When Imagine Foods released their flagship product, Rice Dream, onto the market in the early 80s, it was a blessing to many vegans and people with lactose intolerance. When I was a young vegan, there were few processed foods marketed toward folks of my ilk, so every one that appeared on the shelves was worth taking note of. Vegetarian and vegan products have become big business in the 21st century – big enough for Hain Celestial to decide it would be profitable to acquire Imagine Foods back in 2002. Few people understood what this change in power represented, on an ethical level. Even now, it may come as a big surprise to you to learn….
If you buy Rice Dream products, you are supporting Wal-Mart, ExxonMobil, Philip Morris and the worst of them all – Monsanto.
Yes, Monsanto, Wal-Mart, ExxonMobil and Philip Morris are all stockholders in Hain Celestial – hardly exemplars of natural, organic or healthy living. Ethical Americans would rather go thirsty than buy a Monsanto-supported product. As the inventors of Agent Orange, DDT and RoundUp, as the corporation whose grand GMO plan is to force all food-consuming beings to have to crawl to them for sustenance, no other entity has a blacker name in the history of mankind.
Corporate interests go where the money is, and so when organic and vegetarian products became profitable, the pollution of these healthy industries with sinister stockholders and alliances was really almost inevitable. Fortunately, you still have the power of your choice, and if health foods companies choose to be bought out by ‘the enemy’, you can respond by withdrawing your dollar and doing it yourself. You can learn how to make rice milk, or any other kind of healthy milk. *Recipe to follow.
If Imagine Foods/Hain Celestial’s ugly alliances aren’t reason enough for you to stop handing them part of your paycheck every month, then maybe a closer look at a Rice Dream label will give you cause for pause. For years, I purchased Rice Dream Enriched Vanilla Rice Milk. I probably read the label the first time I bought it, long ago, and never thought about it again for many years. It was just a few years ago that an ingredient caught my eye and surprised me as it should have in the first place. The ingredient? Natural flavors
Natural Flavors Are Not Natural
The valueless substances listed as natural or artificial flavors are mainly manufactured in giant space-age laboratories off the New Jersey Turnpike. Adding these totally worthless chemicals to food is a way to trick human beings into thinking a substance has a good taste. A natural flavor chemist could hand you a piece of cardboard chemically flavored to taste like an apple pie and your innocent taste buds would likely be deceived to the point that you’d eat the cardboard.
Natural flavors are used to make poor quality processed foods seem to taste good, effectively masking the true taste of whatever the product is. International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) is the world’s biggest producer of these deceptive chemicals, and when you consider the fact that they are also responsible for putting the smell into floor polish, detergents, cleaners and other products, you may lose your appetite, but gain back a little bit of your power to enjoy foods that taste like themselves instead of a chemical additive.
The technical difference between a ‘natural flavor’ and an ‘artificial flavor’ is that the chemicals in the so-called natural one had to derive from a real food at some point in its history. There is no meaningful nutritional value, wholesomeness or reason for the addition of these unwanted chemicals in your food. Good food doesn’t need to play tricks to be palatable, so what is that ‘natural flavor’ doing in Rice Dream Enriched Vanilla Rice Milk?
I wrote to the company and asked about this some years ago, and received a form response explaining that Hain Celestial does not add MSG to Rice Dream. I hadn’t asked about MSG. I’d asked about the exact chemicals they were putting in the milk. Basically, they wouldn’t tell me. In comparing Rice Dream’s Original package to Rice Dream’s Vanilla package, I noticed that the chemicals were absent from the former label, and came to my own conclusion that the chemicals being put in the Vanilla product were phony vanilla. Rather than investing in real vanilla beans (which are costly), Hain Celestial had decided to trick my taste buds with a chemical substitute, I decided.
I wasn’t too happy about this, or about their response to my very clear and polite inquiry, but this company’s products had been a staple in my household for so long, I chose to switch to the Original (natural flavor free) Rice Dream. I sat with that decision for about a year, until I learned about the Monsanto connection and decided that I had to stop giving my hard earned money to these folks.
More than this, a move away from Rice Dream rice milk would be in alignment with our family’s goals to become ever more skilled at self-sufficiency. We are working to reskill ourselves so that we are capable of producing as much of what we need as possible, as our incredibly skilled ancestors did. Reskilling yourself could involve learning to cook, sew, farm, weave, make baskets, do carpentry, preserve foods or even build your own house. Some of those projects are big ones, obviously, but as it turns out, making your own rice milk is about as easy as making a smoothie in the blender. This is a do-it-yourself project that anyone can do!
Still Not Sure?
