Groats

I've been reading the No Trash Project tumblr page for weeks, at first because it fitted so well into my research thesis, and then continuing because I like it so much. As far as the project goes, it's the same as so many others: Reduce packaging and other waste. Since reducing waste is one of my life goals as well, you can imagine how happy I am to keep reading this site.

She (I'm not sure of the gender of the project owner, actually, but for some reason I feel like she revealed that she's a woman somewhere along the line. Anyway, we're going with 'she') shared a couple of posts a few weeks ago about making her own milk substitutes, first from oat groats, then from almonds. I'm happy to cut back on my dairy intake (all the dairy I eat can't possibly be healthy), save some money (if possible), and not have a gallon jug to either recycle or reuse after-- I'd much prefer to not bring all those jugs home to begin with.

Source.

The problem was that I didn't know what oat groats were. So I turned to our good friend Google, to find out that groats are essentially steel-cut oats before they're cut. Brilliant, since I have those on hand.

The good thing about both recipes was that the leftovers-- the oats and the chopped almonds-- are perfectly edible, which makes me really happy, because that's even less waste. I used one of my mesh produce sacks to strain out the solids from the milk, which worked pretty well, although a finer mesh would have been better.

The verdict? I prefer the almond milk. It had a better taste, IMO, and also made more milk. It worked well in my tea and cereal. So, I think we have a winner-- maybe not all the time, but certainly a couple of times a month. I'd love to get to the point that I can make most of my milk at home and only buy a gallon if I need a lot of milk for something. For the future, I'd also like to try making my own rice milk to see how well that works.

Do you ever drink non-dairy milks? Do you like them? Have you ever made your own?