuine technical problem called off-slaver. which is an undesirable taste caused by oxidation of unsaturated fatty acids.

1:02:54Jessica Wynn:I've definitely tasted this before, where you're like, is this bad? Is this rancid? And it's, you smell it and it's like, it kind of, it seems fine, but then you taste it and you're like, this is disgusting.

1:03:04Jordan Harbinger:And some people are just more sensitive to it. Like, we all know people who can't eat cilantro because it tastes like soap. I mean, our taste buds are also different. So some people detect that. And the industry uses cold plasma treatment, pulsed electric fields, and high-pressure processing to reduce those off flavors. But no manufacturer has completely solved the problem across every product.

1:03:29Jessica Wynn:So when someone says oat milk tastes weird, they might not be being difficult. There might be something actually chemically wrong with that specific product. Again, I've definitely tasted this. Yeah, correct. What is this nonsense in here?

1:03:41Jordan Harbinger:They have the sensitivity to detect it. So with specific products, that can absolutely happen. And not all plant-based milks are equal within their categories. So the variation between brands is significant, particularly for oat and almond.

1:03:58Jessica Wynn:What does the research say actually moves people and keeps them moved? You know, what actually changes minds?

1:04:04Jordan Harbinger:It's taste consistently, right? The primary driver of sustained switching is that the product is good enough to prefer or at least not miss the original. And climate messaging, like I said, moves younger consumers, but it generates backlash among others. Nutritional messaging moves almost nobody, which is unfortunate because...

1:04:26Jessica Wynn:Yeah, that's where I'm at. I'm like, I want, just give me the one with the protein and the complete amino acid profile. I don't need, ain't nobody got time for that.

1:04:34Jordan Harbinger:Ain't nobody got time for that. Right, exactly. And that's unfortunate because that's where the actual complexity lives.

1:04:40Jessica Wynn:So lead with the taste, not the lecture. Yeah.

1:04:43Jordan Harbinger:I mean, that's essentially what the consumer behavior literature says. Companies that make products people genuinely enjoy because of its taste and the texture and the color, they tend to outperform companies that rely mostly on marketing and meaning. You can get to 15 percent market share strictly on identity and getting further probably requires that the product is actually better.

1:05:08Jessica Wynn:Does that hold true across the board or is that mostly adults?

1:05:11Jordan Harbinger:Children generally prefer dairy. So familiarity wins at that age. And preference for plant-based alternatives tends to be way lower in younger children, which matters because parents choosing plant-based options need to be much more deliberate about nutritional compensation than adults do.

1:05:30Jessica Wynn:Let's talk about what might be the dumbest fight in American regulatory history, which is whether you are legally allowed to call oat milk milk. Yeah.

1:05:38Jordan Harbinger:So when environmental comparisons stop working, industries don't just compete on product, right? They compete on language. And that brings us to the word milk. The dairy industry has been attempting since 2017 to get Congress to ban the use of the term milk on any non-dairy product. The bill is called the Dairy Pride Act.

1:06:04Jessica Wynn:Oh, wow. Dairy Pride. They named a milk labeling bill Dairy Pride. What does that stand for? It is an acronym. Of course it is.

1:06:13Jordan Harbinger:It stands for defending against imitation and replacements of yogurts, milk, and cheese to promote regular intake of dairy every day.

1:06:26Jessica Wynn:They worked backwards from an acronym to justify federal food policy. E stands for every day. OK, well, that's not even grammatically correct now that I think about it. And this is a piece of federal legislation.

1:06:37Jordan Harbinger:It has been introduced every time Congress rewrites the Farm Bill, which is this massive piece of legislation that governs U.S. agriculture and food policy. And that's been in play since 2017. But it still hasn't passed.

1:06:53Jessica Wynn:Maybe because their mascot is a cow holding a rainbow flag. No, why hasn't it passed? Gay milk. Gay milk.

1:07:00Jordan Harbinger:That would sell. That would sell. The FDA actually looked at this rigorously. They held consumer focus groups and the focus groups confirmed unambiguously that Americans do not confuse plant-based milk with cow's milk. Right. We're not that dumb.

