I am looking for an environmentally conscious replacement for white yogurt. I do have a couple of ideas for foods that could work well, but I have very little clue if they are a better choice from the environmental perspective. Similarly, I do not have much information on how the different substitutes compare to white yogurt in terms of nutritional value and mineral and vitamin content. Although I care about the latter as well, my primary question is about the former, i.e. environmental assessment.
Here are options I am comparing (feel free to add another, if you know about any):
- 2x White Yogurt, packed in 500g plastic cups with Alu cover; produced in Switzerland from Swiss milk
- 1l Almond “Milk”
- 1l Oat “Milk”
- 1l Cashew “Milk”
- 1l Rice “Milk”
- 1l Soy “Milk”
- 1x 500ml Coconut Milk (assuming dilution 1:1 with water)
Facts:
- I live in Switzerland
- The yogurt is produced in Switzerland from Swiss milk
- The standards for animal welfare in Switzerland are very high (Wikipedia).
- The above consumption is roughly per one week.
- The above links should give you an idea about where and how the products are manufactured. Unfortunately, they rarely give complete information, but you can safely assume that all but the Soy and Oat "Milk" are produced from ingredients that come out of Europe (not 100% sure for Soy).
- All the milk replacements including the coconut milk are packed in Tetra-Pak kind of container. This is not recycled in Switzerland. Neither the plastic cup from the white yogurt. The Al cover is recyclable.
- The coconut milk (option 7) can be packed in aluminum can. How does this change its environmental impact, assuming all other things being equal? (Aluminum cans are recyclable in Switzerland)
Remarks:
I realize that answering the question rigorously is very difficult and requires lot of information that may not be readily available. I hope to see answers from some Europeans that may have worked in nutrition and environmental research and may have invested some time earlier to dig to diverse aspects of the problem.
This answer on EarthScience.SE is potentially useful: CO2 emissions per calorie (food).