Almond Milk

One of my daughter’s went thru a vegan phase a few years back. During that time, she kept trying to get my wife and I to try soy milk or almond milk to no avail. The last I heard, she was back on meat, but still trying to eat healthy.

I’m not really much of a milk drinker. In fact, I pretty much only have milk in my cereal or possibly in a glass of chocolate milk. I’m very particular about milk. I won’t use milk that is within a few days of expiration. I also won’t touch it after it has been in the fridge for a week regardless of the expiration date.

Anyway, my wife recently (well, maybe a month or so ago – this post is a bit late) picked up some almond milk for us to try. I was in for several surprises. First, it doesn’t come in smaller sizes. I was hoping it would come in the little pint or quart sizes. It only seems to come in half gallon boxes. I had been under the impression that almond or soy milk had a much longer shelf life than dairy milk. As you can see in the label above, it only keeps a week in the fridge. It also has a much higher fat content than I expected – although it isn’t saturated fat. The last thing that surprised me was the taste.

I was fully prepared for almond milk to taste a little like almonds – which I don’t like. To my surprise, it tasted nothing like nuts at all. It didn’t exactly taste like dairy milk either though. However, for cereal, it was definitely quite reasonable. I actually had it with my breakfast before work for an entire week.

I must admit that when the week was up, we didn’t get any more. I use so little in my cereal that it seemed wasteful to pick up a half gallon when I barely use a quart in one week. If I could find pints or quarts, I’d probably get it again though. Any ideas where I might find smaller cartons or jugs like that?

 

Early Expiration

A lot of foods have expiration dates on them to tell you the last sell or use by date. Most of the time we find food buried in our fridge that is long past expiration.

One thing you will rarely see past expiration is milk. In fact, I stop drinking milk at least two days before the date on the carton – earlier if it’s been in the fridge for a week. However, I will leave it in the fridge until the expiration date just in case my wife Linda wants it.

I don’t really drink milk on its own. I either put it in cereal or add chocolate syrup to make chocolate milk. Even then, my milk needs to be as fresh as possible.