amazing replacement for milk in cereal and smoothies
oat milk for everything
Yes
Oat milk. I can make it at home and customize it for 1/10th the price.
It's also near the bottom for CO2 emissions as well.
neat!
Now this I have to try! Could you talk me through how you do this? Just read a quick article on it: you only blend oats and water, then strain it? Would coffee filters be good for straining?
I use a metal strainer.
I had to try out a couple of recipes in order to get one that works well.
My recipe:
Oat Milk:
1 cup oats
6 cups water (chilled)
1 tsp vanilla
Add all to blender and blend on high for 30-40 seconds
Strain with strainer 2x
Add maple syrup for flavoring (and/or honey) 3 tbsp
I've never been able to make non-slimy oat milk. I'll give this a recipe a try.
Do you try cooking the oats, or just cold soak?
I think its quick oats? It just said oats when I bought them but I get them in bulk food or 25 pound bags once a year-ish.
Depends on what I am using it for. I quite like oat milk in my coffee drinks. I feel like it is nice to have the oaty flavor paired with the coffee taste.
Oat for most things. Extra creamy.
Almond for a fewthings. Like I prefer almond in a bowl of cereal. Silk has an unsweetened one with extra protein that is my go to.
Oat for lattes, rice for drinking straight, coconut for smoothies, almond for cereal
Nice call out on rice milk straight. I do think it has a nice subtle sweetness to it the others don't.
Mountain Dew
I always felt like it tasted like already flat soda
You gotta get it straight from the Mountain cow. It's never quite as good once it's bottled.
I always felt it tasted like pine-scented dish soap.
I found almond milk to be a great substitute a couple of years ago when I was dieting. Particularly the 'unsweetened, vanilla' variety from Almond Breeze.
As an added bonus, it also has a much longer shelf life than regular milk.
For information, almond milk is by far the least environmentally sustainable milk substitute. Almond farming is extremely water-intensive.
Ah damn, and it looks like almonds are grown mostly in California. Adding insult to injury.
I can't stand the sugary versions of any of them, unsweetened with/without vanilla is all the flavor needed haha
Oat milk followed by homemade cashew milk. I found coconut milk and almond milk both to be too watery tasting.
Edit: Here is my recipe for nut/seed milk. This works for cashews, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, and pepitas. I haven't tried it with other nuts or seeds.
1/3c nuts or seeds
4c water
Sweetener of choice (I just use 2 Splenda packets but I've also used agave and pitted dates)
1/8tsp salt
1/8tsp xanthan gum (can be ommitted but it helps the texture IMHO)
1/2tsp vanilla (optional)
Blend seeds or nuts with water, salt, and sweetener in a high speed blender. Strain through a nut milk bag. Add xanthan gum and re-blend. Stays good for a week or more.
I like soy milk. I don't know why people freak out about it.
I liked the smell of it in my shaving cream but yet to formally try it in the mouth hole
It's fine? It's not ambrosia, but it's easier on my stomach and a little bit healthier than the moo juice.
something about estrogen load
Unsweetened almond milk, then oat milk, then coconut. Last resort is soy because I can ALWAYS taste some sort of soy-ness flavor, the same way I can taste a hint of coconut with coconut milk, and that soy taste is just weird.
Unsweetened almond milk, unsweetened oat milk is second
You're not going to get carb free, but low sugar.
Oat milk in coffee is delightful. I find almond milk a bit too "non-present" I can't think of a better word
Yeah I like that almond milk is not too much flavor. It means it doesn't distract from the flavor of the thing it's added to, only changes the texture and smooths out bitterness and other unpleasant flavor components like with tea and coffee. I prefer to get good tea or coffee and not add anything, but that stuff is expensive, so I get middle of the road quality and add almond milk to smooth it out but still keep some of the highlights.
Oat milk is good for the really mediocre stuff, though. It smooths it out a lot and adds some flavor. And I do like oats a lot in general. But a lot of times the oat milk is too gritty or too heavy. I found that making my own oat milk does eliminate those problems, but takes more effort and doesn't last long if I make a lot of it at once to reduce the effort.
Pea milk. It has a good taste and I like the consistency. Most other milk alternatives are too watery.