As I learn to be more skilled, part of that process involves seeing my daily bread with new eyes. I wonder about the farmer who grew the organic blueberries we bought this week because I was really craving some fresh fruit and our own berries aren’t ripe yet. I wonder about the cloth I’m making a quilt with and promise myself that if my family needs another quilt, I will find a supplier of organic Non-GMO cotton fabric for the next one. I think about all of the bottled water I used to buy, and the unknown source of it, the scary plastic surrounding it, and thousands of my dollars going into the pocket of the Nestle corporation because I was buying Arrowhead. It may seem like a burden to some to have to be concerned about all of these details, but I consider it a blessing to be able to find knowledge that helps me to make choices that align with my personal values. I’m glad that knowledge is out there.
If the Monsanto connection isn’t enough, if the phony chemical tastes factor isn’t enough, then maybe you ought to ask yourself a couple questions about the other ingredients in Rice Dream’s non-dairy milks.
1) Where does the rice come from? It says it’s organic, but where is it actually from? The USA, China, India? I, for one, have been completely freaked out by the imported foods coming into our grocery stores from China where there is no meaningful oversight and human sewage is used to fertilize fields.
2) Where does the water come from? Water is becoming a totally serious issue for everyone on the planet now. When my Native ancestors walked the earth, all water sources were relatively pure and fit for human consumption. Drink from a stream in the USA now and you are likely to get deadly sick, or even die. Not only this, but municipal water sources treat city water with all kinds of horrific things to make it ‘drinkable’ (chlorine, for one – a carcinogen) and some cities pour fluoride into city water for absolutely no other reason than that it’s a factory waste that has to go ‘somewhere’ and factories make money off of selling it to the water companies who were tricked long ago into thinking it’s good for teeth! A big scandal…and a big reason why so many people filter their water at home before drinking it. My own family is currently paying $100/month to filter our well water and we try not to cringe about this. After all, water is life.
But where does the water in Rice Dream products come from? Is it safe? It says it’s filtered. How is it filtered? What’s filtered out of it? What levels of toxins does Hain Celestial consider safe in the water they use in their huge factories where their products are produced? I don’t know the answer to these questions. If I was still buying Rice Dream milk, I would be asking them, but fear I’d get another form letter. If the Monsanto connection and the natural flavor nonsense doesn’t bug you, but you are committed to giving yourself and your family healthy foods, maybe this would be a good time to ask Hain Celestial about the source of their rice and water. Make a good choice about this. It’s up to you.
And now for the recipe you’ve all been waiting for!
How To Make Rice Milk – The Recipe
Ingredients and Supplies:
1 cup uncooked organic long grain brown rice
8 cups water for cooking
More water for diluting
1 teaspoon salt
Glass mason jars for storage
A Blender
Mesh strainer
Directions
Thoroughly wash the rice.
Put 8 cups of water in a big pot and bring it to a boil over high heat.
Pour in the rice.
Cover the pot and lower the heat to let the water simmer.
Cook for 3 hours.
You will end up with something that looks a bit like a soupy rice pudding. Add the salt.
In batches, fill your blender halfway with the rice mixture and halfway with water. Blend until very smooth. Strain twice through a fine mesh strainer into a mason jar. Continue on with the rest of the milk until you’re finished, filling jars and screwing the lids on good and tight.
Even with the extra water, the homemade rice milk ends up thicker than the product you might be used to if you’ve always purchased Rice Dream Rice Milk. It’s more like rice cream! You may want to dilute it further at the time of serving it. Just add a bit more water until it’s the desired consistency.
Optional Additions To Your Rice Milk Recipe
A look at the label of Rice Dream Rice Milk reveals that it contains oil. Oil does make things creamier, and we like to add about 2 Tablespoons of organic sunflower oil to our batch of milk.
We also like to add about 4 Tablespoons of Maple Syrup to our batch of milk, as we are still used to the slightly sweeter taste of the Rice Dream product than what you get from homemade. It’s not a big difference…just a little one.
Making a blended rice and nut milk is a cinch. At the blending stage, add some blanched raw almonds or hazelnuts, or some cashews for an even richer, creamier, more nutritious milk.
What About Nutrition In Homemade Rice Milk?
Rice Dream’s Enriched Rice Milk has supplements added to it to give it more nutrition. The figures are as follows, according to the label.
1 Cup Gives You:
10% of your US RDA of Vitamin A
30% of your US RDA of Calcium
25% of your US RDA of Vitamin D
15% of your US RDA of Phosphorus
4% of your US RDA of Iron
25% of your US RDA of Vitamin B12
Families who are concerned that ceasing to drink Rice Dream’s processed, enriched product might leave them with a nutrition deficit might want to consider inventing a way for enriching their homemade rice milk with a liquid vitamin supplement. Or, simply take a vitamin supplement if you are concerned about this. That would be a safe bet.
Our family really isn’t concerned about this as we consider rice milk to be a bit of a side dish and not a central source of nutrition in our very rich and varied daily diet. Wondering where you can get these vitamins and calcium in your daily fare? Here’s a quick list:
Calcium
Leafy greens, sesame seeds, figs, oranges
Phosphorus
Nearly all foods contain some amount of phosphorous. Seeds, beans and nuts have a great deal of it, but there is controversy about the absorption of it in the medical community. Oddly, nearly all of the literature I’ve seen recently on phosphorous deals with becoming a vegan to avoid renal (kidney) failure caused by overdosing on the high amounts of phosphorous in meat and dairy.
