I've been drinking whole milk — cow's milk — in my coffee for many years, but I wanted to go milk-free for 3 weeks just to test myself — on the off-chance that it has something to do with my loss of smell. Yesterday — Day 1 — I just had black coffee, which is fine.
But then I bought some almond milk. Today — Day 2 — I put almond milk in my coffee. Well! That's no substitute for whole milk! It looks as though I put skim milk in my coffee. Don't ask me how it tastes. I don't have a proper sense of taste. It's a look and a feeling I want. For that, almond milk is useless.
Annoying words on the label: "unrivaled creaminess."
I guess that means unrivaled by other brands of almond milk.
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At least I understand the point of substitute milk - as a dietary or medical need.
Beyond Meat and Impossible burgers baffle me. Their point seems to be that you love the taste of animal flesh, but find killing animals to be abhorrent. Why try to recreate something you find so terrible in practice? Why spend so much effort simulating something so off-putting to you? Shouldn't your replacement be far from the taste of actual meat?
My issue with almond milk is that it is thin, like skim milk. It can't replace whole milk.
Try MCT oil
"Try MCT oil"
In coffee? Why?
We do call some juices milk, but they’re really just white-ish juices.
I find that vanilla almond milk is great on unsweetened cereal. I've lost my sense of smell - not completely, but for the most part - starting in my early 60's. I've also lost some of my sense of taste too. The internet warns me that losing the sense of smell is a precursor to Parkinson's. Maybe.
Almond juice. I've yet to see the mammary glands on an almond, and believe me I've tried.
It's not even almond juice. It's more a very thin puree.
I like it ok in a latte, but no, not where you want creamy mouthfeel. I have it around for letters and cappuccinos, where it saves me some calories and I don't miss creaminess.
Ann, try oatmilk - my daughter tells me it is very creamy.
As I type this, I am drinking a cup of coffee, with Delicious Whole Milk.
Delicious Whole Milk can Not be beat
Mouth feel like heavy cream. It magically transforms the coffee experience without any flavor or smell. I, of course, heard it first on Joe Rogan podcast.
If you want to go full bro, emulsify it in a bullet blender.
Oat milk is the only plant based one that works for me. Still not as good or as creamy as milk though. Better than just “oat milk” is a barista blend that’s made from oat milk.
My mother used to add Silk creamer to her coffee. I believe it has that richness you're looking for.
Seen online:
God: What are they doing down there?
Angel: Making milk from almonds.
God: What? I gave them, like, eight animals to get milk ftom.
Angel: They don't like that milk.
God (mockingly): They don't like that milk! - Flips table -
You can use powdered milk, which has the advantage that it doesn't expire like milk, stirred into coffee. At the moment I'm drinking KLIM (very old brand, milk spelled backwards) for when I run out of skim milk. I make it half strength.
Milkman brand powdered skim milk actually reconstructs into something resembling whole milk.
All the powdered stuff costs about double real milk but it doesn't go bad in powdered form.
It's the lovely mouth-feel of that milk fat that you miss. I know of no substitute.
They allow almond milk in Wisconsin?
No wonder the place has gone to h-e-double hockey sticks. This son of a milkman thinks your dairy lobby needs to remember just who they are and where they live. I believe in freedom, but that's like drinking Tang in Lake Wales.
Seriously, the various "non dairy coffee whiteners" we remember not so fondly are chock full of some sort of oil that will give the proper viscosity to not look like skim milk. It's all some sort of material in suspension - if I was not able to absorb dairy I would not be as happy and healthy as I am today. That's an example of a blessing undisguised. Hope you find something that actually works.
This post made my morning:0)
We’re actually thinking of selling our milking herd. We’ve farmed 26yrs, the last 18 organically. Our co-op is Organic Valley.
It’s definitely not profitable during inflation. We haven’t gotten a raise in 8yrs. Conventional prices to farmers are about on par w/us.
And the physical work is wreaking us.
But, damn. It’s our life.
“ Ann, try oatmilk - my daughter tells me it is very creamy.”
I’m picturing the gluey part of oatmeal.
But I reject this product because of the carbs.
