With the ever-evolving world, the concept of health and fitness has completely transformed. People across the globe are no longer indulged in self-starving diets that leave them with barely any fat or muscle.
Instead, today, people believe in achieving body fitness through clean and healthy eating and muscle toning workouts.
Today’s consumer is not only trying to achieve a healthy lifestyle but is also well aware of how different natural and processed ingredients affect their bodies.
Due to the abundance of knowledge and easy access to information, the world is experiencing a noticeably big shift in consumer choices and preferences when it comes to their everyday diets. Across the globe, the trend of shifting away from animal-based milk to completely plant-based vegan milk substitutes is at an all-time high.
This world of social media and online influencers has greatly contributed to this global shift to plant-based vegan milk substitutes. Many high-end celebrities, influential personalities, and social media bloggers are seen vouching for plant-based vegan milk substitutes.
According to diet specialists and nutritionists, switching to plant-based vegan milk can help people lose weight, along with offering many other nutritional benefits. Moreover, many experts believe that completely removing animal milk from the diet and switching to plant-based vegan milk substitutes can do wonders for the human body.
Continue reading to learn what animal milk substitutes are and why people usually prefer them over animal milk.
Moreover, this article will highlight some delicious recipes and tips to incorporate plant-based vegan milk when preparing your breakfast. Let’s get started!
What Are the Best Animal Milk Substitutes, and How Are They Produced?
Plant-based vegan milk forms are usually referred to as animal milk substitutes. Unlike animal milk that is collected directly from a living animal, most types of plant-based vegan milk forms have to be produced through a process. Different, natural plant-based ingredients are combined with water and passed through a sieve to produce their milk forms.
Some plant-based vegan milk may appear just like animal milk; however, they differ greatly in consistency, taste, smell, and nutritional value.
While animal milk is a high source of calcium and healthy protein, plant-based vegan milk forms offer other nutritional benefits.
The most common types of animal milk substitutes or plant-based vegan milk forms are as follows:
Soy Milk
Soy milk is a popular animal milk substitute that spread across the world really quickly after first being introduced in China. It is a well-loved and globally sold plant-based vegan milk form high in vegetable protein.
Soy milk is easily available in many countries of the world and can be purchased from vegan grocery stores or simple retail marts. Moreover, one can also make fresh soy milk at home using soybeans and water.
How is Soy Milk Produced?
Bottled or packaged soy milk is available at almost every grocery store that carries vegan milk forms. It can be stored in the fridge and has a shelf life of 2 to 4 weeks.
As the name suggests, the main ingredient that goes into soy milk is soybeans. In order to produce thick and healthy soy milk, fresh soybeans are thoroughly washed and submerged in filtered water for several hours. This allows the soybeans to soften and soak up the filtered water.
The soft soaked soybeans are put into a blender or a manual grinding tool and are blended until a thick mixture of soybeans and water is formed. The mixture is then poured into a container and put over a medium flame till it boils.
The boiled soybean and water mixture is passed through a fine sieve or a mesh, allowing thin soy milk to pour through and the hard soybean peels and particles to be left behind. The fresh soy milk is then poured into a container and cooled down before consumption.
Soy milk is the plant-based vegan plant milk that is the most similar looking to animal milk due to its thick consistency and cream white color. The milk is then also used to form soy milk, vegan cheese, yogurt, along with flavored milk beverages.
Oat Milk
The plant-based vegan milk we can see being used most commonly and popularly by celebrities and online chefs is oat milk. This is because oat milk is easy to produce, easy to store, nutritious, and tastes amazing.
How is Oat Milk Produced?
Whole oat grains and filtered water are used to produce delicious and creamy oat milk. Just like soybeans, whole oat grains are also submerged in water, where they are left to soak for several minutes.
Once the oats have plumped up and soaked enough water, the oats and the water are poured into a high-power blender. The blender continues to mix its contents until a smooth, creamy, and homogenous oats and water mixture is formed.
The mixture is passed and pushed through a metal mesh or a cheesecloth to separate the thin cream-colored oat milk from its dry contents. The plant-based vegan milk produced is said to be extremely delicious and has a similar creamy consistency to animal milk.
Oat milk is loved because it’s a perfect and healthy substitute for animal milk, along with being tasty and aromatic. It is packed with a lot of soluble and insoluble fiber, which helps reduce the occurrences of digestive tract diseases.