1:07:19Jessica Wynn:Yeah.

1:07:19Jordan Harbinger:Many consumers buy plant-based alternatives specifically because they are not milk. There is no consumer deception happening. And legally, the government can only restrict commercial speech if it has a compelling interest, typically to prevent consumer deception. So without deception, the legal case collapses.

1:07:40Jessica Wynn:The federal government spent money on focus groups to determine whether Americans know that almonds don't lactate.

1:07:46Jordan Harbinger:That's not the official framing, but yeah.

1:07:48Jessica Wynn:And I think we should be proud of that. Thank goodness.

1:07:50Jordan Harbinger:Absolutely. A long time ago, there was a Sibsids episode where they're in school and complaining about budget cuts. And Bart picks up a carton of milk and he's like, oh, this isn't even milk. And it's Malk, M-A-L-K. Now there's a brand called Malk on the shelves, which is kind of this subtle, like, f*** you to the big dairy. Jeez. Yeah. Hey, it's not called milk.

1:08:16Jessica Wynn:Yeah. Oh, man.

1:08:17Jordan Harbinger:And the FDA has also noted that consumers genuinely struggle to compare nutritional content between plant-based and dairy products at a glance. So there is a real labeling problem, just not the problem the dairy industry is raising.

1:08:33Jessica Wynn:The dairy industry is fighting almonds over the word milk. Imagine losing market share to something that doesn't even have nipples. We'll be right back. What's up, y 'all? Well, back-to-school season is officially here, and DeeDee's Discounts has everything on your list. I'm talking bold styles, cool kicks, backpacks, and even dorm room essentials. All at prices that won't hurt your wallet. So don't sleep on DeeDee's. Whether you've got a second grader or a sophomore, DeeDee's Discounts has your whole family covered. And don't be surprised if you find something for yourself, too. Find a DeeDee's Discounts store near you, and go check it out today.

1:09:10Jessica Wynn:Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. All of the deals, discounts, and ways to support this podcast are searchable and clickable on our website at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. Yeah, so here's what kills me is the International Dairy Foods Association, which represents dairy companies, is not even lobbying for Dairy Pride, which is their—so their own trade group is not even lobbying for—

1:09:38Jordan Harbinger:Because some of their member companies have launched plant-based milk lines. Oh, you know, I mean, the industry is not monolithic. The loudest voices against plant based labeling are the companies most threatened by plant based products. So some dairy companies read the market and decided if you can't beat them, sell them an oat latte.

1:10:00Jessica Wynn:That actually makes sense. Big Dairy is fighting a war against plant-based milk while some of Big Dairy is actually selling plant-based milk. Just follow the trends. Why go this whole legal rigmarole? Just come up with your own brand. It's probably cheaper.

1:10:12Jordan Harbinger:Welcome to the corporate strategy. I mean, here's the biggest pattern. When industries lose market share, they don't just compete on product. Like I said, they compete on regulation and litigation. And the dairy industry has challenged plant-based labeling for years. The Dairy Pride Act, that's just one attempt. There have been many lawsuits targeting marketing claims, particularly around environmental comparisons.

1:10:41Jessica Wynn:Milk v. Milk. Right.

1:10:43Jordan Harbinger:And Oatly, for example, has faced lawsuits over some of its environmental marketing claims. Some came from consumer groups, others from competitors challenging how the company advertised its climate benefits. Some of those cases were dismissed. Others ended with Oatly agreeing to change or clarify parts of its marketing.

1:11:03Jessica Wynn:So this is not about almonds lactating. It's about market share. Got it.

1:11:06Jordan Harbinger:Exactly. Now that plant-based milk has reached 15 percent of U.S. sales, I mean, that's billions of dollars the dairy industry stands to lose. So at this point, lawsuits aren't just about labels. They're about protecting the market share.

1:11:21Jessica Wynn:So the war is partially theater.