Vitamin D
Comes from getting about 15 minutes of sunlight a day. Again, if you’re worried, take a supplement. Why fret?
Vitamin B12
People used to get B12 from eating unwashed vegetables. It’s not really something I’d recommend, so this is the one thing that most vegans take as a supplement. It’s a big controversy, and one that’s better to be safe than sorry about. Go ahead, take the supplement.
Iron
Lentils, spinach, other greens. Absorption appears to be increased when you eat an iron containing food with a vitamin C containing food, just so you know. Most vegans eat vast quantities of iron if they are eating a whole foods diet.
So, we, personally are not too concerned around here about not drinking a fortified processed food (Rice Dream Rice Milk) because we have such balance across the board when we eat. Some families tend to think along the lines of nutritious foods and junk foods. They eat dinner for nutrition and junky foods just for fun. We don’t really have junk food around here, but we do think of some foods as basics and others as frills. For example, maple syrup is hardly essential to our health, but we like to have it as a frill. Rice milk, to us, is a frill. Something nice to cream up our tea or add to a sauce or blender drink. Not the staff of our life.
If rice milk is a food to you, and you are feeling concerned about vitamin sources, definitely do your own research on this. What may be a good choice for us may not be a good choice for you and your specific situation. People have been making milks from seeds, nuts and plants for countless ages. Have confidence. No matter where you come from, you come from a tradition of skilled people.
How Much Rice Milk Does A Recipe Make?
Our recipe makes about 5 one pint glass mason jars of rice milk. When we purchased commercial rice milk, our family went through about 1/2 gallon of this milk a week. That’s the big container of Rice Dream Rice Milk. There are 4 pints in 1/2 gallon, so the above Rice Milk Recipe makes a little over a week’s supply of milk for us. You may need more or less. You could halve the recipe if you need less milk.
Most of the time spent making the milk is in the 3 hour cooking, and you don’t have to do anything during that time. Just let it cook.
When the milk has been poured into the mason jars, store it in the refrigerator.
Food Is Power
The great humanitarian and farmer, John Jeavons, once said:
Food is Power…Are You In Control Of Yours?
As an American and an inheritor of the legacy of a system that has valued money over brotherly love, I know my people, poor people, innocent people, unthinking people, simple, decent people have been burned one too many times by corporations that have marketed ‘progress’ and ‘convenience’ to them.
In this country, many of us are beginning to realize that when we traded in our own skills for the convenient agreement of others doing our work in exchange for money, we won ourselves a world of pesticides, polluted skies and water, contaminated food and foreign sweatshop labor. We stopped living like the incredibly skilled American Indians, or even the early pioneers, nearly all of whom knew how to grow food, make fire, build shelter, find water, craft clothing and feed people. We have become a nation of unskilled workers who pay others to do everything we need for the very basics of being alive, and those we have given our money to have failed to resist the temptation to increase profit by casting care for human and environmental health aside.
Food is power, and by taking the control of it back into your hands as much as you possibly can, you are strengthening yourself as a human person. I realize, few of us are going to be able to create a rice paddy in our backyard, but we can get as deep down on the chain of events as possible. We can purchase rice that is grown without chemicals and is processed as little as possible. We can cook our own rice, and we can make our own milk from it to feed our dear ones well.
You can retrieve your power, your authority over your own life in the steps and stages that feel comfortable and reasonable to you. Today you have learned how to make rice milk – and if you try it, I think you’ll decide it’s absolutely delicious. More than this, though, I think you may feel that you’ve really accomplished something good. Maybe for you, this is a bold act of defiance against the corruption of the Organics industry with big, moneyed, dirty corporate players. Maybe it’s the thougthful act of the gourmet cook who insists on having fresh foods instead of processed ones that have been sitting on a supermarket shelf for who knows how long. Or, maybe it’s just a new way to take better care of yourself by taking the time you deserve to prepare wholesome foods. All reasons are good reasons if they help you to act with diginity and discernment in your daily life.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this reskilling lesson. Let us know if you give making your own rice milk a try.
177 users commented in " How To Make Rice Milk And Stop Supporting Rice Dream "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackMim: As you and your family “reskill” and become more self-sufficient with creating food and other necessities that are needed to sustain a healthy life (while not filling the wrong corporate coffers), why don’t you consider writing a book about your journey? You could self-publish and/or work with ethical publishers who specialize in this category. I know that your readers would certainly purchase it! And I believe a surprising number of people would be very interested in reading about your story, recipes, tips and sage insights on finding our way back to health, h/earth and heart.
Thank you, as always, for sharing your inspiring journey with us so intelligently and elegantly.