Moreover, oat milk is especially preferred over animal milk due to its superior nutritional value. Unlike any animal milk form, oat milk has extremely low calories, along with containing only small amounts of sugar, carbs, and fats. This nutritional value makes oat milk ideal for keeping blood sugar levels low while helping the consumer lose weight.
Furthermore, due to the ever-rising global popularity, brands producing oat milk have also introduced flavored oat milk to cater to different consumer needs and capitalize on the expected growth. Some popular flavors include chocolate-flavored oat milk, fruit-flavored, vanilla, and cinnamon-flavored oat milk.
Moreover, you can easily find oat milk beverages and coffees at popular globally dispersed establishments like Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts.
Coconut Milk
Coconut milk is the only naturally occurring form of plant-based vegan milk. It does not have to undergo any production process and can be consumed directly, just like animal milk.
Coconut milk is extracted from large, fully matured coconuts, which can be found in different tropical and island regions of the world. It has a thin water-like consistency and is cloudy in color.
Coconut milk contains a high concentration of coconut oil, which makes this plant-based vegan milk form the richest vegan milk out there. Hence, for people trying to cut down their calories or lose weight, coconut milk is probably not such a good idea.
If coconut milk contains a lot of coconut oil, it develops a thick creamy consistency and is instead referred to as coconut cream. People worldwide enjoy consuming fresh coconut milk on vacations and love foods cooked in coconut cream.
Almond Milk
Almond milk is one of the oldest and most globally abundant forms of plant-based vegan milk forms. It is said to be first made and introduced in Southern Europe nearly 1000 years ago, and then quickly spread across the rest of the world.
Almond milk is just one vegan milk type produced from nuts. Other types include peanut or pistachio milk.
Moreover, almond milk is commonly preferred by people trying to live a low-calorie, healthy lifestyle and wish to shed a few pounds. It contains the nutritional value of almonds, which makes it a great energy drink while keeping the calories and fat low.
Almond milk is a popularly consumed form of plant-based vegan milk, and hence can be found in a number of different flavors such as chocolate-flavored almond milk, vanilla almond milk, banana, and cinnamon almond milk, etc.
Furthermore, restaurants and beverage-selling food corporations around the world have been using almond milk to prepare their dishes and coffee drinks to cater to the huge customer base that loves almond milk.
You can easily find several flavors and variants of almond milk in almost all major countries. However, if one cannot easily find almond milk or wishes to prepare freshly produced almond milk at home, doing so is extremely easy.
How is Almond Milk Produced?
One simply has to purchase good-quality organic almonds and submerge them in filtered water for several hours. Once the almonds have soaked up the water and their peels have loosened up, simply remove the peels and pour the peeled almonds and filtered water into a high-power blender.
Blend the mixture until a pasty, creamy-white almond mixture is formed. Finally, pass and press the mixture through a cheesecloth, a sieve, or a mesh to separate the creamy aromatic almond milk from its dry matter.
Why Do People Usually Switch to Plant-based Vegan Milk Forms from Animal Milk?
Some common reasons why people switch to consuming plant-based vegan milk forms instead of traditional animal produced milk are as follows:
- Some people are either born with or can develop lactose intolerance at some point. This medical condition causes them to suffer from severe issues with their digestive system every time they consume any form of animal milk.
All types of animal milk forms contain high amounts of lactogen. Hence, to keep their digestive system healthy and steer clear of digestive issues, many people consume plant-based vegan milk forms as they contain no traces of lactogen.
- Some people tend to live a vegan lifestyle due to their environmental concerns and the global dairy industry. Their love for animals means they refrain from consuming any food matter produced by animals, including milk.
For such people, plant-based vegan milk forms are an excellent way to live their life as normally as possible.
- Some people live a plant-based vegan lifestyle due to their cultural and religious beliefs. As a result, the form of milk they can consume is produced from plants.
- People who wish to consume low-calorie food items in order to have a physically fit and lean body tend to prefer plant-based vegan milk forms over animal milk. This is because animal milk contains high amounts of calories and fat, whereas plant milk forms do not.
- At times, people simply choose to consume plant-based vegan milk forms because they prefer their taste and consistency over animal milk.