1:11:23Jordan Harbinger:Corporate strategy often is, right?

1:11:25Jessica Wynn:So is this just an American fight or are people arguing about what counts as milk everywhere? Like in the U.K., what's the controversy? Right.

1:11:34Jordan Harbinger:I mean, the U.K. The controversy. Controversy. Yeah. The UK Supreme Court ruled Oatly cannot use the phrase post-milk generation on packaging, which was part of its cool label.

1:11:49Jessica Wynn:I feel like that should have been fair game, post-milk generation. I know, it's cool. Now they're basically saying, no, you can't say that because it is milk.

1:11:55Jordan Harbinger:Food labeling is, I think we talked about this in an episode, is way stricter in the UK.

1:12:01Jessica Wynn:Yeah.

1:12:02Jordan Harbinger:And way stricter than the US. But meanwhile, soy milk has been called soy milk since at least medieval times. And the term predates the modern dairy industry's feelings about it.

1:12:14Jessica Wynn:I see. So the label debate is essentially no impact on consumer behavior. People who buy oat milk, they know what they're buying. Surprise, surprise. They know it's not milk.

1:12:23Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, they know. I mean, it's a fight about words between industries while consumers have already voted with their wallets.

1:12:30Jessica Wynn:Let's talk about the Make America Healthy Again, folks, or Maha movement, and its push to put whole milk back in schools. What's the argument there? I disagree with a lot of stuff from that group, but this is one thing where I'm like, fine, put whole milk back. I feed my kids that. It's generally good for them.

1:12:45Jordan Harbinger:The argument is that whole milk tastes better, and because it's richer and creepier, kids may be more willing to drink it. It's also more satiating, and some researchers argue the push toward low-fat dairy went too far, which I also agree with.

1:13:00Jessica Wynn:I agree with that. I mean, I've got to get my kids calories. I'm not giving them skim milk because there's no reason for that. They were already not eating enough, which I guess is, you know, not not maybe the problem with every American kid. But like, why are we punishing healthy kids?

1:13:15Jordan Harbinger:Fat's never been the problem. I think that's another misunderstanding. Sugar is our problem.

1:13:20Jessica Wynn:Exactly. Yeah. So, OK, so this all sounds pretty reasonable. Put some regular fat milk back in. Low fat dairy push went too far. What's the catch?

1:13:28Jordan Harbinger:Well, because saturated fat still matters for cardiovascular risk, and kids already show early markers of cardiometabolic problems, which is terrifying.

1:13:40Jessica Wynn:That's terrible, yeah.

1:13:41Jordan Harbinger:I don't know if that's coming just from milk, but so you get a policy tension, you know, fight chronic disease while adding a reliable saturated fat source back into daily school meals.

1:13:52Jessica Wynn:I'm not a doctor and I'm spitballing here, but I'm going to guess the kids don't have cardiometabolic problems because of milk. it's because they're eating McDonald's five times a week, a lot of kids.

1:14:00Jordan Harbinger:And way less active.

1:14:01Jessica Wynn:And they're not moving around and they're eating chicken nuggets instead of actual food and stuff. And I'm guilty of some of this myself because my kids like it and it's like easier. But I don't feed them five days a week of that. But yeah, I don't know. It wouldn't be. That's really scary. So the real debate isn't moral. It's a tradeoff. And then they bring in ultra processed foods, like you said, with a load of sugar or whatever, which sounds simple until you look closely.

1:14:22Jordan Harbinger:Ultra processed. That's a broad category. We've talked about it on other episodes. and some products in it are genuinely harmful. Some are fortified staples that improve public health outcomes. So the question isn't processed or not. It's we need to be asking processed into what?

1:14:42Jessica Wynn:And oat milk is awkward here because it's processed but not automatically bad. And that's the whole problem. The label is not really the verdict.

1:14:49Jordan Harbinger:The category is much more complicated than people think. So there was one large Harvard study that found some animal-based foods were associated with a 44 % increased risk of type 2 diabetes, while some ultra-processed breakfast cereals were associated with a 22 % reduced risk. That doesn't mean sugary cereal is a health food. It means ultra-processed isn't a nutrition verdict by itself. You have to look at the actual food.

