For starters, Americans (me included) love their ice cream! I love ice cream but have been trying to reduce my dairy consumption. But what will I do with my ice cream? Enter, diary free ice cream! So for my current trip on the West coast, I’ve tried Coconut, Oat, and Almond milk Ice cream. Truth to be told, you can barely tell the difference from diary. Most scoop shops these day offer diary alternatives, and there are a few shops that sell exclusively vegan ice cream.
You can buy dairy alternatives from basically any supermarket, with a wide range from rice, almond, cashew, oat, soybean etc.. Also available are half & half and creamers, which I haven’t tried since I usually have my coffee black or with a “milk” base.
But how do they taste?
As I said above for ice cream, it’s hard to tell the difference unless you know. I had a Mint Theo Chocolate from Salt & Straws, which was made from a coconut base. I could have easily thought that it was a “cheaper”diary ice cream made in Taiwan. (Note: A lot of ice cream made in Taiwan is from milk powder, so the texture was very similar.) I haven’t tried any cheeses yet, but for drinking milk alternatives, I think oat comes closes to dairy, with almond coming a close second. (But there have also been issues about whether almonds are sustainable, so keep that in mind.)
All of the above is probably pretty normal for anyone living here, but since my last visit to the US, these are pretty significant changes IMO. It’s still more expensive to buy dairy alternatives which I find ridiculous, but good to see the change and awareness of our diet habits starting to transform. I won’t declare that I’ll quit diary 100% immediately, but I can easily start choosing diary alternatives when I have the crave since they’re easy to get and delicious.
But why no diary?
Now do these products really help the environment? I’ll leave that topic for another article in the near future. To the very least, people that are lactose intolerant, (Commonly seen in Asian people) can enjoy a wide variety of products that mimic milk. It’s not enough to “save the world”, but I think it’s a nice start if people start to substitute their diary diet with other options. Just make sure to buy organic, I’m not sure if local / independent is possible, but this simple change in your habit can all be part of the solution of the problems we face from industrial agriculture. Whether those issues are ethical, health, or environmental problems, let’s all start by reducing our dairy intake!
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