Greetings, Kimberly!
I am completely flattered by your kind suggestion of writing a book. Thank you for such a vote of confidence.
I hadn’t thought of writing a book on this particular subject, though my husband and I have considered writing books about a bunch of topics including organic gardening in our specific region, birding in our region and other things of that nature. Also, I have sitting on my bookshelf my 3rd novel, set in Mendocino County, California. I think it’s a good one.
I’ve had an agent express interest in my work, but the work involved in promoting a book seems so outrageous and I’ve got tasks to fill every hour of my day these days. Still, the idea of publishing something in print comes and goes through my mind, and you’ve given me some very kind praise on that idea!
Thank you so much. Your comment made my day. Please, come again soon, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.
Mim
I use to purchase Rice Milk, but it was recently removed from the store. I was unable to find out why. I thought maybe something was wrong with the produce and no one was talking. I think it’s just a matter of Wal Mart removing a lot of organic and health conscious products from their shelves. We try really hard to eat healthy but if you rely on the stores for “natural products” then it can be pretty expensive. My husband does most of the cooking and he likes to make his own things like peanut butter, jam, bread, rice milk, ketchup, syrup, and many others. It does take time but it’s nice knowing what’s in your food. We are new to gardening and it can be frustrating but we press on. Some of our efforts will take years before we can enjoy them but we do it for our health and for our children. If the world collapses around us, I’d like to think we could still survive. I’m going to try your rice milk recipe. I just wanted to let you know it’s nice to know we’re not alone (we really thought we were) in our quest.
I was wondering if you know why it says for ages 5 and up on the rice dream?
Welcome, Jenn,
That’s a good and important question.
The reason rice milks, soy milks and other non-dairy products have that warning is so that people won’t mistake them for infant formula. If a parent thought a non-dairy milk was a nutrient-for-nutrient substitute for human milk for an infant, that would be very wrong and dangerous.
Human children fare best on human milk until they are old enough to get their full nutrition from other foods. Human children with lactose allergies are often given an infant formula that is supposed to replace that nutrition they aren’t able to get from their mother because of their allergy. But, rice milk, soy milk, etc. are NOT formulated to be used as a fully nutritious infant formula. It’s not that the rice milk would harm them, but it would not provide the total nutrition they should be getting from their mother or a specialized infant milk replacement.
So, that’s what the warning is about. I hope that answers your question.
Mim
Really? You’re dissing rice dream??? as a vegan I will continue to drink it. Please give a good source that explains that it “supports” wal-mart(which isn’t bad, I shop at walmart a lot) or those other crappy slaughter places. Think – would a product directed towards VEGANS cause animal cruelty??? Think a little bit… but nice recipe.
Welcome to VeganReader, Liam,
I certainly respect your differing opinion on this. While there is nothing in my article that mentions the slaughter of animals being a reason not to support Imagine Foods, the article does outline other reasons why people might not wish to support the company.
If you would like confirmation of Wal-Mart’s connection to this company, you can read all about it in Dr. Jane Goodall’s book, ‘Harvest For Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating’.
It may be that you would also further like to investigate Wal-Mart’s track record of acting without apparent concern for human rights in America and abroad, and also the effect of their presence in U.S. communities that then subsequently lose many of their small, local businesses because of the impossibility of competing with big box stores. I, personally, don’t believe that the Wal-Mart corporation has made our country a better place, and I came to this conclusion after doing my own research.
Happily, you can do your own research about these matters, too, if you feel any concerns as a vegan, or simply as a human being.
Best Wishes.
Mim
Welcome, Rebecca!
You are definitely not alone. All across America, families are learning to reskill themselves in the basics of sustaining their lives. Farming, cooking and so many other skills are being learned and accomplished as Americans reach for a better, safer, more sustainable life for themselves.
Your husband sounds like a very creative and caring person and I bet the food he is making for you and your children is wonderful.
Keep at it with the gardening. It takes time to develop an ecosystem that is in good balance…the right plants, the right insects, the right soil all have to work together to create a bountiful garden. It can definitely be done!
Also, if you’re feeling alone in your pursuit, you may be interested to know that this movement towards good, safe food isn’t just happening in the United States. In Mexico, India, South American countries and other locations, programs are in operation or going into operation to connect farming families back to their own fabulous roots of growing diverse, traditional crops on their land so that they can feed themselves abundantly.
Too many of these people lost touch with their own food heritage as a result of the concept of mono-cropping which has devastated biodiversity and ruined ancient communities. Both local people and outsiders are joining together to rediscover the benefits of traditional foods that create a balanced diet for farming families and this, in my opinion, is one of the most important things that is happening in the world right now.
These farmers live where the very best of all human foods were originally cultivated, and if any people have the right to enjoy these diverse, healthful crops, it is them. We can learn from their struggles and triumphs, Rebecca, as we work to feed our own families well.
