Bellon Mauricio R, Benard Nicholas, Coghlan Jane E, Merrigan Kathleen
Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems, Arizona State University, 777 East University Dr, Tempe, AZ 85281, USA.
Foods. 2025 Jun 23;14(13):2196. doi: 10.3390/foods14132196.
There is a growing market for plant-based alternative beverages (PBAs) promoted as alternatives to dairy milk. Part of their popularity is that consumers consider them better for both the environment and human health. These perceptions, however, may not be entirely supported by scientific evidence. A holistic comparison of dairy milk and PBAs is difficult because their prices typically do not reflect their environmental and nutritional health impacts, although PBAs tend to be significantly more expensive than dairy milk. Here, we integrate key results from the scientific literature using a True Cost Accounting (TCA) approach to compare dairy milk and five PBAs based on their market retail price and a quantification-and when possible, monetization-of key environmental, nutritional, and social impacts: Global Warming Potential (GWP), dietary risks, and forced labor, respectively. We compare whole dairy milk with five PBAs: soy, almond, oat, coconut, and pea, which account for 97% of retail market sales in the USA. The results show that while environmental, nutritional, and social benefits attributed to PBAs compared to dairy milk exist and can be significant, they are heterogenous, and for some PBAs, they may not be as significant as commonly perceived, particularly when the price premium they command are considered.
作为牛奶替代品的植物基替代饮料（PBA）市场正在不断增长。它们受欢迎的部分原因是消费者认为它们对环境和人类健康都更有益。然而，这些观念可能并未得到科学证据的完全支持。对牛奶和植物基替代饮料进行全面比较很困难，因为它们的价格通常无法反映其对环境和营养健康的影响，尽管植物基替代饮料往往比牛奶贵得多。在此，我们采用真实成本核算（TCA）方法，综合科学文献中的关键结果，根据牛奶和五种植物基替代饮料的市场零售价，以及对关键环境、营养和社会影响（分别为全球变暖潜能值（GWP）、饮食风险和强迫劳动）进行量化（并在可能的情况下货币化）来进行比较。我们将全脂牛奶与五种植物基替代饮料进行比较：大豆、杏仁、燕麦、椰子和豌豆，这五种植物基替代饮料在美国零售市场销售额中占比97%。结果表明，虽然与牛奶相比，植物基替代饮料在环境、营养和社会效益方面的确存在且可能很显著，但这些效益是异质的，对于某些植物基替代饮料来说，它们可能并不像普遍认为的那么显著，尤其是考虑到它们所要求的价格溢价时。
