Is making your own plant milk healthier than buying it?
Maybe.
But healthier wasn’t the main factor that turned me into the mom who makes her own oat milk. I mentioned in our recent post about plant milk that I started making my kids’ milk because there are just too many ingredients in most store-bought brands and it was too hard to isolate what was upsetting my daughter’s tummy.
Making milk at home gives you control over what goes into your kid’s body. You don’t need sweeteners or thickeners or preservatives. Making your own milk gives you the freedom to leave some of the pulp in for added fiber. You get to decide what kind of fat and how much of it you want in your kids’ milk. You can adjust your recipe to meet your family’s changing nutritional needs. And homemade plant milk just tastes so fresh and wholesome, so there’s that.
Homemade milk isn’t a solution for everyone, though.
Because homemade milks are usually low in calories, fat, and protein, and they are not fortified, they lack essential nutrition for growing bodies. If you want the wholesome vibes of house-made oat milk, but you’ve got babies in the house, make sure your kids are getting enough calcium, DHA, b12, fat, protein, and vitamin D.
It can feel a little overwhelming at first to figure out how to make sure babies and toddlers are getting everything they need, but it doesn’t have to be. You can introduce plant-based milks to babies older than one year of age without removing anything else from their diet. You don’t have to take cow’s milk or baby formula out to put a homemade plant milk in.
Nicole gives her daughter a 50/50 blend of homemade hemp milk and organic, whole cow’s milk. The homemade plant milk diversifies her diet and provides extra fiber that Nicole has found really helps regulate her daughter’s digestion. The cow’s milk adds calories and covers all the essential nutrients.
Until my daughters were 18 months old, I had them on a mix of breast milk and a plant-based pediatric sole-source nutrition formula—per our gastroenterologist’s recommendation. Around the time they turned 18 months, I ran out of breast milk and started making oat milk at home. The girls were eating enough solid food that—in collaboration with their health care providers—I opted to give them just homemade oat milk fortified with flax oil.
Because we follow a mostly plant-based diet which can lack b12 and DHA, I supplement the twins’ diet with b12, vitamin D, and this Nordic Naturals fish oil supplement for DHA. We get b12, DHA, and vitamin D from our food, but I like the safety net supplements provide in this season of rapid growth and development.
Want to make your own plant milk?
Some people use a high-powered blender to make plant-based milks, but I’ve found that an actual plant-milk maker makes much creamier milk. Nicole and I use the Miomat plant milk maker.* (Use the code plantmilkproject for $15 off.)
We chose Miomat because of its large capacity and because it blends your milk at the perfect temperature for the specific milk you’re making. While oat milks and soy milks are cooked, nut milks are better kept raw to preserve nutrients like zinc.
With the Miomat, you don’t have to remember which milks are cooked and which aren’t—you just select your milk type and it turns your soybeans or oats into a creamy beverage. The Miomat also comes with a much-loved cookbook full of milk recipes, porridge recipes, and smoothie recipes. It’s a great starting point for getting more plants into your kids and it’s very easy to clean. (We know you were wondering about that.)
Nicole’s staple plant milk recipe:
1/2 cup of organic rolled oats
1/4 organic hemp seeds
1/3 cup of organic cashews soaked overnight
1/4 cup of flax oil
2 dates, pitted
Laura’s staple oat milk recipe:
⅓ cup of organic rolled oats
⅓ cup of unsweetened coconut
3 tablespoons of flax oil
For both recipes, put all ingredients in the Miomat and fill with water to the 1300ml line. Select the cereal milk setting. When the Miomat beeps, strain the milk into a large measuring cup using the included mesh strainer. The milk can be stored in a glass bottle with a top for 2 to 3 days. If your kids don’t mind a bit of texture in their milk, add a couple of teaspoons of the pulp back into the milk for extra fiber.
I love homemade plant milk because it’s clean and delicious, and I love it because it gives my daughters a better quality of life than dairy did. I know better than to declare it the right choice for every kid, though. Your kid needs fat, protein, calcium, DHA, and b12 before they need any kind of dietary or moral ideal. In the same breath, the way a kid eats when they are two years old is the biggest predictor of how they will eat when they are 20, so if we can introduce our kids to clean, whole foods in as many forms as possible, we’re doing our part to nurture a new generation of people who know and love real food.
*affiliate link
Comments are closed.