Wishing you tremendous good luck!
Mim
Thank you for the rice milk receipe I’m very excited to try it out! I was just wondering does it require an air tight jar or could it also be stored in a pitcher? Also do you happen to know the shelf life?
Welcome, Christine!
We make a week’s supply of homemade rice milk at a time, and because that means it’s sitting in the fridge for a week, I like to keep it tightly covered or I’m afraid it might start to taste like the fridge at the end of the week.
If you were making a smaller batch (say 3 days’ worth) I’m sure it would be fine in a pitcher in the refrigerator.
*I usually shake up my jars before I pour as some separation sometimes occurs, so you might want to stir yours up with a long-handled spoon in your pitcher before you pour it out. Just a thought!
I strongly advocate keeping the milk in the fridge. I don’t know what would happen to it if it was left unrefrigerated. That being said, I’m not sure how long it would stay good-tasting in the fridge. Ours never lasts longer than a week. I don’t think I’d want to shoot for it lasting longer after that, as it just wouldn’t seem very fresh to me. Hope that makes sense.
The neat thing about getting to make your own rice milk is that you are experimenting, in a way. Just like home-baked bread, each batch is a little special and different. Mass manufactured products are always totally uniform, and there’s something a little unnatural about that. One time, we messed up our own recipe and didn’t put enough water in. Instead of rice milk, we got rice cream. I put a bunch of lemon juice and some maple syrup in it and it was like some kind of fancy flavored yoghurt! It was great!
Good luck trying out the recipe. I’d love to hear how it goes for you.
Hello,
Visiting for the first time today. I googled “how to make rice milk” and your site came up. Just wanted to tahk you for taking the time to put your thoughtful comments and the recipe on for us. We have a renewed desire to be more self sufficient and you have been a nice help in our journey. Have a lovely day
Deborah
Welcome to VeganReader, Deborah,
I so appreciate that you took the time to say thank you. That made a happy note in our day here, and we applaud you in your own journey to become more self sufficient. Wishing you wonderful luck in the endeavor!
Mim
We go thru a half-gallon of Rice Dream in 2-3 days-do I have to store in Mason Jars-or could I just put in pitcher as it will be used so quickly?
Welcome to VeganReader, VegLady,
Yes, I’m sure it would be fine in a pitcher for 2-3 days. Good luck with making it!
Mim
I just found your site today
I’m curious, how big is your family that this recipe lasts you a week? I have 6 kids and they love their cereals in the morning (we’ve been trying to do homemade granola lately). I don’t really drink milk, and my husband probably wouldn’t touch this stuff to save his life, but if it’s an inexpensive alternative for my kids then it sounds good to me
Thanks so much for this info. I too googled how to make rice milk and your site came up. I’ve recently switched to rice milk over soy for various reasons, and noticed the price of the rice milk is ridiculous. We buy brown rice in bulk form so this should be a cinch!!!!
Greetings, Shana, and you are very welcome here!
The above recipe keeps our family of 2 adults in rice milk for a week. I did my calculations based upon how much Rice Dream Rice Milk we used to buy – about one 1/2 gallon carton per week. Now, you’re dealing with a big family, so your task would be to calculate how much milk the children put on their cereal in a week’s time. Maybe you could try to keep track of that for a week and then you’d know if doubling my recipe would do it for your family.
In terms of cost, making your own rice milk is incredibly cheap. We’re talking about pennies per batch if you buy bulk organic brown rice. I don’t know what cow’s milk prices are like these days, but my bet is that making your own rice milk would be a big savings.
Please, do come back and let us know how it goes if you give this a try!
Thanks for stopping by.
Mim
Welcome to VeganReader, Dana!
It really is simple to make and it sounds like you’ve already got the ingredients right in your kitchen. I hope you’ll enjoy making your own rice milk. Let us know how it goes for you after you try it!
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Mim
did you hear about the company horizon coming out with a new “natural” line of products that is basically conventional products? whole earth is doing this too. they will be cheaper of course and people who are not aware of it will think they are organic.
Hi Donna,
Yes! I got an email from the Organic Consumers Association about that. The whole ‘natural’ labeling issue has been a tough one for years now. ‘Natural’ has literally no meaning, and anyone can put it on anything. We could label gasoline natural if we wanted to.
I am troubled about companies who sell Organics stooping to natural labeling. I’d love to be able to write that I’m surprised, but I’m just not, at this point. I’m not familiar with the Whole Earth brand, but I believe Horizon is owned by Dean (a major power in Washington) and all kinds of bad news has surfaced about them. You might be interested in this article about Dean/Horizon, Donna:
http://www.1888pressrelease.com/dean-horizon-feedlot-dairy-accused-of-masquerading-as-an-org-pr-71ls4a5d3.html
Going local has got to be the answer to this kind of nonsense. Major corporations have lost our trust and don’t deserve our money.
Thanks for taking the time to share your news with me, Donna.
