Simple Homemade Oat Milk Recipe

Until a few years ago I loved drinking cow’s milk, sometimes I would even buy the full fat stuff because I loved it so much. I had it everyday on my cereal, in my tea and it was even my hangover cure during those wild and ever so long-ago university days. It was not until I watched the documentary What the Health by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn that I began understanding more about the impact cow’s milk had on my body but also on the environment; I had always suffered with acne and as I watched the documentary go into detail about the strain producing milk has on our environment and our health, I decided to stop drinking cows milk and turned to plant based milks. My go to is usually soya milk as it is easily available from my local supermarket and seems to be one of the cheapest plant-based milks. I have always loved the idea of making my own milk but always thought it was time consuming and difficult. How wrong I was! I made my first batch of oat milk within a couple of minutes. Before I show you my step by step process, I have researched further into the benefits of switching to oat milk.

Benefits on your skin & body

Helps lower cholesterol

Oat milk is high in fibre as well as beta-gluten which has a huge range of health benefits including binding itself to LDL (bad) cholesterol. Some studies show that by consuming oats daily, you can reduce your LDL cholesterol by 5%-7%.

Boosts skin health

Oats can be a great moisturiser for your skin because of its ability to bind with water, secondly its Lipid and proteins content have great smoothing and softening qualities. It can help against acne and anti-ageing and is a natural anti-inflammatory. Basically, its just amazing for your skin.

Benefits for the environment

It’s not news to us that dairy milk has a huge impact on the environment, Cows are one of the biggest causes of greenhouses gases; It is estimated that cows produce about 20% of methane gas generated per year and according to the World Wildlife Fund, there are around 270 million dairy cows in the world, that is a lot of methane being released into the atmosphere. You can see why there has been an increase in people switching to plant-based milks in an effort to reduce our carbon emissions. Dairy cows require large amounts of water to keep hydrated and to ensure healthy milk production, it is estimated that cows will need to consumer between 30-50 gallons of water per day. This means it takes about 4.5 pounds of water to make just 1 pound of milk.

Plant based milks do not come without their own impact on the environment, as many of plant based ingredients may need to travel long distances to reach your fridge and plant based products also need a lot of processing power. Almond milk requires 6 times the amount of water to grow than oats. Soy beans have also had an impact on deforestation in some areas as demand for these grow. In some instances, the packaging that plant based milk comes in cannot be recycled, having a further impact on our environment. It is important to remember that everything we eat has an impact on our environment; although plant based milks have their share of carbon footprint, they are still regarded as a more sustainable option than cows milk and Oat Milk is one of the most sustainable options.

How to Make Your Own Oat milk

What you need:

• 1 cup of oats
• 4 cups of water
• Food processor
• Cotton bag or a piece of cotton cloth