I have tried six more types of plant milk since my last update about 27 days ago. I have determined that the best type of plant milk for me is store brand oat milk from Rema 1000.
''Look ma, no English!'' (good)
Unlike other types of plant milk, this kind tasted really good right away. It’s mild and pleasant but clearly distinct from dairy milk. And that’s what plant milk really should be, not an imitation of dairy milk so much as something that can fill the same purposes as dairy milk while having a different identity.
My second favorite kind of plant milk I’m going to say is almond milk, I tried Alpro brand. It tasted a lot like dairy milk with an almond flavor added.
I also tried rice milk, but it honestly did not impress me, especially since the carton I got turned out to be leaky.
A thought that’s been going through my head while trying these plant milks, though, is that oat is something which is cultivated locally here in Norway, while soy and almonds and rice are all imports only. So this was another reason why I wanted to try oat milk, because local ingredients are better for the environment, and food sovereignty is important to build.
Problem is, though, Rema 1000’s oat milk is actually manufactured in Italy. There is however another brand called Ur-kraft that makes oat milk entirely using local ingredients, so I might try that another time, although it does cost a bit more… But it feels like sort of a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation, though, because the packaging of Ur-kraft just gives me kind of icky vibes. See for yourself:
''Look ma, no English!'' (bad)
So, you know, I’d like to support local ingredients without also supporting drumming up patriotic sentiment and playing into nationalistic archetypes — just like I’d like to support the end of animal exploitation without also supporting diglossia with English.
Anyways, as I’ve been trying to establish a “revolutionary base area” in the realm of milk, I’ve also been trying other things to cut down on my consumption of animal products.
Among these things — and I won’t be talking about everything I’ve tried — I tried Alpro’s soy-based chocolate pudding, which was a yummy treat; fava beans with paprika spices, which I did enjoy decently; and a Stabburet brand veggie burger. That burger was decent in quarters but I found that trying to eat a whole burger in one sitting was just a bit much flavor-wise.
That burger does go into the whole debate of what place plant meat has in a transition towards veganism, though. I won’t go on about that debate other than just acknowledging it exists, and saying that I think I’ll use plant meats to a limited extent as a stepping stone to ultimately shifting my diet away from eating anything that plays into the “meat culture” at all.
There are a lot of things I’d like to try going forward, but my circumstances don’t necessarily make trying everything too easy, whether it be the ability to find things in stores or just the time to prepare meals for myself. Things may be shifting up for me soon so I’ll try to seize opportunities as they arrive.
Oat milk is the best. My partner and me do still eat some meat, but on the milk department we have been oat milk barista types for years now. If an occasion comes where there is none, I’d rather have my coffee/tea without because cows milk tastes horrible after you have not had it for some time.
It’s also great because you can buy it in bulk and its typically UHT so it keeps in room temp. Never running out of coffee milk thanks to oat milk.
I’ve also tried rye milk and horse bean milk. Both are good as well, but too pricy for my budget.
I’ve been wondering if I should try the barista kinds of plant milks, too.
They are great. We don’t drink milk and only use it in coffee/tea so it’s always the barista stuff. It also foams so well, I had a latte phase with it after I got a few euro milk foamer thingy. Put some cinnamon or vanilla in it and its so delish.
Something that may be of interest to you, my partner and I just acquired a Chinese Electric Nut Milker. Which I am referring to that way because the reactions from others have been amusing (the Chinese Joyoung model had more functionality than the western, and they were the same price).
It’s basically a heated blender with some complex pulsing going on, the fancier models of which can filter and self-clean. Price-wise, they range from not really cheap to quite expensive, but the actual running costs should easily compensate for it.
Plus it can make soup and all sorts of nifty grain milks you just couldn’t find otherwise - the recipes in the (Google translated) instructions are things like “dragon plum milk”, “five bean milk”, “??? flour”, “draft of Canadian woman’s policy”, and “spicy fish soup”. The western-model recipes are too dull to mention.
Just made some plain ol’ cashew nut milk (approx 1:4 cashews to water), and it was excellent.
draft of Canadian woman’s policy
Could you send a picture of the untranslated characters?
Sure thing! It’s number 15. Lens was surprisingly good, but once in a while got stuck on an odd one. It’ll possibly get it right with a rescan.
Urkraft
Urkraft is ultimately “just a word” — there are plenty of perfectly innocuous uses of it, in fact it’s even used as the Norwegian word for the hypothesized “superforce” of physics. But that doesn’t stop the word from meaning what it does and raising the question of why a brand would call itself that!
i dont know about norway since it has a lot of mountains, but here in Germany pictures of hiking in an alpine landscape with the word “urkraft” definitely has certain “connotations”
Yeah, that’s how it sort of comes across to me, too, that even if it is a normal word at the end of the day, that in context it still just feels kinda sus.