Mim
I use to feed my daughter soy and rice milk when she was a little baby due to severe skin eczema. That was between 12 and 18 months. By then she was bow legged as a cowboy. We started her back on regular milk. Babies do need the calcium. She had itched on and off for the last 5 years.
She is almost 7 and just this week we decided to go vegetarian (we are eating dairy products and eggs, hopefully not for long). Her legs are straight now. If we have another baby we will see about what to give her or him, certainly flesh wont be in the menu.
Dear Joseph,
I’m so sorry to hear about your little girl’s legs and am glad they straightened out.
It is so critical that vegetarian families study nutrition as though they’re going to have to take a test on it. The quality of the whole family’s health is dependent upon this. Understanding what nutrients come from which vegetables and grains is really vital, and for vegan families (no dairy or meat) supplementing with a B6 supplement is essential as B6 is not found in washed plants.
It would be wonderful if you could find a local nutritionist who is educated about vegan and vegetarian diets and who could help your family plan a really healthy, balanced diet plan to build on.
In addition to this, studying the traditional diets of indigenous cultures is a good way to plan a balanced diet. My family’s diet is typically Native American. We eat corn, beans and squash every day, along with potatoes, nuts and seeds. We eat a great deal of rice in addition to this and then everything on top of this is the variety of seasonal vegetables and fruits we can grow and buy (greens, broccoli, carrots, apples, citrus, peas, etc.) South, Central and Northern American societies lived well for thousands of years on a similar diet and this has been really helpful in pointing the way for us.
I sincerely wish your family good luck in your search for an expert level of nutrition education that will help you to nourish your children and yourselves well while taking good care of the planet, Joseph.
Mim
Great recipe! After the rice has boiled and it’s brought to a simmer, would it still be effective to put it into a crockpot instead of a pot on the stove?
I’m going to try to make this soon!
Thanks
Just happened upon the site for a rice milk recipe. I read above that someone substituted rice and soy milk for cow’s milk because of skin eczema. I had severe eczema as a child, until i went cold turkey on milk and most dairy products in 8th grade. About 6 years later I tried drinking milk again, and soon realized I was lactose-intolerant. I finally tried soy milk, but it seems to produce the same effect as cow’s milk, in terms of the lactose intolerant bit. I still tolerated it until very recently when my hands broke out in the worst case of eczema ever. Two friends caused me to go on rice milk. One had what she calls “soy aversion” and the other found out after hundreds of dollars of testing that her body reacted with the hormones in soy milk to cause skin breakouts. I definitely would like to make my own rice milk and will be trying this recipe out. I just want my hands back again!
Dear Heather,
I’m glad you think the recipe looks good. Let’s see, I’m not familiar with crock pot cooking. As I understand it, crock pots cook things really quickly, so I would guess that it would cut down the cooking time. Maybe you can experiment and come back and let us know how it works out for you? I’d be interested to know and other readers would, too, I’m sure.
Mim
Welcome to VeganReader, Looking For The Answer,
Thank you for sharing your story regarding the reactions you’ve had to various milks over the years. It’s quite true that many people are allergic to soy – I am – but I had never heard of a hormonal skin reaction before. I really appreciate the information you’ve given me about this.
Rice is tolerated by most people and I’m sincerely hoping that switching to rice milk will be the step that relieves your eczema. I know how distressing that condition is for people and am sorry you’ve suffered with this!
Now, should the switch to rice milk not bring about relief from your condition, there are two things you might want to look into.
1. Irritants in your environment
Non-natural soaps (detergents), cosmetics, shampoos, deoderants, perfumes, etc. can all aggravate the skin. Doubtless you already know about that if you’ve had eczema for years, but just in case you didn’t, I did want to mention that.
2. Mercury
I have recently been investigating the widely documented symptoms caused by mercury poisoning coming from silver/amalgam fillings in the teeth. Mercury has been linked to such devastating conditions as Autism, MS, Crohn’s Disease and Parkinson’s. It has also been linked to Eczema. If all else fails, you might want to research the mercury-eczema link and consider having your amalgam fillings replaced by a qualified biological dentist.
Wishing you the best of luck in your hunt for better health and I do hope you’ll let me know how the recipe works for you after you’ve tried it.
Mim
Lactose intolerance seems to crop up now and again in the family, and while soy seems to be ok for some of us, rice is definitely something we can all stomach. I’m curious if you could use brown rice flour or meal to make this recipe and cut down on the cooking time? I’ve been playing with my arm-powered grain mill and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with my coarsely ground brown rice. But less expensive rice milk would be great!
Welcome, Natalie.
That’s great that you have a grain mill. Now, I’m just not sure what the results would be of using ground rice. It seems like it wold cut down the cooking time, simply because the pieces would be smaller, but I’m not sure by how much it would. Using the recipe, above, by the time the rice is finished cooking, the grains are very swollen and soft, so that’s what you’d want to look for in terms of ‘doneness’. If you experiment with your ground rice, I’d love to hear how it goes.
