Milk may do a body good, but it’s not so kind to the planet. Milk’s ethical and environmental drawbacks have led many people to look for alternatives. And although plant-based milk alternatives are not the only factors, dairy milk sales dropped 13% during the Twenty-teens. Since 1975, the amount of milk consumed by the average American has fallen from 1-1/4 cups to just two-thirds of a cup.
The dozens of milk alternatives available make cutting out dairy easy. But each alternative has its own nutritional, ethical, and environmental profile that makes choosing among them anything but straightforward.
To help you make informed shopping decisions, we rank the greenhouse gas emissions of five of the most popular alternatives to plain-old cow’s milk and explore their overall environmental impacts.
Good – Organic Dairy
For many people – especially the