What do you guys think? I personally prefer the flavor of almond milk, although I never drink any type of milk straight (my husband does though). Almond is more expensive than soy and has quite a bit more fat.
I primarily use it for my protein shakes in the morning and if any recipe calls for milk.
I use all of the above including rice milk and hemp milk. At a potluck I went to, someone even made oat milk (which seems quite easy) and walnut milk (again easy).
I was just browsing my local Whole Foods and discovered hazelnut milk - will have to read the label and see what they're doing to it! I try to avoid the soy milk and basically any soy products that haven't been around for the last hundred (to a thousand!) years. Our family is trying very hard to make the move to whole foods, but wow! I love all the nut milks, and have tried oat and hemp milk too. It's a juggling act - aside from coconuts, I don't know of any of these "milks" that's not going through some major factory action to create them. If anybody knows ... please pass it on!
I prefer almond milk because it doesn't have the powdery texture that I get from soy milks. Also, I really like the slight nuttiness that it adds to my morning cereal and coffee..yum!
I don't think strictly speaking (or really, not all that strictly) you can call soy, nut or grain milks wholefoods. Same for oils. In fact, you're not eating wholefoods if you only have the broccoli florets and not the stalk, or when you eat an orange and not the peel (I've only recently learned that some people eat the peel!). Also soy sauce, and I'm sure so many other things.
Personally, I would eat all those things. But the point is, everyone has to draw their own line, because it's not as black and white as it may seem.
On the other hand, non-dairy milks and oils, even once accepted as a category as being wholefoods or close enough, may be fairly processed with the milks having a lot of additives and the oils having chemical processing. You just have to choose carefully.
It's probably been debated already, and I have not gone back through this forum's threads yet (sorry!), but does anything that's been pasteurized fit this template? If so, what about irradiation? Both are man-made attempts to improve on nature ... and I'd argue that both fail ... but that's a "whole" different thread.
It's probably been debated already, and I have not gone back through this forum's threads yet (sorry!), but does anything that's been pasteurized fit this template? If so, what about irradiation? Both are man-made attempts to improve on nature ... and I'd argue that both fail ... but that's a "whole" different thread.
Many people would most definitely consider pasteurization (and homogenization) to be processing. They only consider raw milk to be fit for consumption. I'm still sorting it out, but it's food for thought.