Make Your Own Healthy Milk

Milk is a staple food for many people. It's great for pouring over cereal, cooling tea and coffee, enriching and thickening soups and gravies, making rich baked goods and even just for enjoying a cool glass by itself. However, cow's milk can come with its own issues. Affordable, non-organic milks (and even organic milks) contain cow hormones, upset digestion, increase mucus production in the body, cause allergic reactions and make you feel overall more tired. Organic milks can help you eschew some of the hormones and chemicals found in conventional milk, but since the US has little regulation on organics, the price tag is bigger but there's no guarantee that it's that much different than the conventional.

There is a nutritious and cheap alternative! You can make tasty and affordable milk at home that has all the nutrition of milk and more. You can purchase non-dairy milks at the store, but making it fresh is far more rewarding and delicious. It takes relatively little preparation and forethought, and all you need is a blender, a cloth for straining and a container for your milk when you're done. Best of all, any time you need milk you can skip going to the store if you have a handful of nuts in the pantry.

Nut milks can be made with almost any nut you choose, however the nuts you use must be raw (not toasted or roasted). Raw nuts can be found in most groceries, but the cheapest are at natural foods stores in the bulk bins where you would find rice, granola and trail mix. The most popular choices for nut milks are almonds, cashews and walnuts. Almonds are very mild in flavor, while cashews create a slightly sweet milk. Walnuts have an earthier flavor, but have the added benefit of omega-3 fatty acids, which are great for overall health, memory retention and brain function.

You will also need a fine cloth or fine mesh strainer. Cheese cloth, a thin well-worn old tee shirt or any thin rag works fine as long as it's clean. If you really want to get fancy, you can purchase a nut milk bag for fairly cheap. The bags last a long time and are tailored specifically to making milk.

Nut Milk
1 cup (heaping handful) of raw nuts
4 to 5 cups of water
Pinch of salt
Optional:
Honey or stevia
Vanilla or almond extract

Put nuts in a bowl and fill with water, making sure they're completely submerged. Leave to soak for at least 4 hours. (You can throw them in the bowl before you leave for work or before you go to bed.) After soaking, drain soaking water and put nuts in blender. Add 4 to 5 cups of fresh filtered water and pinch of salt. For sweet milk, add honey or stevia and a few drops to a teaspoon of extract. If your blender isn't very fancy, I recommend putting the top on and wrapping a dishcloth around the top to prevent water from splashing out. Blend for at least 60 seconds or until thick, white and frothy.

Strain the milk into container of your choice with the cloth or strainer, making sure to squeeze all the water out of the pulp. That's it! It's ready to drink. Use the nut milk just like you would use regular milk. It will keep 7 to 10 days in the fridge. You can save the pulp by spreading it flat on a cookie sheet and putting on low heat in the oven to dry out and then store in a container in the fridge. Nut meal makes a nutritious substitute for flour in recipes.

Enjoy your fresh milk! Until next time, keep it clean! :)