I'm curious the long-term side effects on the body. I'm not sure it's better, we're something like 10,000 years into developing the ability to drink milk. I'm not sure we know what the effects of high soy intake is (only 10-15 years into mass consumer adoption -- we do see massive drops in sex hormones; possibly related, it is correlated).
Also, I really dislike how these studies are conducted. They often don't account for the fact _something_ will be produced on land and _something_ will be consuming it. There used to be millions of American Buffalo roaming the plains. I'm not sure relatively normal behavior is something to be concerned about.
The pollution IMO we should be concerned about are the chemicals in production of industry and food which are not natural. For instance, giant mono-crops of soy, which then go to factories where they are heavily processed, might be in-effect worse for the ecosystem as a whole. Another example is almond production. It takes far too much water to produce almonds and to make milk is insane.
I personally wouldn't be surprised if the soy, oat, almond industry are pushing these studies.
Actually we haven't evolved to digest milk after childhood that well:
While most infants can digest lactose, many people begin to develop lactose malabsorption—a reduced ability to digest lactose—after infancy. Experts estimate that about 68 percent of the world’s population has lactose malabsorption.1
Lactose malabsorption is more common in some parts of the world than in others. In Africa and Asia, most people have lactose malabsorption. In some regions, such as northern Europe, many people carry a gene that allows them to digest lactose after infancy, and lactose malabsorption is less common.1,2 In the United States, about 36 percent of people have lactose malabsorption.1
While lactose malabsorption causes lactose intolerance, not all people with lactose malabsorption have lactose intolerance.
Maybe "we" as in humanity haven't, but "we" as in white people from Northern Europe have. Even in the most lactose-malabsorptive place (Middle East), 3 out of 10 people can digest lactose successfully.
Soy milk is hundreds of years old. I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that the hormone drop is caused by soy milk. American bison digest far better than cows and don't produce methane. What is natural about millions of cows in factories producing milk? Additionally these cows are being fed enormous amounts of gmo monocrops in order to produce. Almond milk is indeed a wasteful product, but the misallocation of scarce water due to regulation is not the same thing as greenhouse gases.
Most soy is AFAIK used as food for farm animals. I wouldn't worry about it, many cultures were eating soy products since millennia and they were fine the whole time. Tofu is just solid soy milk.
Almond milk contains almost no almonds (and tastes horrible IMO, but YMMV, may also just be the brand I tried), I would assume that it's not that big of a chunk of the global almond production.
But in any case, oat milk should be safe, right? It's just a very watery porridge, isn't it? :D
Soy is not exactly a new thing in the history of humans. In fact some of the most populous regions on earth have been eating it widely for a very long time so it seems pretty low down on the list of fertility risk factors to be honest.
Soy milk hasn't been the favored alternative for a decade or more. Vegetable products are going to make more sense than adults breast-feeding from animals they don't even know.
Also, I really dislike how these studies are conducted. They often don't account for the fact _something_ will be produced on land and _something_ will be consuming it. There used to be millions of American Buffalo roaming the plains. I'm not sure relatively normal behavior is something to be concerned about.
The pollution IMO we should be concerned about are the chemicals in production of industry and food which are not natural. For instance, giant mono-crops of soy, which then go to factories where they are heavily processed, might be in-effect worse for the ecosystem as a whole. Another example is almond production. It takes far too much water to produce almonds and to make milk is insane.
I personally wouldn't be surprised if the soy, oat, almond industry are pushing these studies.