Rice Milk
Water
Soy milk is the only non-dairy alternative I've tried that actually tastes good and also still goes with cereal. I've had a few kinds of nut milk, but I don't like the taste or consistency of 'em. Though that isn't to say they taste awful; I just don't want the extreme taste of almonds or cashews when I am wanting milk. Soy milk actually comes pretty close to just regular milk.
I also would like to say this is only for use as a beverage (or for cereal). Trying to use any of these as a substitute for milk in cooking DOES. NOT. WORK. There's a chemical process going on in most recipes that simply doesn't happen with non-dairy alternatives.
Agree about soy. I've tried and liked rice milk on cereal, but it wasn't as good as a milk substitute in hot drinks. Since I prefer not to buy a bunch of different things for both simplicity and storage reasons, I switched everything to soy.
That doesn't mean that the different brands of soy milk are all the same though. Luckily I've found one that works for me.
I don't know whether anything changed or it's down to brand but I have no issues baking strudels and other pastry with similar dough from soy milk, including doing some simple buns from dry yeast, but obviously that lacked the sourdough taste, which I'd like to try replicate with use of some acids next (e.g. vinegar). Don't really do much else though, so can't confirm for other uses.
We specifically buy Kirkland brand (cheapest alternative) and more recently actually started grabbing the vanilla soy milk from US instead of local. I used to hate sweetened soy milk some 5+years ago, but this is somehow different. And it works great for crepes as well - actually better than regular milk IMO.
Unsweetened almond milk mainly due to the low calories compared to other non-dairy milks but not as tasty for sure.
It's been a while, but one time I had almond milk in rooibos tea* and it made it taste like cake. Can't remember proportions or how much extra sugar or sweetener I had in it but knowing me, the amount wasn't "none".
* tea-like infusion. Rooibos and tea are not related plants.
Specifically: Califia Farms Toasted Coconut - Coconut Almondmilk Blend. This is the closest I have found since I started watching my carbs/sugar intake 4 years ago.
Mostly the same as everyone else here, mostly use oat milk or coconut depending on use case, but a while back I was making something that called for pea milk and it cooked up surprisingly well.
Rice milk for oatmeal, oat milk for baking, soy milk for drinking straight due to protein
Swap use cases of rice and soy milk and it's me.
I moved to almond milk and greatly enjoy it but when I found out how much water is needed to grow them I decided to try out oak milk - didnt like the unsweatend unflavored version, best I could describe it tasted like the smell of chicken. Really weird, but the sweatened, vanilla oak milk is platable for me.
Pistachio milk. Normally I can't stand adding anything to my coffee, but pistachio milk is the one exception. The only problem is that it only keeps for a few days so you pretty much have to make it yourself or get it at a restaurant that makes it. Otherwise I like unsweetened almond milk.
Almond milk is my go to
Chocolate almond milk is basically a glass of dessert.
Coconut milk is the closest to the real deal, it's creamy, you can make a whipped cream or friggin butter with it easily and it's white AF
NOT Not Milk β unless I want a 2-day stomach ache
Tastes dece tho
You'll have to do some shopping around look for popular supermarkets with health food organics specific isles that have large plant milk options on a big shelf.
I use rice milk in my cereal. Nice and sweet. Not too fatty.
In order: Soy, Coconut, Almond, Macadamia.
Almond uses way too much water to be environmentally sustainable, and macadamia just has a weird after-taste that I donβt like.
Soy has a bit of a bad reputation (unfairly so, due to bad βbro scienceβ); but I quite like the taste and it has a pretty low emissions/water footprint comparatively.
Just tried a swig of the soy i bought today. Actually...quite nice,creamy. We shall see if i like it in the morning.
A little phleghmy tho in your mouth after
Someone at work bought me macadamia nut milk when I went vegan, it was at Costco for a while, and man that was good. They don't carry it anymore and it's not in regular stores I've seen.
Oatly had this strawberry-elderflower sort of drink and then it stopped being made / imported.
It was so fucking good, and I just don't enjoy the other flavours as much.
Oatly adds amylase to convert oat starch into maltose. The result is that the sugar content is about that of Coca-Cola while they still write "unsweetened" or "no added sugar" on their sassy packaging because it's technically true.
It's good for a dash into your coffee, but I wouldn't suggest it as a daily substitute due to the sugar content.