Mim
Thanks very much for sharing your rice milk recipe… I’ve been searching and searching for a rice milk that doesn’t contain canola oil or carrageenan (big report soon to surface about the dangers of this additive)…. I was wondering if it’s possible to freeze the milk and use at a later date?
Welcome to VeganReader CC,
Yes, one of the nice things about making your own food and drink is that you have total control over what goes into it!
While I prefer the rice milk as fresh as possible, I can’t imagine there would be a problem with freezing the milk once and thawing it once before serving. I’ve never tried this, but as water is the liquid in it, I imagine it would freeze fine. I’ve had success freezing almond milk into ice cream, so I don’t see why rice milk wouldn’t work. Why not experiment with a jar and see how it goes? *Make sure it’s really sealed tight so it doesn’t get freezer burn.
It’s great to see the creativity of readers like you. Thanks for stopping by!
Mim
Have you ever made rice milk kefir using your recipe. I so want to make kefir for its health benefits but can’t use dairy milk. Just wondered if your recipe would work and if you would need to add other ingredients to do so.
Hi Mim,
Can you cook the water and rice in a pressure cooker speeding up the cooking time and using less energy? Can’t wait to start saving money! Our daughter drinks 1 litre of soy/rice milk every two days because of her dairy issues and it costs over $7 USD per litre where we’re at.
Welcome Brenda!
Now, when I was a little girl, my mother gave me kefir and this was a form of liquid yoghurt, which I’m guessing was made with acidophilus cultures. I’m afraid I have no experience adapting a dairy keifir recipe to a non-dairy keifir one. I’m not sure how the live cultures would interact with anything other than cow’s milk.
There are certain ancient cultures which do claim that their health and longevity is owing to the consumption of fermented yoghurt products, and many people firmly believe that eating fermented foods of some kind is good for digestive health. While I hold ancient wisdom in the highest regard, I don’t have a personal experience from which to judge whether fermented foods actually contribute to good health or not.
This sounds like a topic you’ll need to research further, Brenda. My guess it that you would need to obtain live cultures and see if they ferment a rice-based drink. You might also want to look into a commercially-produced drink called Amasake/Amazake. I believe this is made of fermented rice, but I don’t know how it is fermented. If you could discover the skills involved, perhaps you could create your own recipe.
Thank you for your question and good luck in your search!
Mim
Greetings Andrew!
Thank you for your question. Like the crock pot question above, this is going to be up to experimentation on your part. I’m afraid I don’t own a pressure cooker or crock pot. I see no reason why using one of these tools wouldn’t work just fine, but you’ll have to try it out and be the judge (or your little girl will have to be the judge)!
I sincerely hope this recipe helps save your family money and gives you the satisfaction of knowing that you are serving your daughter some truly fresh rice milk. What a great thing!
Please come by again.
Mim
Hi, Again,
I made the rice milk with little to no difficulty. One cup of rice made 3 blenders full! I do have a question. I notice when I pour it into my coffee, the color doesn’t change whereas with commercial rice milk it does a bit. Do I need to add something else to get that effect? What could possibly be in commercial milk that makes it whiter? Thanks for your input…
Hi Mim,
I am an herbalist in McDonough GA, with a small practice of 19 years. I have been looking for ways to stay out of the grocery stores period! So, your DIY Rice Milk solution may allow me to check off yet another item from the “I don’t have to buy this at the store anymore list.” One question, because I hate waste, after straining, will there be much rice pulse left and if so, do you have any recomendations of what can be done with it?
Thanks a bunch,
The Herb Girl
Hi. I appreciate your thoughtful sharing of your learned experience. I too discovered your site looking for a recipe to get away from the astonishing expense of Rice Dream rice milk. I was completed surprised by how much I like the Rice Dream product. I much prefer the taste over 2% milk (that being the creamier choice). The problem is I consume far more than I should be affording hence the quest for a duplicate recipe of what has now become a craving. You mentioned adding safflower or some other oil to enhance the richness of one’s own preparation. What can be done to avoid separation of the oil and water? And I would assume that the oil would be blended in?
Hi,
thank you so much for your wonderful recipe! I searched for it this afternoon (looking for a better alternative for my son), and immediately set off to make it. It is great! Simple, inexpensive and tastes amazing.
My mom suggested I add whole spice (about 3) which she used back in the days when my sisters and I were growing up and she also made rice milk for us. It just gives it a tiny hint of flavor nothing overpowering…
Anyway, thanks again and please keep up the great work (and fantastic recipes!) coming…=)
Hi CC!
I’m so glad you tried the recipe with success. I wonder if some commercial rice milks are made with white rice, and are therefor whiter (but a lot less nutritious!) I agree with you that the color is slightly more creamy than white, but at least for me, it turns my black tea brown. Maybe the blackness of coffee just isn’t changed quite as much? Thanks for letting me know that. Not being a coffee drinker, I hadn’t seen that effect.
