I have been trying all different types of milk alternatives like oat milk, almond milk etc. But none of them taste similar to cow’s milk. I know a lot of it has to do with familiarity with the milk I’ve been drinking all my life. But I want to understand why there has not been a lab-created cow’s milk yet.
In: Biology
On a different note, don’t assume that milk substitutes are supposed to be direct replacements. Even if we could synthesize cow milks from plants, if it’s a true direct copy, it’ll still kill anyone with a dairy allergy. Otherwise, it’s still not the real thing.
It’s insane to me that some humans underwent thousands of years of evolution to be able to drink cow’s milk only for their descendants to say, “nah thank you, give me industrial sludge-tasting milk instead”.
Baby formula is in a way the same thing. But human obviously. Which is even more scarce.
Babies are less picky about taste and texture.
It’s difficult because adult humans don’t like change from what they like
I’ve not had animal milk in about 12 years so my perception is likely skewed but [this Alpro milk](https://cdn.myshoptet.com/usr/shop.green-heads.cz/user/shop/big/5852-4_tastes-as-good-alpro-green-heads10.png?65c35910) is (to my memory of cow milk) so realistically greasy that I can’t drink it without gagging 😂
As a person who can’t have dairy anymore I think the milk and ice cream tastes good to me, I’m just having a hard time finding a legitimate cheese alternative
As a person who grew up on a dairy farm let me talk about milk. The milk you drink is a blended product. It has components like butter fat that have been adjusted to make a standard product. It has also been homogenized to keep the butter fat from separating out. Different cows produce different tasting milk. cow with different diets will have milk that taste different. One of the first things a dairy will do before they buy your milk is check for onions. If a cow eats wild onions the milk will have a distinct onion smell. Most milk in the U.S. is produced by Holsteins. But Jersey milk is way better.
I’m not so sure it’s difficult to create synthetic cow’s milk as much as it’s substantially more expensive than just getting it from a cow.
The purpose of the dairy substitutes is generally for people who cannot drink milk for one reason or another, and you’re not really going to make a milk substitute that the main market for can’t consume (lactose intolerant people).
For a plant based milk is 4 times the price of regular milk. Imagine the price of synthetic milk.
Milk alternatives are not really trying to mimic cows milk at all, they’re just made to serve the same purpose.
Personally, after using an almond-oat milk blend for a long while, on the rare occasion I have cows milk in my tea/coffee, I immediately go “Oh my god, this tastes like milk”. A big reason why cows milk works in our beverages is that we’re used to it. Milk alternatives, for the most part, will feel the same after a while.
The main reason why we haven’t recreated cow’s milk is that it’s doing so is really hard, and would be really expensive. Cows create milk from what they’re fed. Just think about how incredibly complex that process must be for them to turn plant matter into something totally different. It’s comprised of hundreds of steps, with tons of different chemicals involved. That’s not easy to recreate. The end product would probably be so expensive that no one would even be willing to buy it.
There is Not Milk at Whole Foods that aims to taste like dairy milk while being more environmentally friendly. But I think the issue is that tasting like dairy milk actually isn’t terribly desirable. People just want something that tastes good.
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