Wouldn't the starch break down into an equivalent amount of sugar during digestion?
Yes. In fact, human saliva contains amylase. Also, coke is way less calory-dense than regular milk.
I keep getting surprised that people seem to think that adding amylase to oat water suddenly adds calories. You merely increase the amount of simple sugars. On the whole, the calory total is stil much lower than regular milk.
Nice strawman you got going there, but I never said anything about calories. It's about sugar.
Your uptake of sugar is not equal across all forms, but varies by the underlying sugar. The rate of uptake is measured with the glycemic index, the higher, the faster the uptake. Lactose has a GI of around 45, sucrose of 65 and maltose of 105. Maltose lets your blood sugar level spike significantly more than the others which leads to a more significant crash which induces hunger, irritability, fatigue, and overeating.
Coke is a lot more sugar-dense than milk (more than double the density) and coupled with the presence of a higher GI sugar, it's more of a snack than a refreshing drink.
Additionally, the controlled enzymatic conversion by adding amylase breaks down a lot more of the oat starch than what would normally happen while eating and digesting, so my point still stands.
I see where you're coming from and I didn't mean to misrepresent your argument.
I am wondering about the following though:
the controlled enzymatic conversion by adding amylase breaks down a lot more of the oat starch than what would normally happen while eating and digesting
On what basis do you say this? Do you know literature that shows this? Are blood sugar levels clearly impacted differently by oat-water starches with and without amylase treatment?
From the quick googling I did at work, it seems that there are different types of starches that digest at different rates. Whole grain cereals are in the slower-to-digest category *and might not get digested fully.
I personally suspect that the process of making oat milk - blending and straining the oats - makes them easier to digest and probably has an impact on GI. So it's probably a wash.
It doesn't compare starch-sugar ratio during digestion tho, not sure if there are any studies that do that. But higher initial maltose content means a higher spike.
Thanks for the ref.
higher initial maltose content means a higher spike
Based on your ref, I'm not convinced that this is truly the case though. I think this may be more relevant to your point: https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fbf01092074
I'll read the full article later, but based on the abstract, it doesn't sound promising. Maltose is readily absorbed being a simple sugar while amylose is a multi-sugar (and one of the components of starch) that has to be broken down first in the digestive tract, so I don't think those are comparable.
Based on your ref, Iβm not convinced that this is truly the case though.
What you are essentially saying here is that you don't believe sugary drinks will spike your blood sugar level.
Lol no :p I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm saying that you haven't convincingly substantiated your claims.
I was mostly hoping to find direct evidence to support the claim that amylase pre-treated oat-water is more destabilizing to blood sugar levels than non pre-treated. I'm getting the impression that you don't know of any.
That is not to say that your claim is wrong, just that it is, at best, merely supported by indirect evidence.
Edit: typo
There seems to be a confusion here:
Amylose is a polysaccharide and one of the two compounds that form starch (alongside amylopectin). What Oatly adds is amylase, one of the enzymes in our body that breaks down polysaccharides into absorbable sugars which means that their oat milk already contains higher amounts of reduced sugars due to that process which is shown in the study I've linked earlier.
Sorry, fixed the typo
I don't enjoy coffee or the Oatly meant for coffee that much.
The elderberry-strawberry thing actually tasted refreshing. I don't drink any other drinks like that. I've tried, but I've just not enjoyed a single one outside of that, pretty much. They all have that sort of beany aftertaste. It's not bad, but it's not too enjoyable for me.
We rotate between Almond and Coconut. Almond for stuff where the milk needs to be more neutral tasting. Coconut if we want a more creamy texture. We used to also like Oat (least wasteful on water during production vs almond), but it's high in carbs so we avoid it now. Also, we actually use 0% fat lactose-free milk as well for coffee because it just tastes better than the alternatives for coffee.
If you can ever find it, try the Vita-Coco original no sugar added 1L carton that has around 5g of carbs, its really incredible super coconut milk that beats all for cereal. Its a little pricier but its amazing stuff.
surprised nobody mentioned lactose-free cow milk. lactaid changed my life.
oat milk for everything
Yes
Oat milk. I can make it at home and customize it for 1/10th the price.
It's also near the bottom for CO2 emissions as well.
neat!
