Welcome To My Refrigerator- Featuring Milk!

Back in 2014, when my naturopath doctor told me to cut out dairy, eggs, and gluten, the hunt began for foods I could actually eat. Later, when I got my food sensitivity test back, the list of no-no foods grew and the list of safe foods felt practically non-existent. It's been 5 and a half years since I went "everything-free," and here is my current list of foods I cannot eat:

• All Dairy
• Eggs
• Soy
• Peanuts
• Cashews
• Pistachios
• Almonds
• Brazil nut
• Walnut
• Hazel nut
• Garlic
• Chilli Powder
• Cayenne Pepper (and basically all other hot pepper things)
• Goat milk
• Buffalo milk (Seriously?)
• Flax Seed
• Aniseed
• Gluten/Wheat
• Oat
• Barley
• Spelt
• Strawberries
• Apples
• Cherries
• Raddish
• Lime

I basically consider myself a soy-free, grain-free, nut-free, gluten-free vegan who can eat meat. Then you can add in the other miscellaneous stuff if you want to have some real fun.

That being said, the contents of my refrigerator are pretty interesting... I've had to find substitutes for milk, cheese, butter, bread, and of course, ice cream! I figured I'd do a series of posts on some of my favorite substitutes for each of the categories in my fridge (stay tuned for the pantry posts!). 

Let's start with Milk!

Luckily, there's plenty of plant-based milks out there. Personally, I use rice milk, but if that's not your cup of tea (glass of milk?), there's also soy, almond, coconut, cashew, oat, and flax-seed milk. The only kind out of those that I can have is the coconut milk, but I'm not a big fan, so I stick with rice. 

**Also, my mom and I try to stick with buying Organic products if we can find them. Organic basically means that the food was grown without pesticides or hormones, so they're just more natural. Not all of the milks in this post are organic, but most are.

Rice Milk:

Costco had their Kirkland Signature bulk rice milk in-stores, but about a year ago they discontinued it. Right before it was all gone, me and my mom bought every last case, and I'm just now finally running out. Even though Costco isn't an option anymore, you can still find Rice Dream in most grocery stores, which is my favorite brand. (It also comes in chocolate which is amazing!)




Rice Dream milk is a little sweet, so if you aren't a big fan of sweeter milk or are trying to ditch the sugar, then you might want to go with a different brand or type of milk.
Trader Joe's has their own brand of rice milk which I've tried before, too. If I remember right I think it's a little less sugary than Rice Dream, so if you have a Trader Joe's near you, that's always another option. Pretty sure they only have Original and Unsweetened.

Coconut Milk:

The only other kind of plant-based milk I can have is coconut milk, which like I mentioned I'm not a big fan of. It's just too thick and coconut-tasting to drink plain, but I'm not against using it in cooking. My mom uses coconut milk in smoothies every morning for breakfast, her favorite brand is Costco's VitaCoco. It comes in a bulk 6-pack box. The VitaCoco has a really rich coconut taste to it.



Another brand that we've tried is So Delicious. Most stores like Sprouts, Frys, Whole Foods, etc. sell the individual cartons on their shelves, but Costco just got the unsweetened type in bulk boxes!

 

So Delicious also has chocolate, vanilla, and original, but unsweetened is the only kind you can get at Costco in bulk.

I'm definitely not the expert on any of the soy, cashew, oat, flax seed, or almond milks, but here's some different brands/options that I've seen around.

Soy Milk:

Silk is the most popular brand, you can also get Kirkland bulk at Costco in both Original and Vanilla.

Cashew Milk:

My dad drinks cashew milk, but my mom actually makes it herself! I'll do a separate post later on making your own plant-based milk, but here's some of the options in-stores.

Looks like Silk also makes Cashew milk! Comes in Unsweetened, Original, and Vanilla.

So Delicious also makes Cashew milk. I can only find it in unsweetened online, but I'm gonna bet money there's probably Original out there somewhere.

Oat Milk

Apparently oat milk is getting pretty popular, looks like Oat-ly, Silk, and Planet Oat are among the rising brands.

Flax Seed

The only brand I could find for flax seed milk is Good Karma. Looks like flax seed isn't that popular, but hey, it's an option.

The Grand Finale- Almond Milk

Almonds do NOT agree with me- I avoid them like the plague (which I think we can all agree that phrase has a brand-new meaning here in 2020). Ironically, almond milk and flour seem to be the most popular to use in vegan/gluten-free/allergen-free recipes. Go figure. Silk and Almond Breeze appear to be at the top of the list when it comes to almond milk. There's also Kirkland Signature brand at Costco. 

Alright, that's all I've got for milk. If you really wanted to get creative, you could look into peanut and hazelnut milk. Apparently you can make your own pistachio milk. I guess you could basically turn anything into milk if you really wanted to haha!








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