Ethical porridge?

[Spindelina]

I'm a bowl of porridge in the morning person. I don't like it with just water, but I want to reduce my dairy consumption and this is a prime target.

I'm guessing that transporting mostly water in a (possibly refrigerated) tetrapak isn't brilliant (better than a plastic bottle of milk?). I'm wondering if there's a dried / concentrated product of some description. Or just long life soya milk? Or grind up some hazelnuts and soak them??

I'm letting the best be the enemy of the good here and have so far avoided actually doing anything! Any comments?

Milk & more
Glass bottles of organic milk delivered

You can make your own nut milks but I think it's quite time consuming. You need to blitz the nuts and then strain them through muslin cloths with water.
I made my own cashew cream once and it was very nice.
I just use almond milk. I get about a weeks worth of porridge out of one 1 litre carton. I buy the long life stuff and then keep it in the fridge once it's open. It lasts for ages when it has been opened as well, much longer than cows milk, over two weeks.

I've done cashew milk before and yes it is time consuming.

But I'm wondering if all I want it for is porridge, I don't need to strain it. So I can just biltz nuts and soak them. I think I'm going to give that a go.

I'm going for hazelnuts on food miles grounds. Is that right?

Make your own oat milk?

Or a spoonful of nut butter. That's basically the same thing, right? But avoids me doing the blitzing.

What's oat milk going to give me that porridge made with water doesn't?

I don't know, my husband uses oat milk for his porridge and overnight oats and says it the best of all the non-dairy milk he's used.

Might give that a go too then.

Can't you just use powdered milks?

A lot of non dairy milks have a huge water consumption in their manufacturing, which is awful. www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-46654042

Fwiw I make porridge with water, and stir in a mashed banana and a teaspoon of peanut butter. It's very creamy as is.

If you soak the oats in water overnight, and then cook them fairly slowly, they produce beautifully creamy porridge without any kind of milk.

Another thing to try could be buying the little uht cartons of oat cream and then watering down. You'd get a lot more oat milk for less packaging but still the benefit of the added vitamins.

Honeysuckle that's why I haven't already done this! No perfect answer. Is a spoonful of powdered cows milk lower carbon than a spoonful of hazelnut butter??

Bike I really want to say I could do that. But 90 secs in the microwave while I referee is realistically what's going to happen.

INeed actually, watering anything down would help! I'm not vegan atm so not too worried about vitamins (though might head that way).

Right. Tomorrow's oats with half milk half water are soaking in the fridge.

If you gradually reduce the amount of milk, you won't notice. I now find full milk porridge far too rich.

I often soak nuts and blitz them for porridge - no need to strain them. Dessicated coconut also makes creamy porridge if you like the taste.

Bike is right, you really don't need any milk when you do that. It makes the best porridge, use a whisk and a stove. It's probably using the microwave that makes your porridge in need of milk. Maybe make it in the evening and then just heat it. I love my GF oats cold after soaking in cold filtered water. Sometimes with ground almonds and molasses.

I use coconut milk. I open a can and use a couple of spoons, then I use some the next day and freeze the remaining in an ice cube tray and add two cubes to my cooking porridge.

You could also try making it with protein powder.