Now this I have to try! Could you talk me through how you do this? Just read a quick article on it: you only blend oats and water, then strain it? Would coffee filters be good for straining?
I use a metal strainer.
I had to try out a couple of recipes in order to get one that works well.
My recipe:
Oat Milk:
1 cup oats
6 cups water (chilled)
1 tsp vanilla
Add all to blender and blend on high for 30-40 seconds
Strain with strainer 2x
Add maple syrup for flavoring (and/or honey) 3 tbsp
Keeps for about a week.
Theres some other similar ones like: https://www.loveandlemons.com/oat-milk/ that work out well and may keep for longer (salt).
Just tried this, worked wonders! π
Awesome!
I've never been able to make non-slimy oat milk. I'll give this a recipe a try.
Do you try cooking the oats, or just cold soak?
I think its quick oats? It just said oats when I bought them but I get them in bulk food or 25 pound bags once a year-ish.
Depends on what I am using it for. I quite like oat milk in my coffee drinks. I feel like it is nice to have the oaty flavor paired with the coffee taste.
Oat for most things. Extra creamy.
Almond for a fewthings. Like I prefer almond in a bowl of cereal. Silk has an unsweetened one with extra protein that is my go to.
Oat for lattes, rice for drinking straight, coconut for smoothies, almond for cereal
Nice call out on rice milk straight. I do think it has a nice subtle sweetness to it the others don't.
Mountain Dew
I always felt like it tasted like already flat soda
You gotta get it straight from the Mountain cow. It's never quite as good once it's bottled.
I always felt it tasted like pine-scented dish soap.
I found almond milk to be a great substitute a couple of years ago when I was dieting. Particularly the 'unsweetened, vanilla' variety from Almond Breeze.
As an added bonus, it also has a much longer shelf life than regular milk.
For information, almond milk is by far the least environmentally sustainable milk substitute. Almond farming is extremely water-intensive.
Ah damn, and it looks like almonds are grown mostly in California. Adding insult to injury.
(From https://davidsuzuki.org/living-green/the-best-plant-based-milks-for-the-planet/)
I can't stand the sugary versions of any of them, unsweetened with/without vanilla is all the flavor needed haha
Oat milk followed by homemade cashew milk. I found coconut milk and almond milk both to be too watery tasting.
Edit: Here is my recipe for nut/seed milk. This works for cashews, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, and pepitas. I haven't tried it with other nuts or seeds.
Blend seeds or nuts with water, salt, and sweetener in a high speed blender. Strain through a nut milk bag. Add xanthan gum and re-blend. Stays good for a week or more.
I like soy milk. I don't know why people freak out about it.
I liked the smell of it in my shaving cream but yet to formally try it in the mouth hole
It's fine? It's not ambrosia, but it's easier on my stomach and a little bit healthier than the moo juice.
something about estrogen load
Unsweetened almond milk, then oat milk, then coconut. Last resort is soy because I can ALWAYS taste some sort of soy-ness flavor, the same way I can taste a hint of coconut with coconut milk, and that soy taste is just weird.
Oatly is my one and only.
Oatly? Fuck Oatly. Also, Fuck Fuck Oatly. And so on.
Lol wtf is happening
Unsweetened almond milk, unsweetened oat milk is second
You're not going to get carb free, but low sugar.
Oat milk in coffee is delightful. I find almond milk a bit too "non-present" I can't think of a better word
Yeah I like that almond milk is not too much flavor. It means it doesn't distract from the flavor of the thing it's added to, only changes the texture and smooths out bitterness and other unpleasant flavor components like with tea and coffee. I prefer to get good tea or coffee and not add anything, but that stuff is expensive, so I get middle of the road quality and add almond milk to smooth it out but still keep some of the highlights.
Oat milk is good for the really mediocre stuff, though. It smooths it out a lot and adds some flavor. And I do like oats a lot in general. But a lot of times the oat milk is too gritty or too heavy. I found that making my own oat milk does eliminate those problems, but takes more effort and doesn't last long if I make a lot of it at once to reduce the effort.
Pea milk. It has a good taste and I like the consistency. Most other milk alternatives are too watery.
