There’s no doubt that vegan substitute food options are rapidly emerging nowadays, but when you can’t use any part of the product you’re trying to replicate, just how close can you get to the real thing? Impossible/Beyond Meat, vegan cheese, and vegan butter are all very incredible foods that totally deserve their own post (maybe in the future? comment down below if either of those or just vegan substitutes in general sound like cool blog topics!), but today… I’m going to be reviewing none other than oat milk!

If you didn’t know, my dad is vegan. Ever since he adopted the diet a while ago, he has been constantly bringing in all sorts of alternatives to try. For example, he eats vegan yogurt in the morning to go with his usual “healthy” granola and fruit medley. My dad is also a big coffee person. It started with Starbucks, and then it moved to Philz, and now he makes his own every morning using the Chemex. His coffee drink is usually any sort of latte. With his vegan restrictions, he obviously can’t use animal milk, so he turns to the various plant based types out there for other options. At the beginning, he mainly used almond or soy milk for his “concoctions”, but ever since he discovered oat milk, that’s all he really uses anymore…

I actually didn’t try oat milk until a couple days ago. Surprised by how similar it tasted to animal milk, I thought it might be a worthy blog topic. If you drink oat milk, I’m sure you’re familiar with the brand, Oatly. If you don’t recognize it, or aren’t vegan, I highly recommend that you check it out. for starters, Oatly is one of the very first oat milks (also called oat drink) to appear in stores. It really nails the consistency of animal milk, while also providing just enough flavor to not place it in an entirely different category of drinks. The oat taste is fairly subtle, and despite previous beliefs, it didn’t feel “thick” or dense as I drank it. My mom is a big tea person, be that through boba or just normal earl grey, and she’s been starting to use Oatly as a substitution for her normal animal milk. The reason I’m promoting Oatly over other plant-based milks is because I feel like it is the most similar to what you would usually drink. That light, grainy flavor is just what you want.

For people hesitant about committing to a vegan diet, I think that it serves as a very good introduction into that. Maybe if you try drinking more Oatly, then later on it’ll be easier to “change over”. For someone who rarely drinks plant based milks, I was genuinely surprised by how delicious it was. And not only that, but also at how far the vegan products industry has come. The main reason for not going down that path in terms of diet is that the food that you previously ate is probably hard to let go of, but with new items like Oatly that really do get close to the non-vegan flavors, it gets me thinking, “Hey, maybe this isn’t so bad.” As you can see in the featured image, we also recently discovered a new oat milk brand called Malk that we greatly enjoyed as well. It’s pretty similar to Oatly, the only difference being that the oat flavor is a bit stronger in this brand.

In conclusion, oat milk is a great option is you’re vegan, and even if you’re not. I can definitely see its “oat-y” flavor appealing to certain people. While brands like Oatly and Malk are leading the charge, I would definitely keep your eye out for other companies trying to recreate this newly ubiquitous drink. If you have any other oat milk suggestions (or even other plant milk favorites), please do share them in the chat. Even though I’m not a vegan, I can imagine that one of the deterrents to eating that way is not having enough options. With lots of different products to try, one will more likely be able to ease into the diet by finding a couple “winners” that will stick with them all the way. So like I always say, go try oat milk! I’m sure you’d be surprised at how tasty a simple mixture of water and oats can be. Yes, a mixture of water and oats, but nevertheless, a mixture that is really inching closer and closer to the dream taste of animal milk. With lots of ways to incorporate this amazing drink into our meals without damaging the overall taste, you can’t help but think: “We’re almost there! We’re almost there…”