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Not trynna be the token vegan/health nut - just wanted to share:
I fuck with oatmilk- it’s pretty fuckin good for what it is and it’s bomb in some cereal. Don’t gotta cut out milk but maybe instead of 2 gallons you do one of each or somethin idk
The problem is that dairy subsides make cow milk less expensive than it should be. Those subsidies should be reallocated to environmentally-friendly alternatives. The average shopper at the store is going to look at the price tags and pick the one that's like half the cost.
I am also simultaneously asking myself if prices for oatmilk are fair. Where I live the cheapest option is 1€ for a liter. But if you ever made oatmilk by yourself, you know how cheap it is do do it at home. I know I'm just lazy as f*, so I am not doing it and therefore should not rant. But I am really curious what's behind this pricing, other than higher tax than on milk.
Logistics. It's just oat water but it comes from far away. Just make it yourself.
You would make your own oatmeal, right? Who tf would buy premade oatmeal with the water already in it? If a few people start doing it themselves, they will drop the price of the ready-made stuff.
I've done this before and it is very simple, but you do need a blender. It works in a pinch but I'd much rather just buy a carton of it.
The problem I've found is that it's very tricky to filter properly. If you don't filter it at all then you end up with a grainy product, but it's far too thick to go through something like a coffee filter without clogging it up so you need to use cheesecloth.
Another problem is storage. Making it in small quantities as you need it is fine as long as you're ok with it being room temperature, but if you want to make enough to keep in the fridge then the oats are going to begin to separate from the water almost immediately unless you add an emulsifier.
There's a couple reasons behind this:
In a way it's sort of disgusting that capitalism is exploiting your desire to save the planet for extra profits, however that's how it is generally designed to operate: nothing happens unless there is a profit to be made from it.
Actually trying to be the climate resistance nut here, we're paying to ship water.
Buy the oats and make your own.
Actually I never thought about it, but it makes total sense. Is it simple? Could you share your recipe?
if you search for oat milk recipes you'll be exactly where I am right now
I did a quick search on my trusty DuckDuckGo, but all I could find was "blend oats for 30-60 seconds", and a lot of disclaimers.
I would assume for a good tasting recipe you should add a little bit of sugar, maybe you have some recommendations about the oats that you use. Can you store it for a few days? Idk, you most likely have more experience on the subject.
If it takes longer than 5 minutes to prepare (also including the cleanup process) I can see why people would rather consume a pre-made product.
Anyways it's worth to try, if you have a specific recommendation I would appreciate it greatly. Otherwise I will go for one of the recipes I can find.
It really is as simple as blending rolled oats and water in a 1:4-ish ratio for 30 seconds or so, and straining the result twice. Adding sugar is optional. It stores pretty well in the fridge, maybe up to 5 days. Trust your nose!
Personally I don't make it very often, as my main use for milk is in cappuccino, and plain oat milk doesn't steam very well. The barista editions you can buy have some added extras (fat, sugar, proteins, stabilisers) to improve the characteristics for steaming.
I totally understand the convenience factor of store-bought too. If you don't have a blender on standby it's a bit of a hassle. And the store bought stuff is shelf-stable for weeks when sealed.
Okay then, I will give it a go. Thanks a lot!
A lot of the store brand ones uses enzymes to sweeten it without adding sugar. There is an enzyme that breaks down some of the oats to sugar.
Also it is shelf stable for like a year at least.
Oh, I don't think you need to add any sugar. Well, if you're putting it on cereal that's already sweetened, you definitely don't need to add any sugar.
okay, apparently the homemade stuff isn't fortified with calcium & iron (which plain homemade oat milk wouldn't have) - so you'd have to make that up with other parts of your diet - so Chia, cheese, yogurt (yes, I sense the irony), kale/collards (spinach has stuff that make the calcium harder to absorb), rhubarb, tofu - as far as iron... beans, spinach (for the iron), pumpkin, quinoa
Right, but you should try to have a balanced diet anyway. Of course some people have dietary restrictions, but a lot of us would generally benefit by diversifying the types of food that we cook with.