Rice Milk
Water
Soy milk is the only non-dairy alternative I've tried that actually tastes good and also still goes with cereal. I've had a few kinds of nut milk, but I don't like the taste or consistency of 'em. Though that isn't to say they taste awful; I just don't want the extreme taste of almonds or cashews when I am wanting milk. Soy milk actually comes pretty close to just regular milk.
I also would like to say this is only for use as a beverage (or for cereal). Trying to use any of these as a substitute for milk in cooking DOES. NOT. WORK. There's a chemical process going on in most recipes that simply doesn't happen with non-dairy alternatives.
Agree about soy. I've tried and liked rice milk on cereal, but it wasn't as good as a milk substitute in hot drinks. Since I prefer not to buy a bunch of different things for both simplicity and storage reasons, I switched everything to soy.
That doesn't mean that the different brands of soy milk are all the same though. Luckily I've found one that works for me.
I don't know whether anything changed or it's down to brand but I have no issues baking strudels and other pastry with similar dough from soy milk, including doing some simple buns from dry yeast, but obviously that lacked the sourdough taste, which I'd like to try replicate with use of some acids next (e.g. vinegar). Don't really do much else though, so can't confirm for other uses.
We specifically buy Kirkland brand (cheapest alternative) and more recently actually started grabbing the vanilla soy milk from US instead of local. I used to hate sweetened soy milk some 5+years ago, but this is somehow different. And it works great for crepes as well - actually better than regular milk IMO.
Unsweetened almond milk mainly due to the low calories compared to other non-dairy milks but not as tasty for sure.
It's been a while, but one time I had almond milk in rooibos tea* and it made it taste like cake. Can't remember proportions or how much extra sugar or sweetener I had in it but knowing me, the amount wasn't "none".
* tea-like infusion. Rooibos and tea are not related plants.
Specifically: Califia Farms Toasted Coconut - Coconut Almondmilk Blend. This is the closest I have found since I started watching my carbs/sugar intake 4 years ago.
Mostly the same as everyone else here, mostly use oat milk or coconut depending on use case, but a while back I was making something that called for pea milk and it cooked up surprisingly well.
Rice milk for oatmeal, oat milk for baking, soy milk for drinking straight due to protein
Swap use cases of rice and soy milk and it's me.
I moved to almond milk and greatly enjoy it but when I found out how much water is needed to grow them I decided to try out oak milk - didnt like the unsweatend unflavored version, best I could describe it tasted like the smell of chicken. Really weird, but the sweatened, vanilla oak milk is platable for me.
Pistachio milk. Normally I can't stand adding anything to my coffee, but pistachio milk is the one exception. The only problem is that it only keeps for a few days so you pretty much have to make it yourself or get it at a restaurant that makes it. Otherwise I like unsweetened almond milk.
Almond milk is my go to
Chocolate almond milk is basically a glass of dessert.
Coconut milk is the closest to the real deal, it's creamy, you can make a whipped cream or friggin butter with it easily and it's white AF
NOT Not Milk β unless I want a 2-day stomach ache Tastes dece tho
Hemp milk
Where can this be sourced decently?
I used to get it from Giants as tempest brand https://giantfood.com/groceries/dairy/plant-based-milk-coffee-creamers/more-plant-based-milk/living-harvest-tempt-hemp-milk-original-1-quart.html
You'll have to do some shopping around look for popular supermarkets with health food organics specific isles that have large plant milk options on a big shelf.
I use rice milk in my cereal. Nice and sweet. Not too fatty.
In order: Soy, Coconut, Almond, Macadamia.
Almond uses way too much water to be environmentally sustainable, and macadamia just has a weird after-taste that I donβt like.
Soy has a bit of a bad reputation (unfairly so, due to bad βbro scienceβ); but I quite like the taste and it has a pretty low emissions/water footprint comparatively.
Just tried a swig of the soy i bought today. Actually...quite nice,creamy. We shall see if i like it in the morning.
A little phleghmy tho in your mouth after
Someone at work bought me macadamia nut milk when I went vegan, it was at Costco for a while, and man that was good. They don't carry it anymore and it's not in regular stores I've seen.
Oatly had this strawberry-elderflower sort of drink and then it stopped being made / imported.
It was so fucking good, and I just don't enjoy the other flavours as much.
Oatly adds amylase to convert oat starch into maltose. The result is that the sugar content is about that of Coca-Cola while they still write "unsweetened" or "no added sugar" on their sassy packaging because it's technically true.