I think anything non dairy is going to have carbs. Mostly in the form of sugar. Powdered creamer?
Farmgirl.
You have my sympathies and my admiration. People of this country have no idea how physically demanding owning a farm is. Especially livestock that demands your attention 24/7/365.
No milk substitute is much like milk, but oatmilk stands on it own as a thing that doesn’t suck. Much better than other fake milks I’ve tried.
richlb said…Beyond Meat and Impossible burgers baffle me. Their point seems to be that you love the taste of animal flesh, but find killing animals to be abhorrent. Why try to recreate something you find so terrible in practice? Why spend so much effort simulating something so off-putting to you? Shouldn't your replacement be far from the taste of actual meat?
You answer your own question—they want to remove the cruelty while still enjoying a good burger. If fake meat producers figure out a way to compete on taste and price, consumption of real meat will drop drastically. If they ignore the meat-eating experience, it will never be more than a niche market.
I have been using almond milk on cereal for several years now. I use lactose free whole milk in my coffee.
Having grown up a milk drinker, I feel better when I minimize the lactose in my system.
Almond milk in coffee is worse than drinking black coffee.
Almost all my Norwegian relatives are weak black coffee drinkers. Ugh!
There are a lot of misleading promotions for “alternative” foods, counterfeit foods and vegan foods. They have to mislead because the flavors, textures and nutritional value of fake foods always fall short of the real thing. Always. No sweetener works like sugar. No non-dairy concoction comes close to milk. Or butter. And meat substitutes are the worst of all failing in every way to emulate the original. Our bodies are designed for the omnivore diet. Stop denying human nature. We were born this way. Veganism is a put-on.
Why would you think milk would be causing your lose of smell if you have been drinking it for many years?
Almond milk. Oat milk. Coconut milk. All of them are disgusting substitutes for the real thing. So is skim, for that matter. I drank skimmed milk for years thinking I was doing myself a favor. Then, like always happens, the 'science' changed a bit and, as it turns out, the fats I had been avoiding in pretty much everything, were necessary to good health. Voila! I was back to whole milk. And boy...there is such a difference in flavor and texture.
Almond milk is made by blending almonds with water and then straining the mixture to remove the solids. So if it seems watery, it's probably been made correctly. Then they add some 'flavoring' to it. Ugh. Garbage stuff. And they sell millions of gallons of it nationally. It's a multi-billion dollar industry.
Create the problem: Everyone is now lactose intolerant. Offer the solution: Look- we have Almond Milk! You are a billionaire.
Use heavy cream, just a small amount is needed. It doesn’t have the same amount of lactose as does whole milk, but if you’re avoiding milk because of its fat content, obviously heavy cream won’t be the answer.
If you’re avoiding casein in milk, heavy cream has very little, only traces.
Do whatever makes you happy?
(There are caveats, of course).
Flavored water without the nutritional benefits of milk.
None of the alt-milks taste anything like real milk. I find soy milk to be the lease offensive of the lot, if only because it has been around a while and the truly awful versions have been outcompeted.
Almond milk is white-colored water and perhaps the worst fake milk that I've ever tried. However, various recent pea protein concoctions are can be worse overall (see code words "plant protein" -- often pea).
@farmgirl: My family has run a dairy farm since the 1950s. In the last several years, we have transitioned to grazing Angus for Whole Foods (and some others). We have excellent grass, and the work is far less strenuous, as you can imagine. Still, one misses the good old Holsteins. Nothing like a dairy farm. Of course, any non-dairy substitute remains anathema.
"But I reject [oatmilk] because of the carbs."
More than milk? Milk has carbs, too, though I wouldn't sweat the amount in a cup of coffee.
I love a bedtime glass of milk, but I've pretty much given it up because of the carbs.
Fortunately, I love black coffee and wouldn't consider messing it up. Sugar? Please shoot me.
I prefer Almond Breeze with a touch of vanilla. It helps fool my taste buds a little into thinking it's real milk. but i know the truth.
My last child had a milk protein sensitivity so I went dairy free for a year when I nursed her. Almond milk is a poor substitute for whole milk which is standard in our house. I'm happy someone else fills the same. I see others buy almond milk occasionally for fun. Mind boggling.
