John Myers
Milk substitutes are more in demand than ever. Because milk and milk products are not compatible with everyone and also not justifiable from an ethical point of view. More and more people are therefore switching to milk substitutes. Milk, quark, cheese, cream, and many other dairy products of purely plant-based quality have long been available. We present you with suitable and extremely tasty recipes so that you can make it all yourself – for healthy dairy-free enjoyment.
Milk substitute to relieve the body
Basically, “milk substitute” is the wrong term, as it erroneously conveys the message that milk must be replaced in some way, which is not the case. A product that often does more harm than good and is basically not part of the natural diet of humans does not have to be replaced. On the contrary, you can be happy to finally be able to eliminate it from your diet and thus relieve your body.
What do I take instead…?
The problem here, however, is that we humans are extremely attached to our habits. You’re so used to dairy products that you think you can’t live without them or their taste. Anyone who decides to live dairy-free in the future therefore usually has the following questions:
- What do I put in my muesli instead of milk?
- What can I eat instead of yogurt and quark?
- How do I make a white sauce?
- What do I spread on my bread instead of butter?
- What do I use instead of cheese?
- You can’t do pasta without Parmesan! There is dairy-free parmesan.
- Can I stop eating tomatoes with mozzarella now?
- What should I give my children instead of cocoa/drinking chocolate?
- What do I do when the kids ask for Nutella?
- I can’t live without tiramisu, what can I use instead of mascarpone?
- How do I substitute whipped cream?
There is no milk “waiver”.
So it’s all about well-known culinary delights, without which one thinks one would be terribly unhappy and which should therefore definitely be replaced. Anyone who has always had muesli with milk for breakfast usually wants to continue doing so. Anyone who ate yogurt in the afternoon often cannot imagine not doing it anymore. Consequently, alternatives are needed!
The recipes that we present below as milk substitutes have enormous advantages. This means going dairy-free is a real win: first, you’re avoiding potential dairy health risks, second, you may now be learning about whole new (and very healthy) foods and uses, and third, you’re now stopping supporting the cruel dairy industry.
So you don’t have to do without milk! Because “renunciation” is associated with making sacrifices. But if you stop consuming dairy products in the future, you can only win! There is no sign of a victim far and wide.
Live healthier with milk substitutes
What is interesting here is that as soon as you start avoiding milk and dairy products, you will usually automatically eat many times healthier than before. Aside from those below under “Why no milk?” Despite the listed benefits of a dairy-free life, dairy products are often sweetened with sugar, laced with flavorings and other unnecessary food additives, preserved in various ways, and generally highly industrialized.
However, the milk replacement products we recommend are either available in high quality from organic retailers or can be prepared from just a few ingredients – without much effort. They are therefore firstly natural, secondly free of sugar and synthetic food additives, and thirdly always fresh and delight with the highest possible vital substance content of high-quality raw materials.
You should not buy the products presented below in a conventional supermarket. They are usually of poor quality there, contain many unnecessary additives, and do not taste that good either.
Milk has only been used for 7000 years
Usually only what came first needs to be replaced. Milk, however, has only been consumed by us humans for a few thousand years. The first indications of targeted milk production and processing in Europe date back to 5,000 BC. BC), which, given the history of mankind spanning several million years, undoubtedly indicates that life without milk is quite conceivable and was considered completely normal by our ancestors.
Was milk once a substitute for other foods?
Nuts, almonds, chestnuts, and seeds – compared to milk – existed in the earliest times and it can be assumed that drinks, porridge, pies, fermented dishes, etc. were made from them. were made long before people drank milk and used it to make cheese, yogurt, etc.
It is possible that milk once replaced an important part of the original food with the beginning of agriculture and animal husbandry. If we “replace” the milk now, we’re just going back to the old natural diet.
However, in order to adapt this diet to today’s modern times for reasons of practicability, we allow ourselves to replace the mortar with the mixer and to integrate some commercially available products (e.g. yogurt ferments), which certainly did not exist in the time of our non-milk-drinking ancestors, which, however, significantly reduce the preparation time and thus facilitate implementation.
Why should I use a milk substitute?
There are many reasons for limiting milk consumption. Therefore, only a short summary follows:
- Milk is infant formula
Milk is baby food and so adults have – by nature – neither a reason nor a physiological need to drink milk, let alone milk of any other kind.
- Milk protein often leads to health problems
Many people (unknowingly) do not tolerate the milk protein and develop symptoms such as chronic digestive problems (including irritable bowel syndrome), allergies, skin rashes (including neurodermatitis, and eczema), chronic sinusitis, frequent colds, ear infections, congestion in the respiratory tract, etc.
- Milk doesn’t make strong bones
Milk does contain calcium, but healthy bones need far more than calcium and so milk cannot compensate for a lack of exercise or chronic vitamin D deficiency (due to lack of sunlight).
