They are now advertising soy milk on television. It features a woman raving about how tasty soy milk is, and how glad she is that her boyfriend got her to try it. Since I like soymilk only slightly better than putting water on my cornflakes, I'm amazed that they are trying to take the stuff mainstream. I don't think I know anyone who actually likes soymilk--it's just that vegans and the lactose intolerant need something for their coffee and their cereal.
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Have you ever tried Rice Dream or any other rice-milk? I could never stand soy milk, but I like rice milk.
I use rice milk for cooking and almond milk for my coffee. If you haven't tried almond milk in coffee, you're missing a great thing.
I actually prefer vanilla soy over regular milk for my cereal. But I can't drink a glass of it straight to save my life.
Megan-
In my neck of the woods, a gallon of milk is quite close to $5 a gallon (half-gallons are around $2.79 or so). Soymilk is now cheaper than the real thing, as long as you stay away from name brands.
For those of us who just want something to wet our cereal, it does the job nicely. (I don't drink it straight)
Lastly, what you want is the SWEETENED soy milk, not the "regular" kind. A little bit of sugar goes a long, long way.
I can't stand regular milk, much preferring soy.
Soy milk is one of the main breakfast beverages for northern Chinese cuisine, but no one ever uses it as a substitute for dairy milk.
It's a similar situation with tofu - using it as a meat substitute is utterly foreign. (For meat substitutes, many Buddhists use wheat gluten.)
I think the trick to enjoyment of soy milk is to stop thinking of it as a milk substitute. It is its own drink.
The next trick is to figure out where you stand on the "beaniness" of your soy milk. If you like it beany, there are plenty of alternatives (most of the unrefrigerated boxes you find on the shelf). But for something smoother and milder, you need the stuff that comes in regrigerated cartons. Silk and Organic Valley are the brands I am familiar with (and the local grocery chain has a generic brand that tastes an awful lot like Silk, and might very well be Silk in a different package). Organic Valley is actually quite delicious. I prefer vanilla flavored over plain.
Note: I am lactose intolerant, so I do use soy milk as a milk substitute to some degree. I probably wouldn't have tried it if regular milk didn't make me sick. That said, I no longer view it as a necessary evil.
I had a coupon for Silk Soy Milk, so I bought a half-gallon of their vanilla flavor. I thought it was pretty good. Sort-of a cross between skim milk and eggnog.
I've never understood soy milk either. get a hold of some good milk and you won't let anything else pass your lips when it comes to dairy and dairy-like products.
I actually prefer vanilla soy over regular milk for my cereal. But I can't drink a glass of it straight to save my life.
Ditto. I fell out of the habit of milk-as-beverage long before I switched to soy, so the latter is an improvement in everything from cereal to milkshakes.
I have never tasted soymilk, but soy EGGNOG is amazing and fabulous and much less thick and cloying than regular store bought eggnog. I lov ethe stuff and drink it every year with abandon.
I tend to avoid soy products like the plague and that includes soy milk, tofu, meat like substitutes and the like.
Megan, there is potential for an interesting post on the history of the soy industry. In an extremely condensed version;
The current marketing of soy proteins as a healthy lifestyle choice is the invention of upscale marketers. Previously, soy beans were used to make oil extracts that were added to margarine and other processed foods. The left overs were used as animal feed, pet food and fertilizer but there were still left overs.
Around the 1970s soy was marketed to the middle and upper classes as a health food to invent a market for left over soy protein.
Soy isn't inherently healthful a food and in high doses (more than about 20 grams a day.) starts to produce odd effects on the body's hormone system by the presence of estrogen like substances.
I drink water and stopped eating breakfast cereal years ago. I would recommend almond milk.
Obviously, as a vegan, I eat a fair amount of soy. But I use rice or almond milk for my liquid needs.
And then some of us are allergic to soy. It's one of the Big-8 in terms of food allergies.
I love eating meat, have no plans to ever be vegan or vegetarian, and am not lactose intolerant. I also love soy milk. I often have a quart of soy milk as my breakfast.
I truly enjoy the taste of unsweetened silk brand soy milk. I drink it and use it on my cereal, i think it has a great sort-of-nutty flavor.
David S,
I've hear the statement that soy products contain estrogens that can affect body chemistry, but the doctor I consulted to research said that it was an estrogen polymer that will not affect body chemistry. Do you have any links to contradict or confirm? Thanks.
Soy milk is a rather poor marketing term. If you like milk, you will find soy milk a poor subsitute. It doesn't look, smell, or taste like milk. It is a decent vanilla drink, but it isn't milk.
McCardle, you must hang around the wrong crowd. I'll pound soymilk like it's fresh Newcastle. That stuff's delicious.
No vegan here, but I rather do like the taste of the 'heavy' soy milk that comes from the Asian food suppliers. I wouldn't use it as a milk substitute but as its own drink or an accessory to green tea, it's quite tasty.
I genuinely like soy. Really. Though I think I'd sip it, rather like Guinness.
I like the way she suggestively says in the ad: 'The first time I had Silk, ..."
I'm not a vegan, but I like soy milk. I used to enjoy it on my cereal until I saw TAXI DRIVER and was inspired to imitate Travis Bickle by putting peach brandy on my cornflakes. Now breakfast is even more fun.
Megan, first, is this vegan thing still just for lent, or is it permanent now?
