Dairy Free Milk

Dairy free milk

My son was having some weird reaction and after doing some reading we thought it would be a good idea to give up milk for 6 months. Let me tell you it was hard. I did not realize how many things had milk. It was not too bad finding a milk to add to pancake mix or smoothie but to find something good enough to drink straight was something else. What made it a little harder is that my other son is allergic to tree nuts. Yes – tree nuts, basically any nut (walnuts, pecans, pistachios, almonds, macadamia) but peanuts. Its not too bad compared to many other allergies actually. My younger son and I like almond milk but my older could not have that, so initially I just made two sets of stuff one with regular milk and another with the almond milk. Then I started buying hemp milk, so for cooking I would use hemp and for cereal or straight up we just picked whatever carton we liked. That arrangement worked pretty well – except for the space all the cartons took in the fridge! Now cheese was harder, we really did not find something we really liked so we just learnt to do without it. After 6 months we figured it was not diary and my son thankfully and cheerfully chugged that first cup of all-dairy-milk down fast.

I digress, back to rating the dairy-free milk from my favorite to the least liked:-

1. Almond milk (creamy and mild in flavor)
2. Hemp milk (not as creamy but thick enough – no flavor so was great for batters)
3. Coconut milk (disappointed it did not taste anything like coconut)
4. Soy milk (too much flavor but was creamy)
5. Rice milk (watery and mild)
6. Oat milk (watery and blah)

There you have it! My winners!