With global warming and the climate crisis, many people are looking to make lifestyle changes to lessen their impact on the environment. One of the best ways you can do this is to make changes to your diet. One of these positive dietary changes is choosing plant-based milks over dairy.
Plant-based milks are a great alternative to dairy because they use less resources to make. Dairy farming uses lots of water and creates a lot of waste and greenhouses gases. Plant-based milks need much less water and release fewer greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. They also don’t cause as much deforestation.
Why Oat Milk?
April Thompson
There are many kinds of plant milks on the market today. Grocery stores offer almond, soy, coconut, rice and oat milk. However, oat milk is the best kind of milk you can drink to support the environment. Soy farming causes lots of deforestation, almond milk wastes an immense amount of fresh water and the methane in rice paddies produces more emissions than other plant milks. It takes very little water usage to grow oats, and growing oats produces fewer greenhouse gases than the other options.
How to Easily Make Your Own Oat Milk at Home
April Thompson
One of the things I love about making my own oat milk at home is the cost and the taste. It’s so much less expensive than buying oat milk from the grocery store. Plus, in my opinion, it’s the best tasting kind of plant-based milk out there, especially when it’s made fresh at home. I always add maple syrup to mine so it’s sweet and super creamy. Normally I don’t enjoy the taste of milk on its own and I only use it in coffee and tea. However, with oat milk, I could drink a gallon of it all by itself because it’s so delicious!
All you need to make oat milk at home is plain oats, water and either a mesh or light cotton bag to use as a strainer. You can even find nut milk bags to purchase online. You can also add dates, maple sugar or honey for sweetness, or even some cinnamon for some added flavour.
When you make your oat milk, add one-part oats to four-parts water and blend everything together in a blender. Don’t forget to add a little bit of honey, syrup or cinnamon if you want some added sweetness. Blend for about 40 seconds.
Once it’s blended, grab a bowl and pour the thick oat milk mixture into the nut milk bag over top of the bowl. Tie the bag closed and squeeze all the milk out of the bag. There will be oat ‘pulp’ leftover in the bag. Once you have squeezed all the milk out, store it in a sealed jar and put it in the fridge. Homemade oat milk should last four to five days in the fridge.
By now you should have a jar of oat milk in your fridge… and a messy bunch of oat pulp in your nut milk bag. Don’t throw away the oat pulp! With so many people ditching dairy products, there are now tons of recipes online that make use of that pulp. The last time I made my own oat milk, I used the pulp to make some delicious chocolate oat cookies!
April Thompson
You can find oat pulp recipes by searching here.
Follow April’s sustainable travels on justleavingfootprints.com
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