1:15:23Jessica Wynn:And ironically, oat milk, which we've established is quite processed, could be caught by such a definition.

1:15:28Jordan Harbinger:Potentially, yeah. The question of what constitutes an ultra-processed food needs to be kept entirely separate from the question of which ultra-processed foods are harmful. So not everything in the ultra-processed category is equivalent.

1:15:44Jessica Wynn:Do we even need dairy? I mean, this is well beyond the scope of the episode, but like biologically, do we need that? You know, some people are like, you don't need to eat vegetables at all. And it's like, just eat meat. Those are probably quacks or kooks. But do we need dairy at all? Like, do you have to have it?

1:15:59Jordan Harbinger:Humans do not biologically require dairy. Every nutrient in cow's milk, the calcium, protein, vitamin D, can all be obtained from other sources. That's why it's okay to be a vegan. But what dairy provides is convenience and efficiency. So removing it requires deliberate nutritional planning. It's not a risk if you do it thoughtfully, but it's a risk if you just stop drinking milk and assume you're covered. That goes for all plant-based milks, which are, they vary enormously in their nutritional completeness.

1:16:35Jessica Wynn:What about breast milk? That's the one milk humans are, you know, designed to drink. Yeah.

1:16:39Jordan Harbinger:Would you drink a breast milk latte?

1:16:41Jessica Wynn:I'd have to be reassured that it was safe, right? I'm not going to end up getting whatever the oral clap or something like that from drinking someone else's breast milk. I probably not. No, it's a little gross to think about. You would? Absolutely. Okay. But who's breast milk? Does that matter? Or you're just like, whatever. Hey, I don't discriminate.

1:16:58Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I wouldn't discriminate. I mean. Wow.

1:17:00Jessica Wynn:So some lady could just be like, hey, you want some? You're like, oh, we're out of Oatly. And this woman's like, look, my kid's asleep. You want some of this? You would take that?

1:17:08Jordan Harbinger:I'd try it right from the udder. Oh, my God.

1:17:11Jessica Wynn:I see. I feel like we're not talking about the milk part anymore. I feel like this is now evolved into a not safe for work episode of the show.

1:17:21Jordan Harbinger:Let's get away from my kinks. Yeah.

1:17:23Jessica Wynn:Yeah. Didn't see that coming.

1:17:26Jordan Harbinger:But as infants, you know, yeah, we drink breast milk. Human breast milk is extraordinary. It contains immune cells, antibodies, hormones, enzymes, and specialized sugars that help feed a baby's developing microbiome. Like, why wouldn't I want that? It's probably the most biologically sophisticated milk on earth. It's just designed for babies, not coffee.

1:17:57Jessica Wynn:So after infancy, we're just basically freelancing.

1:18:00Jordan Harbinger:I mean, nutritionally speaking, yes.

1:18:02Jessica Wynn:So once we start freelancing, how do we know what to look for? Because once you decide you're drinking dairy, there's a whole second layer of choices. You know, what do the labels on dairy milk mean? A2 milk. I got raw milk. There's grass-fed milk. What is all that stuff? The A2 stuff.

1:18:17Jordan Harbinger:I mean, I see that everywhere now. I never noticed it before. That has to be a new trend. But A2 milk comes from cows that naturally produce only the A2 form of beta casein protein instead of what most cows produce, which is A1 and A2. So some people report it's easier to digest and there's some evidence it may help a subset of people with digestive discomfort. It's not lactose free, so it's not a cure all.

1:18:47Jessica Wynn:And that's just from cows. So does that hold true for other animals' milk? Is goat milk actually different from cow's milk? I guess it has to be.

1:18:55Jordan Harbinger:It is, yeah. Goat milk has smaller fat globules and a different protein profile. So some people find it easier to digest. It's still dairy, though, and it contains lactose. So if you're lactose intolerant, that's not going to be a magic fix either.