- Milk can promote cancer
Milk and milk products contain growth hormones to ensure rapid growth in the calf, which can weigh several hundred kilograms within a few weeks. In adult humans, however, these hormones can promote the growth of some cancer cells.
- Industrial milk production is unethical
The milk production of the modern agricultural industry actually spoils the appetite for milk and milk products alone: performance breeding, stable housing, non-specific performance feed, dehorning, hormone administration, artificial insemination, medicines against chronic inflammation and the fact that the calf is usually separated from the mother immediately after birth are not only unacceptable for a living creature, but also lead to premature exhaustion of the dairy cow and consequently to the slaughterhouse after only a few years.
- Industrial processing of milk
After mechanical milking, the milk is cooled, stirred, separated, centrifuged, pasteurized, homogenized, and pressed under pressure through many hundreds of meters of pipelines until it is bottled.
A food (breast milk), which was originally intended to be drunk by the baby at body temperature, is being falsified and changed here in such a way that only a good portion of ignorance can lead to the mistaken belief that milk is a natural food.
If no milk, then what?
Eliminating milk from your personal diet or drastically reducing its proportion is therefore a wonderful idea – for both humans and cows. But what to do if you really like eating yogurt, drinking cocoa, and cheese?
Quite simply: You continue to eat yogurt, drink cocoa and enjoy cheese – only you choose different – namely dairy-free – raw materials for all these dishes.
Almonds, nuts (macadamia nuts, cashew nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, etc.), and seeds (sesame, sunflower seeds, hemp seed, etc.) or oatmeal and rice can be used to conjure up a wide variety of milk and cheese-like dishes in no time at all. The health effects are not long in coming.
Healthy oat milk made from gluten-free organic oats
Oat milk often contains oils, thickeners, and flavorings. You can therefore easily make your own oat milk. But if that’s too time-consuming for you, reach for Unmilk’s organic oat drink powder. It consists only of gluten-free oats, nothing else. Add a few scoops to a bottle of water, shake the bottle and you have delicious oat milk.
Dairy-free drinking chocolate
Conventional drinking of chocolate is often quite high in sugar. If you are used to the strong sweetness, it will take a few days to get used to the natural sweetness of milk-free drinking chocolate. However, the adjustment is worth it. After that, you won’t like the normal chocolate drinks anymore. They are much too sweet for you, and you will only now realize how excessively sweet they are.
Ingredients:
Almond milk from Basic Recipe #1 or #2 (if hot chocolate is desired, make almond milk with hot water)
½ – 1 tbsp unsweetened pure cocoa powder or – if you like – carob powder
Preparation:
Blend in blender and serve immediately.
Vegan butter and margarine
The margarine Bio-Alsan tastes very similar to butter, i.e. less like margarine than many other kinds of margarine, and can therefore be easily transformed into a vegan herb butter. You can also easily make your own margarine from just three ingredients. This can be used wonderfully for baking.
But you can also quickly conjure up a butter-like, delicious spread from white almond butter, as the following recipe shows:
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons white almond butter
1 tsp lemon juice or organic apple cider vinegar
1 pinch of crystal salt
Preparation:
Mix all the ingredients in a bowl until you get a firm mass.
Vegan Olive Butter
A fine, spreadable butter can also be conjured up from olive oil, which is particularly good in the salted version as a hearty spread.
Ingredients:
High-quality organic olive oil, e.g. B. 50 ml
Some herbs or sea salt
Preparation:
Place the oil in a freezer-safe bowl. Salt the oil as desired and place in the freezer for an hour. Take out the now spreadable oil and use it immediately before eating, as the olive butter will quickly become liquid again.
Dairy-free chocolate spread
Conventional so-called nut nougat spreads only consist of small parts of cocoa. Nuts are also hardly included. Instead, the spreads consist of lots of sugar, low-grade fat, and skimmed milk powder. A chocolate spread, on the other hand, made from really pure and high-quality ingredients is a real treat that you can indulge in with a clear conscience.
Ingredients:
5 tablespoons white almond butter
4-5 tbsp cocoa powder
A sweetener of your choice, e.g. B. pitted dates mixed with some orange juice to a syrup-like consistency, a date syrup (amount according to personal taste)
Preparation:
Mix all ingredients thoroughly and enjoy.
Dairy-free yogurt
Yogurt is probably one of the most commonly consumed cow’s milk products and one of the most popular snacks of our time. Dairy-free, i.e. plant-based yogurt is best made from soy milk. With all other plant-based drinks, you can achieve the yogurt taste with the yogurt ferments, but you have to choose a thickening agent for thickening because the consistency is not typical of yogurt.
Special yogurt cultures, which are available in health food stores or in online shops, are suitable as a starter culture. However, not all starter cultures can be used for plant-based milk. The packaging must explicitly state that the starter cultures are suitable for soy milk or other types of milk.
