A History of Alt-Milk

218 B.C. Elephant steps on errant walnut.

100 B.C. Nine-month-old Julius Caesar eats glue in desperate search for colostrum.

1890 George Washington Carver stares at mound of peanut shells and worries that he’s “leaving money on the table.”

1901 First person to put water on breakfast cereal dissolves into muffled sobbing.

1978 Cap’n Crunch and Count Chocula enthusiasts unmoved by soy milk’s legacy of replenishing the nitrogen content of soil.

2015 Alt-milk copywriters outdo themselves with ads that feature the words “revolution” and “journey.”

2018 Golden Age of alternative milks causes lactose-intolerant consumers to rejoice over reduced abdominal cramping.

2019 Consumer realizes that switching to alternative milk to lower greenhouse-gas emissions will cost her more than a college tuition.

2020 Quarantined consumer inspired by overwrought Chobani container reading “Oats will become anything you want them to be” tries to build whole-grain desk lamp.

2021 National Geographic Kids article says that greenhouse-gas emissions from dairy products are even more upsetting than bean-bag toss being renamed cornhole.

2022 Consumer develops complicated feelings about potato milk after being told that it’s potatoes emulsified with rapeseed oil.

2023 Reporter catches C.E.O. of Nestlé saying that tiny plastic drums of Coffee mate and Cremora “have always screamed ‘faculty lounge’ to me.”

2024 Celebrities’ “Got milk?” ads replace early modelling shots as source of public shaming.

2025 Urban legends proliferate about disenfranchised cows who sneak up on humans and tip them over.

2026 Young Nora Ephron manquée writes column that opens, “The problem with Los Angeles is hazelnut milk.”

2027 Sour cream becomes precious commodity similar to ruthenium or Canadian insolence.

2028 Justin Bieber’s dissolute toddler falls prey to the ricotta wars.

2029 Disenfranchised cows take on cultural relevance of dulcimers, phone booths.

2030 Out-of-work Borden mascot Elsie the Cow introduces subscription service OnlyFlans.

2031 Advertising firm wins Clio Award for “Hazelnut milk: for the elderly Viennese woman in you.”

2032 Launch of peanut milk from Planters sees mascot Mr. Peanut trade in his monocle and top hat for a cowbell and outsized udders.

2034 Shia LaBeouf interlards Oscars acceptance speech with lengthy diatribe in support of the acorn-milk lobby.

2035 New product called Kola Kola launched after success of Morgan Neville documentary “Kola: The Invisible Nut.”

2036 Nobel Prize awarded to first cow to voluntarily ligate her udders.

2037 Singapore makes mozzarella consumption punishable by death.

2038 Lowered greenhouse-gas emissions stabilize temperatures, reducing visits to Accuweather.com by sixty-five per cent.

2039 POTUS says climate crisis averted “thanks to courageous Americans who lacto-pivoted.”

2039 Alt-milk activists celebrate POTUS acknowledgment by painting monumental portrait of Michael Pollan using hemp milk as a medium.

2040 Consumers confused about why it still takes a hundred and thirty pints of water to make one glass of almond milk.

2041 Government rewards alt-milk activism by retrofitting all drinking fountains to dispense coconut cream. ♦