1:19:10Jessica Wynn:Lactose is still lactose. So grass-fed milk isn't helping anyone's intolerance either, I guess. Is that just marketing or is there something more to that? What does that even mean?

1:19:19Jordan Harbinger:I mean, I think that is a lot of marketing, but it's just like putting natural on a lot of food products or whatever. Grass-fed milk simply refers to what the cow ate, and it's primarily grass rather than grain. And then sometimes you see like a lowercase r, capital BST on a milk label, which refers to a synthetic hormone used to increase milk production. It's still FDA approved and used by a few dairy producers. So brands like to mark it as RBST free on their label. They could easily say hormone free. And then you have the raw milk, which is simply unpasteurized milk. I don't recommend it. So each has its own passionate supporters, though, and its critics.

1:20:07Jordan Harbinger:And you could easily spend an entire episode on any one of them. For most people, those aren't the biggest decisions. The biggest questions are, can you digest it? Does it meet your nutritional needs? Or that should be one of the questions anyway, the nutrition. And do you like the taste? And does it fit your budget and values?

1:20:27Jessica Wynn:Health risks seem to be at the top of the debate. Every few months, I see another headline saying milk causes or prevents something. Lately, I've seen research linking dairy to Parkinson's disease. Is that true?

1:20:39Jordan Harbinger:That's questionable. It's highly debated in nutritional epidemiology. Some studies suggest epidemiological evidence associating two or more glasses daily may have increased Parkinson's risk, but this is not a definitive causal link. It's new research and it's really active research area, but I don't know. I don't think anybody knows yet.

1:21:04Jessica Wynn:I see. So the thing I've been drinking twice a day my whole life might be subtly bad for my brain. And this is just not common knowledge. I guess I can't worry about that kind of stuff right now.

1:21:12Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, there's plenty of worse things you're doing that are affecting your brain, Jordan. Yes. You know, and medical research takes a long time to become common knowledge. Industries that are historically good at shaping which research gets amplified tend to have an outsized influence on what becomes common knowledge.

1:21:34Jessica Wynn:That's a sentence I'm going to think about for a long time. Oatly's brand is essentially choosing us as a moral act. How true is that? How does the picture change across all these different milks? If your only goal is minimizing your environmental footprint, not nutrition like we talked about before, who's the winner or what's the winner?

1:21:50Jordan Harbinger:Overall, most plant-based milks have a smaller environmental footprint than dairy. The tricky part is they all get there differently. But if I had to choose strictly based on environmental footprint, pea and oat milk have the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, require relatively little land and water, and peas would be the winner because they have the added benefit of naturally putting nitrogen back into the soil. Dairy has a much, much larger environmental footprint across all these measures. So if that's why you're choosing a milk, you would definitely not choose dairy.

1:22:29Jessica Wynn:Got it. So all milks have a catch and it just you have to choose which one you're comfortable with.

1:22:33Jordan Harbinger:Kind of. I mean, we've talked about all the individual trade-offs, but the important takeaway is that none of these alternatives are environmentally perfect, but all of them improve on dairy in one way or another.

1:22:46Jessica Wynn:Is there any milk that doesn't come with an environmental asterisk?

1:22:50Jordan Harbinger:Not really, no. I mean, hemp milk has an excellent environmental profile too. Hemp's drought resistant. It improves soil health. It requires very little pesticides. And the seeds are a byproduct of fiber production, so there's very little additional land impact. Coconut milk, like we said, is more complicated because the coconut palms need relatively a lot of water and can store carbon. But most coconuts, they're grown so far away from the people drinking them. So that means long supply chains, labor rights concerns in some producing countries, and just less transparency about how the crops produced.

1:23:32Jessica Wynn:I see. Okay, so there's no perfect environmental milk. Every option comes with compromises. That makes sense.

1:23:37Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, exactly. And none of them have the environmental footprint of dairy. I just want to stress that if that's what you're going for. Because dairy requires raising methane, producing cattle, growing the feed crops and using much, much more land and water than most plant-based alternatives.