Seems like it would take forever to squeeze those tiny almond teats...
Drank raw milk for a couple of years. Then I couldn't get it anymore. Tried regular milk from store, tasted fine, but, slowly made me feel bad. Conclusion is cooked or pasteurized milk causes me problems. Raw milk does not. Just like infant formula, the natural raw milk is hard to beat. But it's such a ordeal to get it. And it's at least 20$ a gallon. And at that price the guys selling it aren't making much. No fun to get old start having issues with diet that was so much easier in the younger years.
I'm a type 1 diabetic, so super carb-conscious, and I really like Sam's Club Members Mark unsweeetened almond milk. Only 30 cal. per cup and only 1 carb. Very creamy. I don't use it for anything but coffee, however.
The only reason to drink it, is if you can't drink real milk because of health reasons.
Are we still allowed to call it "whitener?"
My father and his mother lost their senses of smell in middle age. Both poured a ton of salt on food to compensate. Grandma had high blood pressure but still lived to 94 after a mild stroke at 90. Dad has normal sodium levels and 125/70 at 95, but his thirsty switch is broken, so I hydrate him with hot chocolate using 1% chocolate milk in the microwave. I haven't looked at the label, but it has good mouth feel.
Amazon sells various tasteless beverage thickeners for people with dysphagia, but most of them are corn starch with maltodextrin. He tried one that wasn't, but it had a lumpy feel with milk.
If you move to Finland (for example), you will be able to pour the most delicious and creamy oat milk in your coffee every morning. So good! Best wishes.
This time of year you can find stuff in plastic jars labeled "egg nog".
If you look at the ingredients, you'll find neither egg nor nog, but the stuff is thick and makes a nice coffee creamer.
I buy almond milk for one and one thing only. I put it in my breakfast cereal in the morning. I would never use it to cook with but I found that it's OK in cereal and lasts a lot longer in the fridge than regular milk. I don't think that it works as a substitute for milk; it works as it's own thing. I usually get the Blue Diamond unsweetened type with vanilla flavoring. I also don't like coffee.
I misunderstood almond milk.
The "milk" part is false advertising.
Plus growing almonds takes an *incredible* amount of irrigation... to replace something we can get naturally.
The gums used to create mouth feel in the fake milk feed bad gut bacteria.
Skim "milk" -- it is a hissing and an abomination. Supermarkets should shelve it with the bottled waters and the Miller's Lite.
I like the lowest fat milk I can get for my breakfast coffee. That's 1%. A "creamy mouthfeel" is the last thing I'd want from a cuppa joe.
At the coffeeshop where I drink and think, you dress your own coffee from stainless carafes, marked Half-and-Half, Skim Milk, Almond Milk. I use a small jot from each of the first two, and its OK, serves the purpose. One time I put in almond milk by mistake -- my reaction same as yours: blah.
I like almonds and I like milk, but almond milk tastes like neither.
I have some cartons of almond milk in the deep back of the fridge that must be 25 years old. Hang on...
Best before May 03 05
Rh- lol!!!
The point is to avoid drinking black coffee. Whatever you use to achieve that result is okay. I have evolved to the point where I prefer ground coffee to instant, but am not so evolved as to make invidious distinctions between non-dairy powdered creamer and the various dairy creamers.
I see others buy almond milk occasionally for fun
We don't buy it for fun, but for two other reasons: calorie savings, and the fact that it takes a whole lot longer to go bad than real milk. I DON'T use it as coffee "creamer" - it can't do that job for me. But as I said above, with typos, for lattes and cappuccinos it works ok.
For cooking, whole milk or cream. Ditto for baking. For coffee, I use a commercial creamer in "sweet cream" flavor, and I flip the bird to all black coffee drinkers who scoff at me - I gave black coffee the old college try and found that it made me not enjoy coffee, which was unacceptable. My husband drinks black coffee and I love him - no judgment against those who enjoy it! Just let me be me.
For drinking straight up - mostly water, with certain soft drinks, flavored sparkling water, beer, wine, the occasional hard stuff - but no milk.
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