Many people are surprised when they learned that vegans do not consume any dairy product. I guess for some years, due to the propaganda of the dairy industry, most people come to believe they must have milk for stronger bones. Though, many recent studies on milk consumption and osteoporosis have proved the opposite. Of course, just as nutrition is a dynamic field, there is no definite answer to this issue yet.

As I believe that people choose their diet based on their personal preference, childhood experience, eating habit, economical status, shopping habit, awareness of health, education etc, there is no single one choice that is suitable for every one. But for us who do have an open mind and have the means to choose other alternatives, I would like to provide a few reasons for doing so:

If you are lactose intolerant or if you’re allergic, drinking milk doesn’t provide you necessary nutrients, instead, it might cause you great discomfort, and the diarrhea is also likely going to take away some nutrients from you body.

If you’re really concerned about the environment, you probably heard that factory farming contributes a great deal to the green house gas emissions, much more than all the transportation combined. So keeping cows for milk production is not very environment friendly.

If you’re compassionate about animals, after you learned how the milk is produced commercially, you probably want to think twice before you buy a carton.

At least, that last reason was how I decided not to consume dairy any more. I used to love dairy ice-cream and some cheeses (such as Mozzarella), but when I learned that cows have to be artificially inseminated constantly to produce milk, and their babies are taken away from them to make veal steaks, I just felt it's difficult to continue consuming those products without feeling uneasy that I am also a part contributing to the cruel conduct that I don’t support.

So I decided to make a change and looked for alternatives. This opened a whole new world to me. Besides the most common alternative soy milk, I also found lots of others, such as coconut milk, nut milk, seed milk and grain milk (rice milk, quinoa milk, barley milk… oh, you name it). Many of those alternatives are already available in ordinary supermarkets. In Sweden, for instance, it's very easy to buy soy milk, oat milk, hazelnut milk, coconut milk and pea protein milk in the supermarket. But if you can't find them where you live, as long as you have a blender, it’s very easy to make them at home.

Kitchen Gadgets: Blender

Ingredients

• 1 cup (250ml) of mixed nuts and seeds (almonds, walnuts, cashews, pistachios, pecans, macadamia nuts, brazil nuts, peanuts etc, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds etc)
• 1 liter (1000ml) of water

Instructions

1. Soak nuts and seeds in a bowl and cover them with enough water and place it in the fridge over night.
2. Discard the soaking water and rinse the nuts and seeds in a fine sieve.
3. Throw them with 1 liter of water into the blender, and blend until they’re creamy and smooth.
4. If you want extra fine milk, filter the residue with cheese cloth. You can mix the leftover into a pancake batter or muffins. Otherwise, drink it as it is! I like whole foods and I don't like to waste food, so I do drink all of it!