1:23:55Jessica Wynn:Got it. And yet the best environmental options, hemp and pee, are the ones nobody buys. Yeah, right.

1:23:59Jordan Harbinger:Exactly.

1:24:00Jessica Wynn:Which that tells you branding matters at least as much as sustainability. So you have companies like Oatly, whose entire brand is built around environmental virtue. Do they live up to that image at all?

1:24:09Jordan Harbinger:It is well documented that Oatly was partially funded by capital with significant environmental contradictions, and the company faced serious backlash from environmental advocates because of it. This illustrates that brand values and corporate financial structures, they're not always the same thing. So you can buy a product for environmental reasons while a company selling it does really complicated things with your money.

1:24:34Jessica Wynn:Yeah, so the brand and the business aren't necessarily the same thing. That actually makes sense with a lot. A lot of things are like that.

1:24:39Jordan Harbinger:Of course. Yeah. Companies can sell one story while operating inside a much messier financial system.

1:24:46Jessica Wynn:OK, so dairy is the nutritional heavyweight. But if you're looking for the best balance of nutrition and environmental impact, you're looking at soy or pea.

1:24:54Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, that's fair. And then there's a whole political there.

1:24:57Jessica Wynn:Oh, geez.

1:24:58Jordan Harbinger:Starts as a conversation about what's in your coffee, you know, it quickly becomes this fight over school lunches and food labels and environmental claims and just billions of billions of dollars in market share. We've got this Maha movement pushing whole milk back in schools while pediatricians continue debating saturated fat. We've got the dairy industry trying to protect the word milk, even though most consumers don't seem to be confused by any of that. At the same time, the movement against ultra-processed foods risks lumping together products that are genuinely nutritious with ones that aren't.

1:25:34Jessica Wynn:Yeah, Oatly is not Cheetos.

1:25:36Jordan Harbinger:Exactly. And even the companies selling environmental virtue aren't immune from criticism over where their ingredients come from. And while all of that is happening, some of the most nutritionally and environmentally promising options, they barely get any attention. So lost underneath the politics, the marketing, and the lawsuits are the people who actually produce our food. These farm families, many of whom survived consolidation and price crashes and even dumping milk during the pandemic because they couldn't sell it, they're probably the least represented voices in this entire conversation.

1:26:14Jessica Wynn:One more variable nobody likes to admit, money. Right.

1:26:17Jordan Harbinger:It's easy to tell people to choose the best option when they can afford $6 oat milk and live somewhere that actually sells it. Yeah, I mean, that's me. But that's not available to everyone, yeah.

1:26:28Jessica Wynn:Dairy is still the cheapest way to buy protein and liquid form. I mean, even I'm finding that. Like I said, I buy these protein shakes from Fairlife, and there's all kinds of criticism about the company and about milk. And it's like, okay, fine. Find me 42 grams of protein shake that doesn't taste like I'm eating a piece of chalk.

1:26:44Jordan Harbinger:And it's also so hard to keep up with. Do I have to investigate every sourced thing on an ingredient list to make my decision? I'm just not going to do it.

1:26:53Jessica Wynn:I'm just hungry. Y 'all know me. Like, I'm thirsty for knowledge, but I'm thirstier for hitting my protein macro and not spending half the day figuring out how to make that happen.

1:27:02Jordan Harbinger:Exactly, which means some of the conversation about choosing the quote-unquote right milk, it's really a conversation about who has the luxury of choosing that right milk in the first place.

1:27:13Jessica Wynn:Yeah, so the most ethical nutrition advice is pick what you can actually sustain. You yourself, yeah.

1:27:18Jordan Harbinger:Right. Consistency beats purity, for sure.

1:27:21Jessica Wynn:What do we tell somebody who just wants to know what to put in their coffee after all this? After 90 minutes of back and forth, yeah.