Second, I understand that a lot of this desire to drink soy/rice/nut milk rather than dairy has its roots in what's come to be known as related the "paleolithic diet". More specifically, that it is in one's best interest, health-wise, to avoid any or most foods that would have been available before the advent of agriculture or livestock (the neolithic period). This of course assumes that humans as a species stopped evolving when the neolithic period began, and would be quite the contradiction for anyone who believes such and also claims adherence to Darwinian theory. Anyway, my question is, while we were never "meant" to drink milk beyond a certain age in the quantities we do, let alone another animal's milk, were we by the same token "meant" to drink the concentrated squeezings from a NUT, or the juice from a bean, both of which must be processed by means unheard of until long after the oft-praised paleolithic period's simplicity and innocence. While dairy is certainly fatty, I'd be curious to hear how the inherent iniquities compare, when pretty much all of these drinks are products of post-paleolithic modernization, and such advantages certainly afford us things like nonfat milk and the like.
Quasi permanent.
Vanilla Silk is good on cereal. I am also lactose intolerant but prefer Lactaid milk for other needs - it has the added benefit of lasting much longer than regular milk (which is good since I go through it so slowly).
I am a vegan and I don't like the taste of plain or vanilla soy milk. However, I love chocolate soy milk. I even put it on my cereal.
Wow, this post has really brought out the soymilk tastes good denialists. Must be the sort of issue that you get really loud about when you're on the weird side.
I'll plug lactaid for the lactose intolerant folks. It's fucking expensive, but really worth it to be able to eat cereal and drink chocolate milk again.
Since I'm being an absolute dick in this comment, I'll go ahead and say that milk is to be used in bad coffee.
Soy milk is an abomination. But it is the application of the word milk to the product that is especially egregious. Call it Soy Bean Juice, or Soy Slurry and at least one might approach it with expectations well lowered. It is awful, thus the heaps of sugar to help the nasty stuff go down that brand name versions employ. It's nastiness is beyond question, but tastes do differ. In Korea Soy Bean Juice is widely drunk for the refreshing joy of it. Of course, these are the same people who think that Red Bean Paste is something that belongs in a dessert, or on top of ice cream.
I couldn't live without regular milk. Soy milk, well, it's quaffable, but hardly transcendant, as they say.
Of course, these are the same people who think that Red Bean Paste is something that belongs in a dessert, or on top of ice cream.
I've seen red bean paste served on ice chips. It tastes...interesting, for lack of a better word. Not sure I'd eat it again.
One of my fondest memories from my hippie period was the time we made our own soy milk. We got some soy beans, cooked them up according to the recipe in an old book on homesteading (on a wood stove no less), pressed the beans, etc. The kicker was that at the end we had pretty passable soy milk...that tasted exactly like tofu. I think in that moment we all realized how much sweetener goes into the commercial stuff. Makes sense when you think about it. Those were some really good times.
Tofu, soy milk, decaf anything, alcohol-less beer (and wine!)... they will be bad as long as you look at them as substitutes for "the real thing". Perhaps it's sad that these things are called "[something] substitute", because this sets up expectations that will fail. They are simply a different things which you may or may not like in and of itself. I found I really like soy milk and tofu (yes, I enjoy a GLASS of soymilk, THERE!); I CANNOT stand decaf coffee (and for alcohol-less beer... don't get me started). I even recently managed to leave (milk) cheese behind (I never thought I would) and, later, independently, discovered I do like some (not all) of those things unfortunately called "soy cheese" (it's just a different stuff that I can add to my burritos). If you have dietary restrictions, whether out of choice or necessity, it's a plus if you like more of the foodstuffs that fall in your now smaller choice-set; but don't go looking for substitutes for what you don't eat anymore: they are NOT out there. Stick to the things you like in the new set and change the whole pattern when you don't: eat oatmeal, not cereal. Use the Force, Luke.
My wife (Chinese) has a little machine that makes soy milk from the dried beans.
It's just a process of soaking, cooking, soaking, cooking until it's soft enough to blend with the water, and then filter out the bits that didn't blend.
Tastes like... well mushed bean soup, but you can tell that the addition of sugar would make it like the commercial stuff.
I rather the stuff squeezed from cows myself. Or almonds.
Costco's Kirkland brand vanilla soy is awesome on cereal, so-so by itself. My Chinese wife much prefers it over regular milk as do a lot of (most?) Chinese. Cow milk is still a relatively recent introduction to their diet.
I can't stand pretty much all North American soy milk but the stuff I've had in Japan and Korea has been pretty good. On the other hand my sister loves Silk and she's far from being a vegan.
I like soy milk. More than cow milk, actually.
Then again, I grew up with it.
Put me in the "win" column with Korea Beat's sister and secret asian man, notwithstanding the fact that I like stuff that used to say 'moo.'
However, I only use it for (or as) beverage-type stuff; the thought of using it as a food ingredient kinda makes my psyche go *splat*.
Soy steamers are especially terrific iMO.
"I think the trick to enjoyment of soy milk is to stop thinking of it as a milk substitute. It is its own drink."
I agree, but I don't like the bean taste, either. I take it hot & salty, where the Chinese put in such things as pieces of Chinese yóutiáo (cruller), dried shrimp, chopped pickled mustard green, and hot oil.
...and they all throw up.
yes, I enjoy a GLASS of soymilk, THERE!
Some people's tastebuds here are clearly suffering under a false consciousness.