It is impossible to stress how culturally symbolic various plant-based milks – but especially oat milk – have become to me since I joined TikTok. I cannot explain why ordering an oat milk latte has become to me a symbol of queerness, nor why IBS and needing to avoid dairy is supposedly a staple of being gay, but this is the power of TikTok’s mysteriously-personal-yet-somehow-universal FYP.

Regardless, plant-based milk is growing in popularity, but which plant you milk seems to be a trend that cycles over time. Oat milk was once a bit of an underdog, but has now easily surpassed its once-reigning predecessor, almond milk. And soy milk seems to be a niche product for a niche group of people, never truly stepping into the spotlight. People choose plant-based milk for a variety of reasons, not all of them environmental, but the dairy and beef industries use massive amounts of water and there is definitely a push to use less dairy to reduce one’s environmental impact. If you’re going to make the switch to plant-based milk, what should you choose and why?

This doesn’t necessarily give the whole picture: although Soy milk ranks fairly well according to these statistics, it’s a major contributor to deforestation in the Amazon. Almond trees absorb lots of CO2, but almond milk uses far more water to make than oat or soy.

Currently, oat milk seems to come out on top overall: nearly as good as soy in terms of emissions, water, and land use, but oats grow in more temperate climates and are less associated with wildfires and deforestation.

There are, of course, even more factors to consider when ranking environmental impact: what is the milk packaged in? Does it need to be refrigerated? Is it being shipped all over the world before arriving at the consumer? Plant-based milk is much less nutritionally dense; does that balance out the environmental factors at all? This study warns against using plant-based milk as a nutritional alternative to bovine milk, especially for children.

Have you tried plant-based milk? Would you consider making the switch?