1:27:27Jordan Harbinger:If you can digest dairy, have no ethical or environmental objections, and want the most complete nutritional package, dairy is excellent. If your priority is nutrition, choose soy or pee. If your priority is the environment, choose oat, pee, or hemp. If your priority is coffee, choose oat or macadamia. And if you have allergies, rice milk can be an option, but don't make it your only one. And if you're choosing milk for a child under five, talk to your pediatrician before taking dairy out of their diet entirely, regardless of what that barista says.

1:28:04Jessica Wynn:But my kid loves a good affogato. Yeah. And the word milk, the word milk, are we still allowed to use it?

1:28:09Jordan Harbinger:I know. Milk is a word and words evolve, right? Language is fluid. Almond milk appears in English texts from the Middle Ages. Humans have been drinking mammal and plant milks for thousands of years. And somehow, for some reason, almond milks become this controversial one. It's not. But if this is the hill the dairy industry wants to die on.

1:28:32Jessica Wynn:Yep, they'll die on it. And underneath all of it, every version of milk is, like you said, 87 plus percent water. Everything else is the story that they've built around it.

1:28:42Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, milk isn't just a beverage. It's a trillion dollar supply chain fighting over shelf space, science and perception. Right.

1:28:51Jessica Wynn:So the next time you're standing in the dairy aisle staring at 12 different kinds of milks, just remember, you're not choosing a drink. You're choosing between nutrition, taste, price, ethics, marketing, and whatever makes your coffee taste the way you like it. And of course, your identity as one of the cool kids or not, as I've found out recently. Thanks, Jess. Another thing in our food system that has been watered down. And thanks to you all for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday to me, Jordan at jordanharbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, discounts, and ways to support the show all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

1:29:24Jessica Wynn:I'm at jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Jessica on her sub stacks between the lines and where shadows linger. We'll link to those in the show notes. Her work is on Instagram at nevermetjessicas. That's plural. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Tata Sidlouskis, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, and I'm definitely not a nutritionist, a dietician, or a doctor. Also, we try to get these as right as we can.

1:29:56Jessica Wynn:Not everything is gospel, even if it's fact-checked. Consult a qualified professional before applying anything you hear on the show, especially if it's about your health and well-being or those of your kids. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody who could use a good dose of the skepticism and knowledge we doled out today. Maybe somebody who drinks bougie milks. They could use a little dose of this. They might be interested in spending 90 minutes learning about why their choice is wrong. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn.

1:30:26Jessica Wynn:And we'll see you next time. You're about to hear a preview from Joe Loya, a man who robbed 30 banks across California, but says the real crime scene was his childhood, where his Pentecostal preacher father beat him over 100 times before he turned 15. For 14 months, I robbed 30 banks, sometimes several in one day. I lost all sense that my life was going to be long at all. I just wanted to grab the loot and get the hell out of Dodge as fast as possible and go spend it and have fun. That was my ethos. And so I did, because all the crimes I did and all the violence I did. And starting with my dad, when my mother died, we have received a lot of love from her and everything like that.

1:31:06Jessica Wynn:It's just too much for him. And when he gets angry now, he gets brutal. Like, he may have socked me. He may have choked me. He may have done all those things. Bebe with a bat. He wants us dead. He's using the dead language. He could kill us or I could kill myself. But this is like, it's just a tough time for me to try and process the grief myself and be on being brutalized. I don't believe I have a future. So there's nothing inside of me like, oh, I got to protect my future. I better get a job. I better start saving money for the future. None of that. Because the trauma is so intense, you're only looking at surviving the next day in front of you.

1:31:43Jessica Wynn:You know, in fact, I'm not made for society. They have all these moralities, but they're too timid for me. I've seen past the curtain. Like I become in my heart like a little sociopath looking at like, you guys are falling for the okey-doke. And I'm not the guy who falls for the okey-doke. I'm the guy who stabs the okie doke and says, get the hell out of my way. I'm not buying it, right? Once upon a time, Joe Loya couldn't handle his emotional shit. And so now I'm a criminal. I'm a bad guy. Check out episodes 1264 and 1265 of The Jordan Harbinger Show.

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