PLANT BASED DAIRY ALTERNATIVES 2021
It is not possible to make a
blanket statement
What is better: plant or milk?
Are plant-based alternatives
more ecologically beneficial
than dairy products? To answer
this question, a differentiated,
comprehensive ecological assessment
of the products is necessary,
which goes well beyond the CO2
footprint. Of the milk alternatives,
only the oat drink performs better
overall ecologically than milk.
In the case of fat-containing dairy
products such as butter, cream and
cheese, both the light products and
the respective plant-based alternatives
can be assessed more favourably
from an overall ecological
perspective. This applies to cases
where the plant-based alternatives
replace the respective dairy products
in equal quantities.
This is the conclusion of the renowned
German ifeu Institute for
Energy and Environmental Research
from Heidelberg. For this
purpose, the ifeu Institute analysed
the ecological impacts of the production
of various dairy products
and their plant-based alternatives.
Life cycle assessments
In addition to the contribution to
climate change, the ecological
evaluation of food must also necessarily
assess the consumption of
water and the occupation of land,
because agriculture uses a considerable
amount of these finite
resources. The carbon footprint
takes into account not only carbon
dioxide (CO2) but also other climate
gases such as methane (CH4) and
nitrous oxide (N2O). These have a
different climate impact in rela-
(photo: Arla Foods)
12 · September/October 2021 ¦ international-dairy.com
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