Vegan Milk Taste Test

When I first became vegan, at age 12 there was no vegan milk to be found!  I lived in a rural area with small town grocery stores, so that could have been part of it.  I used to put water on my breakfast cereal.  I know that sounds terrible, but I actually got used to it and didn't mind.  Imagine my excitement when I first found Rice Milk!  It was such a delicious delicacy.  Also Rice Ice cream! It was such a treat.  I found soy milk a few years later when I was in high school.  I appreciated soy milk as it contained way more protein than rice milk.  I used to make delicious banana smoothies with my yummy soy milk.  Now there are vegan milks everywhere, and there is so much variety!  Rice milk, coconut milk, oat milk, almond milk, soy milk, cashew milk, sweetened, unsweetened, vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and a variety of brands.... it puts my days of water on my cereal to shame!

As my children transition from drinking cow's milk to vegan milk, I wonder what their taste preferences will be ...

Blind Taste Test

I provided my kids with 7 different types of vegan milks: Soy, oat, rice, almond, coconut, cashew and a blend of cashew/hazelnut/almond.  I didn't tell them which was which, and I had them taste them all and rank them by taste alone.  Note: I do not buy sweetened milks.  I refuse to have my kids drink milk with added sugars.  So all of the milks were unsweetened, some were vanilla flavoured.

Blind Taste Test Results

3/4 kids selected soymilk as their favourite tasting milk. Only G liked rice milk the best with soy as his second choice.  Soy clearly came out the favourite, followed by a close (almost) tie for second: oat and rice.  Almond was tolerated.  Cashew milk was frowned upon and coconut didn't even make the pie chart as they all hated it.  My favourite (based on flavour) was oat milk! Yum!

Now I have the dilemma of washing all those glasses and attempting to fit 7 cartons of vegan milk into my already-stuffed-full fridge.  Also, unfortunately someone spilled a carton of blueberries on the floor.