When I grew up, that would be in the dark ages for you folks born after 1965, we would told drinking a big glass of milk would be good for us. Those might have been the same doctors that were pushing Camel cigarettes as good for your lungs. For me, a cold glass of milk was a great way of washing down the cookies I loved so much. You folks from Chicago will remember Salerno Butter Cookies, which were served with a carton of cold milk, before our nap time in kindergarten. Extra points if you can sing the Salerno Butter Cookie song. Trust me, if you’re my generation, your memory may have been wiped clean by old age, but that song is still stuck in your head…but I digress.
Today’s theme is milk and how confusing it has become. Why would I say milk is confusing? How about when your wife sends you to the store for a carton of milk, but she wants you to make it oat milk? Oat milk? I picked up my regular milk and headed to the cereal aisle to see if they had oat milk with another favorite treat of mine, Quaker Oats. I did look but found not drop of “Oat Milk.” When I arrived home sans oat milk, my wife gave me a look that could curdle the oak milk she wanted. Does anyone know if you can curdle oat milk?
After shaking her head and mumbling under her breath something about being as dense as a forest, she explained it was in the milk section. How could I know that? Aren’t oats a grain? How do you get milk from something they feed horses? How do you milk an oat? Without answering these critical questions that were stuck in my brain, she turned me around, told me to look in the dairy section, where they keep regular milk, and said I would find it there. The shove she gave me that propelled me out the door was a gentle and loving push. After I picked myself up off the front sidewalk, I drove back to the store and planted myself in front of the selves full of cheese, butter, eggs, yogurt, Pillsbury products, and rows and rows of cartons that look like milk cartons, but ha, many of them were not milk at all.
When I was a young boy, our only choice of milk was the really white stuff in a very heavy glass bottle that was left on our door stoop by the milk man. There were no percentage numbers, fat content, or vegetable names attached to it. On hot days, we did pester the milkman until he gave us a big chunk of ice to help us cool off. And if you’re wondering, it was a truck, not a horse-drawn cart. Geez, how old do you think I am?
Back to the store. As I was standing in front of the dairy section, my brain started to hurt. There were so many varieties of natural milk and fake milk I was having trouble keeping them straight. Here are some of your choices if you want an actual milk product: Whole milk, reduced mat milk (2%), 1% milk, skim milk, buttermilk, lactose-free milk, evaporated milk, condensed milk, goat milk, and powdered milk. I grew up with whole milk, but all the others were added since then, except for buttermilk, which is only suitable for making pancakes. By the way, skim milk is not really milk; it is just whitish water.
Real milk was just one section in the milk aisle; then there were the plant-based options. They included almond milk, cashew milk, macadamia nut milk, coconut milk, hazelnut milk, hemp milk, oat milk, pea milk, rice milk, and soy milk (Soybean). This is an interesting list. I’ve noticed that several of these “milks” are made from nuts. How does Planters feel about that? Is it draining their supply for making cans of cocktail nuts? Then there is the hemp milk. Is this milk recycled from old ropes? I was not surprised to see soy milk. I think scientists can create anything from soybeans. I wonder if the trucks that ship soy milk are also made of soybeans?
We all can agree, there are many choices of plant-based milk products, but the choices do not end there. There are many varieties of plant-based milks. For instance, nut milks are sold as unsweetened (which leaves me to believe there is a sweetened version,) organic, vanilla bean, and a barista blend.
It felt as if I was standing in front of the milk section for about two days when I finally realized I had to make a choice of oat milk. If I was there that long, why didn’t my wife report me missing, or was that the purpose of sending me on this hopeless mission? As soon as I get home, I’ll have to ask, if she hasn’t changed the locks.
Did she want original oat milk, vanilla oat milk, or full-fat oat milk? I closed my eyes and reached for a carton. After I put the orange juice back in its place, I got her the vanilla oat milk and headed home.
I expected a hero’s welcome but once I showed her the carton of milk I had chosen, she just nodded and told me to put it in the refrigerator. I was crushed. I also realized that I had been gone for only about a half hour, and she really didn’t care which kind of oat milk I got, as long as it was oat milk.
I have made a concession in my life in an effort to reduce my cholesterol. I now only use 2% reduced fat milk on my Cheerios. For all of you saying I should be using 1% or skim milk, no lectures. It says “Reduced Fat Milk” on the carton; that’s enough for me.
I have left out some very important milk products in this writing, but it is understood that these are some of the most essential milks available. Chocolate milk, strawberry milk, eggnog and milkshakes are, by far, my favorite alternative milks, and they all go great with my Salerno Butter Cookies.
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