Dairy-free yogurt in the yogurt vending machine
Since the success of yogurt preparation can often depend on the type of yogurt machine and even the weather, specific recipes are hardly possible. In this case, own experiments are almost unavoidable. The following recipe can serve as a guide, but instructions are usually included with the yogurt machine/maker. Yogurts are particularly easy to make in the My. Yo yogurt maker, which works without electricity.
Ingredients:
1 l of plant-based milk (e.g. almond milk, cashew milk, or a mixture of e.g. almond milk and coconut milk) at room temperature
1 tsp agar-agar (usually not necessary if you use soy milk)
1 sachet of yogurt starter culture for soy milk or plant-based milk, e.g. B. the yogurt ferments from Mine.
Preparation:
Mix the starter culture with 100ml of your chosen plant-based milk and stir well. Leave the mixture.
Now put another 200 ml plant-based milk in a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Sprinkle in the agar-agar while stirring constantly with a whisk to prevent the agar-agar from clumping.
Let the mixture boil for half a minute, then simmer for another 1.5 minutes while stirring. Only now do you remove the pot from the stove.
Pour the remaining 700ml of the milk into the milk-agar-agar mixture. The result should now only be lukewarm, i.e. have a body temperature (of approx. 37 degrees). If it’s too hot, wait.
Only then add the milk-starter culture mixture and stir.
Now pour the mass into your yogurt maker and leave it there (10 to 16 hours) until the yogurt has the right taste and the desired consistency.
It is then placed in the refrigerator, where it often becomes even firmer in consistency.
Dairy-free yogurt without a yogurt machine
However, yogurt can also be made without a yogurt machine. Here you will find our recipe for almond yogurt (with yogurt ferment). The Kanne bread drink is also a very good starter culture, a probiotic drink that can also be used very well in dressings instead of vinegar. You can use the following recipe to make yogurt with Kanne Brottrunk:
Ingredients:
100 g macadamia nuts, cashew nuts, or peeled almonds
2 tbsp white almond butter
65 ml Kanne Brottrunk (from the health food store or health food store)
100 g light flax seeds (soaked in 3/8 liter of water for 10 hours)
Preparation:
Put the flaxseed mass in a fine hair strainer and let the viscous liquid drain off, which can take an hour (only the slime of the soaked flaxseed is used for this recipe, not the flaxseed itself).
Puree the nuts with the bread drink in the blender to a thick cream. Then add the flaxseed mucilage and the white almond butter to the nut and bread drink cream in the blender, mix briefly, pour the finished yogurt into glasses or bowls, and put it in the fridge for 3 to 4 hours.
This yogurt is also a wonderful intestinal-friendly food because the flaxseed mucilage has a healing effect on the intestinal mucosa and the Kanne Brottrunk provides plenty of probiotic lactic acid bacteria for healthy intestinal flora.
Vegan cream cheese
Dairy-free/vegan cream cheese is particularly easy to make. The following cream cheese* goes well on bread, with crackers, with salads, or with steamed vegetables.
Ingredients:
200 g ground macadamia nuts (e.g. in a blender)
sea-salt
Pot of Bread Drink
Herbs, onions, and spices as desired
Preparation:
Season the ground nuts with sea salt. Add teaspoonfuls of Kanne Brottrunk until you get a malleable mass.
Now the basic recipe can be refined to your heart’s content, e.g. B. with chopped fresh wild garlic, onions, chives, peppercorns, paprika powder, and/or fresh pieces of paprika, chili, oregano, etc. The cheese will keep in the fridge for at least a week.
Vegan cream cheese made from almond butter
Making cream cheese from almond butter is even easier:
Ingredients:
150 g white almond butter
1 tablespoon of bread drink or raw sauerkraut juice
Preparation:
Mix both ingredients in a blender to form a cream. Pour the cream into a bowl and leave it in a warm place for about 15 hours (overnight). Then season the cream to taste with herb, rock or crystal salt, chives, oregano, dill, etc.
Dairy-free spread and sauce base
Cream cheese-like, purely plant-based spreads are also available ready-made for kitchen grouches and people in a hurry in well-stocked natural food stores, e.g. B. Streich von Zwergenwiese. This is made from sunflower seeds and offers many deliciously creamy variations, e.g. B. with wild garlic, chives, horseradish, paprika, curry, and many more.
Spread is not only delicious as a dip, filling, and spread, but is also suitable (diluted with a little water or vegetable stock) as a salad dressing or sauce base.
Vegan ice cream
If you fancy ice cream, it can also be easily made vegan and, above all, in healthy quality, e.g. B. show our three cherry ice cream recipes. In the simplest variant, frozen fruits are mixed until creamy and sweetened if desired, as well as with e.g. B. ginger, cocoa, or lemon finely flavored.
You can make the healthy ice cream even creamier with white almond butter, as in our pineapple ice cream recipe, which you can find here with lots of additional information on basic ice cream.