It's good for a dash into your coffee, but I wouldn't suggest it as a daily substitute due to the sugar content.
Wouldn't the starch break down into an equivalent amount of sugar during digestion?
Yes. In fact, human saliva contains amylase. Also, coke is way less calory-dense than regular milk.
I keep getting surprised that people seem to think that adding amylase to oat water suddenly adds calories. You merely increase the amount of simple sugars. On the whole, the calory total is stil much lower than regular milk.
Nice strawman you got going there, but I never said anything about calories. It's about sugar.
Your uptake of sugar is not equal across all forms, but varies by the underlying sugar. The rate of uptake is measured with the glycemic index, the higher, the faster the uptake. Lactose has a GI of around 45, sucrose of 65 and maltose of 105. Maltose lets your blood sugar level spike significantly more than the others which leads to a more significant crash which induces hunger, irritability, fatigue, and overeating.
Coke is a lot more sugar-dense than milk (more than double the density) and coupled with the presence of a higher GI sugar, it's more of a snack than a refreshing drink.
Additionally, the controlled enzymatic conversion by adding amylase breaks down a lot more of the oat starch than what would normally happen while eating and digesting, so my point still stands.
I see where you're coming from and I didn't mean to misrepresent your argument.
I am wondering about the following though:
On what basis do you say this? Do you know literature that shows this? Are blood sugar levels clearly impacted differently by oat-water starches with and without amylase treatment?
From the quick googling I did at work, it seems that there are different types of starches that digest at different rates. Whole grain cereals are in the slower-to-digest category *and might not get digested fully.
I personally suspect that the process of making oat milk - blending and straining the oats - makes them easier to digest and probably has an impact on GI. So it's probably a wash.
There is this study about different kinds of processing with alpha-amylase. The relevant data is in Figure 2, control (C in the figure) was just an oat-water slurry that was heated for some time, En is with the addition of amylase. The rest is about exploring different processing techniques.
It doesn't compare starch-sugar ratio during digestion tho, not sure if there are any studies that do that. But higher initial maltose content means a higher spike.
Thanks for the ref.
Based on your ref, I'm not convinced that this is truly the case though. I think this may be more relevant to your point:
https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fbf01092074
I'll read the full article later, but based on the abstract, it doesn't sound promising. Maltose is readily absorbed being a simple sugar while amylose is a multi-sugar (and one of the components of starch) that has to be broken down first in the digestive tract, so I don't think those are comparable.
What you are essentially saying here is that you don't believe sugary drinks will spike your blood sugar level.
Lol no :p I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm saying that you haven't convincingly substantiated your claims.
I was mostly hoping to find direct evidence to support the claim that amylase pre-treated oat-water is more destabilizing to blood sugar levels than non pre-treated. I'm getting the impression that you don't know of any.
That is not to say that your claim is wrong, just that it is, at best, merely supported by indirect evidence.
Edit: typo
There seems to be a confusion here:
Amylose is a polysaccharide and one of the two compounds that form starch (alongside amylopectin). What Oatly adds is amylase, one of the enzymes in our body that breaks down polysaccharides into absorbable sugars which means that their oat milk already contains higher amounts of reduced sugars due to that process which is shown in the study I've linked earlier.
Sorry, fixed the typo
I don't enjoy coffee or the Oatly meant for coffee that much.
The elderberry-strawberry thing actually tasted refreshing. I don't drink any other drinks like that. I've tried, but I've just not enjoyed a single one outside of that, pretty much. They all have that sort of beany aftertaste. It's not bad, but it's not too enjoyable for me.
We rotate between Almond and Coconut. Almond for stuff where the milk needs to be more neutral tasting. Coconut if we want a more creamy texture. We used to also like Oat (least wasteful on water during production vs almond), but it's high in carbs so we avoid it now. Also, we actually use 0% fat lactose-free milk as well for coffee because it just tastes better than the alternatives for coffee.
If you can ever find it, try the Vita-Coco original no sugar added 1L carton that has around 5g of carbs, its really incredible super coconut milk that beats all for cereal. Its a little pricier but its amazing stuff.
surprised nobody mentioned lactose-free cow milk. lactaid changed my life.