Did you know most "convenience" foods that we buy in the store to save us time can actually be quick and easy to make from scratch? My husband and I made the switch from dairy (organic whole milk) to organic almond milk a few months back, after noticing that we both get congested and break out when we eat too much dairy. For those of you that know me, you know how much I love my cheese, but I have cut back on it drastically and have noticed such a difference! And now when I do eat dairy, I have a sinus headache for days afterwards... so fast forward to almond milk. We decided not to go the soy milk route, since soy is almost always GMO, and is very inflammatory to the body (if it is fermented, then it is not inflammatory but actually very good for you- yay miso!). So we settled on almond milk, and I bought a few of cartons of organic almond milk and I was excited to make the switch. Now, normally I am a label reading fiend in the grocery store, but perhaps that day I was off my game, and when I came home I realized that not only do the cartons have BPA in them (duh) but my almond milk listed carrageenan as an ingredient (mainly used as a stabilizer and a preservative, sourced from algae), which is a very controversial ingredient that has been linked to severe digestive complaints and disorders as well as cancer. As you know, I have an auto immune disease, and many doctors believe that the cause of all auto immune diseases is leaky gut (abrasions and holes in the gut lining that allow food particles to pass from the gut to the blood stream and are then attacked by the immune system as invaders that then leads to an auto immune response any time that substance is ingested, basically). and I try to avoid anything that is a known gut irritant while I am trying to heal my gut (which I am trying to do as I write this). Therefore packaged almond milk was not an option, so I poked around the internet and found out that almond milk is crazy easy to make on your own! so without further ado, here is the recipe:
You will need:
a blender
a mesh "nut bag" or cheesecloth
almonds
Simply soak a quantity of almonds over night in a large pot that is filled with enough water to cover all the nuts. The amount of almonds you need will vary on your usage of the almond milk, but remember since it's fresh it's best to make a smaller amount every few days since it will go bad after a week or so in the fridge. After the almonds have soaked (about 8 hrs), put them into a blender and add water (you also have to play with this ratio of almonds to water, depending on how thick you like your milk to be- more water, thinner milk) and blend away. When it is all blended up and nice and smooth, place a pot or a pourable container on your counter and pour the almond slurry into your nut bag or cheese cloth over the pot/container, and squeeze the liquid almond milk (milk the bag!) out of the nut bag into the container. You will have a lot of left over almond meal when you have milked all of your milk out, which I use for cooking (pies and tarts are super yummy with almond meal crusts) or we give it to our chickens who love it, and you will have a fresh batch of almond milk with only two ingredients: almonds and water! No preservatives or BPA to worry about, and it only takes 5 minutes to do the "milking". Voila!
I hope you try making this at home, and remember, you can use any nut you want- cashew, hazelnut... I am sure if you wanted to get fancy you could get hemp seeds or flax seeds and do the same thing to them. Let me know what you think!
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