Animal Milk Substitutes for Your Daily Breakfast
As mentioned above, oat milk, soy milk, almond milk, and coconut milk are the most popular and well-loved plant-based substitutes for animal milk. Continue reading to learn how these milk forms can be incorporated into your everyday breakfast to live a healthy and fit life.
Soy Milk
One of the most loved and popular ways of adding soy milk to your breakfast is by preparing a delicious tropical soy milk smoothie. It will be extremely easy to prepare and will give you a high dose of energy and many other nutritional benefits.
To prepare a serving of tropical soy milk smoothie for breakfast, you need the following ingredients:
- Fresh, chilled soy milk
- Honey
- Vanilla essence
- Chopped strawberries and blueberries
- Peanut butter
- Chopped banana
- Sunflower seeds
- Ice
Follow this recipe to prepare this delicious and nutritious vegan breakfast drink:
- Pour three-quarters of a cup of fresh, chilled soy milk into a blender.
- Add a teaspoon of honey and a few drops of vanilla essence, and stir lightly with a spoon.
- Add your chopped strawberries, blueberries, banana, and crushed sunflower seeds.
- Add half a tablespoon of peanut butter.
- Add four to five cubes of ice and blend all the ingredients until a smooth and chilled smoothie is formed. Pour the smoothie into a tall glass and add some chopped berries on top. Enjoy!
Oat Milk
Oat milk is extremely healthy and can improve your mood for the whole day when had for breakfast. One of our most loved and highly demanded oat milk breakfast recipes that you need to try as a weekend treat is the oat milk banana bread with vegan chocolate chips.
To prepare this delicious oat milk breakfast treat, you need the following ingredients:
- Fresh unsweetened oat milk
- Three to four fully ripe bananas
- Vegan butter
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Finley granulated brown sugar
- All-purpose flour
- Vanilla extract
- Vegan chocolate chips
Follow this recipe to prepare the bread:
- the ripe bananas and mash them in a bowl.
- Add 70 grams of melted butter to the mashed bananas and mix well.
- Add half a cup unsweetened oat milk, a pinch of salt, baking soda, vanilla extract, and sugar. Since this is a vegan banana bread recipe, we will not be using any eggs. You can add applesauce or an additional mashed banana to replace eggs. Mix all the ingredients.
- Add the vegan chocolate chips and all-purpose flour and mix well till a homogenous bread batter is formed.
- Grease a baking tray and pour the batter into the tray.
- Bake the bread at 350°F for 30 to 40 minutes.
You can eat the delicious and aromatic oat milk banana bread or add a scoop of vegan vanilla ice cream on top to further enhance the experience.
Coconut Milk
Coconut milk is nutritiously rich enough to give you a strong dose of energy to last the whole day. Our coconut milk vegan pancakes are extremely easy to make, super delicious, and are the ultimate comfort breakfast for days you need some self-love.
To prepare a stack of vegan coconut milk pancakes, you need the following ingredients:
- Fresh coconut milk
- All-purpose flour
- Icing sugar
- Vanilla essence
- Baking powder
- Salt
- Vegan butter
Now follow these steps:
- Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.
- Add coconut milk, filtered water, and vanilla essence. Mix all the ingredients together to form a smooth pancake batter.
- Add vegan butter to a frying pan on medium heat and pour small portions of the pancake batter into the pan.
- Let each side cook for 2 to 3 minutes before flipping it over.
Serve the pancakes with some icing sugar, butter, and maple syrup, and enjoy!
Almond Milk
Our almond milk waffles are the ultimate nutty and aromatic breakfast goodness that you need to prepare for a festive holiday morning.
For this recipe, you need the following ingredients:
- Unsweetened almond milk
- All-purpose flour
- Salt
- Baking powder
- Almond extract
- Sugar
- Mashed bananas as an egg substitute
- Vegan butter
Follow these steps:
- Preheat the waffle iron as you mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
- Add mashed banana, vegan melted butter, almond milk, and almond extract in a separate bowl and mix well.
- Combine the dry and the wet ingredients until a smooth homogenous batter is formed.
- Pour the batter into your waffle iron and let the waffles cook for 4 to 5 minutes.
Serve the waffles with some icing sugar, crushed almonds, vegan chocolate syrup, and a scoop of vegan ice cream. Enjoy!