I agree. Oatmilk is my go to, especially if I'm mixing it with something. I find the flavors blend better
Personally I prefer soy milk since it generally requires the least resources and also has the highest amount of bioavailable protein.
Oat is pretty good though.
I didn't like soy milk at all when I was younger (like a teenager). It had a weird aftertaste and texture. I don't know if it has changed since then or not, but now I also find it generally the tastiest.
I also use organic soy milk (since it is usually the only type that doesn't have gums or other ingredients....just soybeans and water) to make really simple plain yogurt too. I just break open a probiotic capsule or two into a 1qt tetrapak bottle, shake it up really good, divy up into 1c mason jars, and run the Instant Pot Yogurt setting for 15-16 hours.
That yogurt gets made into parfaits or overnight oats (with some date syrup if I can't find it...or just maple syrup to sweeten). Sometimes I'll even make a really good soft serve frozen yogurt (mix 1 part sugar to 4 parts yogurt, freeze 6+ hours, put it in a good blender, add fruit or vanilla or cocoa (or all!) as desired.
That's not worldnews. US farms wouldn't be legal in EU. Most EU farms wouldn't be legal here (Swiss). California is not the world.
Cows need to be pregnant to produce milk so dairy cows are artificially inseminated throughout most of their lives.
They don't tell you this in school.
Not only that but the calves would require a large percentage of that milk, and so a byproduct of dairy farms is often veal, at least for the male calves.
Then after only 4-5 years of this they are slaughtered because the milk production begins to diminish.
I haven’t seen any mentions of soy milk in this thread. I have it unsweetened with some fruit Müsli and even in coffee/tea and I’m good to go
My personal opinion is that soy milk tastes like grass... I've tried it in coffee, alone, on cereal, but I just can't avoid feeling like someone dumped a handful of freshly cut grass in...
Almond is pretty good on it's own, but in coffee it tastes like marzipan... It's not bad, but not the taste I want in my coffee.
Oat is what tastes most like cow's milk to me.
I second oat milk. Not watery like soy or almond milk. The other problem with almond milk is the insane amount of water that it takes to grow almonds.
Also it's way thicker than oat and almond milk.
And contains more protein. Generally I'd say the best option, no clue why people are so hung up on oat specifically.
I agree. I really like soy milk and was always so confused by the hype for new alternatives—not confused that people might like something else, mind you, just confused at the overall hype, to the extent that people forget soy exists and is better at many of the things the newer alternatives lack. Protein content and water usage being chief among them.
Soy milk has a more distinct flavor imo - not as sweet either
Also soy is spooooooky~
I'm partial to oat milk myself. Vanilla unsweetened is refreshing.
Internet vegans need to stop telling me to be unhealthy and go all in on fucking up the dairy industry. The average person can see it's horrific, how hard could it be to get a big fucking win without getting normal people offside?
I don't understand your comment. Not vegan here but I try to eat vegan most of the time. I think just trying to consume less is already a huge deal.
I'm saying attacking the dairy industry is a winnable battle and a step in the right direction but vegans are operating on pure emotion, it's all or nothing for them and I think we all know which it currently is.
So you wanna just torture animals a little bit?
You're the exact problem I'm talking about. Nothing is ever good enough.
dead before it hits the ground is a lot better than ground up alive in a combine harvester that's for sure.
or, you know, the fucking dairy farms we're talking about in this thread.
I tried hard to switch to almond/oat milk but the crazy thing is that it expires much more quickly than whole milk. So it was defeating the purpose because I wasn’t drinking it fast enough and ended up wasting a ton of it. Wish they’d make them in smaller jugs or whatever.
They make them in cartons y'know
My family makes almond milk with our blender. It's actually quite easy and not as expensive as buying the carton or gallon. It's really just almonds and water (and salt or vanilla if you're into other flavors).
Interesting I will have to try this!
Don't know where you are from but here there's a brand called Earth's Own that makes a Barista Oat Milk which is my favorite. The box is around 900ml and it is the best tasting oat milk I've ever had and it is also made to steam well when making drinks.