At any rate, I hope you enjoy the lovely fresh taste and the big savings, even if your coffee is a little less light!
Mim
Welcome Herb Girl!
I’m sorry it’s taken me a few days to respond to you. We’ve been busy canning all week here.
Now, we put our ‘used’ rice in the compost pile after making milk with it, so that’s not a waste, but I think your question is a good one. Could you experiment with adding the rice mash to stews as a thickener, maybe? Or, maybe even invent some type of rice pudding recipe that would use the mash up? I think you’ll need to get really creative as what’s left is really pretty mushy.
My best solution has been the compost pile so that the rice gets to feed the garden, but if you come up with any other bright ideas, I’d really love to hear them. Thank you so much for coming by!
Mim
Welcome Sabrina,
I love the fact that your mother made rice milk for you when you were a child. It must taste so familiar to you now that you’re making it yourself! I’m really happy you liked how the recipe turned out, and adding spices is a lovely idea. Rice milk also makes an exceptional base for a cup of Organic Fair Trade cocoa, too! It’s great in so many things.
Thank you so much for letting me know you used my recipe with success. Your cheery comment brightened my evening.
Mim
Greetings, David,
I wish I had a scientific explanation for this, but I actually haven’t noticed the oil separating from the water…despite the fact that I know it should do this, according to physics. I never even thought about this before, because the oil seems to just blend in. Maybe it is somehow absorbed into the starch from the rice? That would be my guess, and that was an excellent question you asked.
At any rate, this recipe will definitely save you money, and it tastes great, too!
Have fun with it!
Mim
Hi
I am African and, although the Wal-Marts of your world are little known here, we probably have a much larger problem- inferior (and sometimes even toxic) products being dumped on us. I cannot even express how much appreciated your article is!
I’m going to try this procedure; I’m sure my 5year old son will love the milk!
I’m also a beginner in soapmaking and have enjoyed the beautiful soap made with different milks- do you know if rice and soy milk will make rich creamy soap as well?
Thanks for the great article.
Welcome, Hillary!
Thank you so much for letting us know what your experience with food quality is in Africa. Unfortunately, Americans are in the same boat, despite the aura there is of high-living in the United States. Most Americans are now consuming genetically modified foods because our country refuses to label these toxins and Europeans are looking at our country and its people as a giant laboratory experiment. It’s very scary, and we can really identify with your concerns about unsafe foods.
I so hope you and your son will enjoy this simple, healthy rice milk recipe.
As for soap making, I would hesitate to use Soy Milk as a washing agent because of the concern about GMOs and the potential concern about hormone disruption. I don’t know how much truth there is in the studies that have been done regarding the effect of soy on hormones, but with a little boy to take care of, this might not be your best choice.
I would think rice or nut milks would be better choices as an addition to soap. I know some very expensive soaps in a America have goat’s milk in them, so I don’t see why you couldn’t use a rice or nut milk in soap recipes that call for a milk.
I understand that you have some other very interesting soapmaking ingredients in Africa such as African black soap. Maybe you can find mango butter, shea butter and cocoa butter, too? I wish you good luck! Thank you for taking the time to comment and I hope your family benefits from this recipe.
Mim
Okay so I think you take things a little far because this country and world are so messed up it is hard to avoid every bad person, company, or food. I understand though and I definetly don’t like trade secrets. The water got me though. I also understand but you spend 100 dollars a month filtering well water! Okay well water is really based on what things are leaching through to that water supply but it is considered a better source than municipal and if it doesn’t touch certain plastics it has no bisphenol a like bottled water. If you filter the crap out of your well water then you get no sustance from it. No minerals. Also take distilled water for example. Since there is relatively no minerals or substances within the micro pores of the water it readily absorbs whatever fits. One main fact of life is every thing strives for equilibrium. So when you drink it the water pulls minerals from the body and flushes them out. I have read this may be alright for a detox diet but not long term because you will become defficient. So to what extent are you doing this to your own life water. There is a fine line between educated and overly paranoid. Maybe if you can just get a water analysis on your well water before you strip it clean.
Welcome to VeganReader, Clifford,
I appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns about filtered water, and believe me, I certainly share them.
Perhaps where you live, the well water is relatively drinkable out of the ground. If so, you are extremely lucky! Where we live, the unfiltered water is not only full of sulfur and rust, it is tea brown in color. We had numerous tests done on the water in order to determine what needed to be taken out of it to make it potable for drinking, washing vegetables, etc. and also, for bathing. We are a modest-income family, and it is a big deal for us to have to pay so much for usable water, but we would be spending 100 times that much if we had to get bottled water for drinking, cooking and bathing, so we determined that what we’re doing is the right decision. I bet you can respect that, now that you understand our story.
The state of America’s water is truly shocking and distressing. It isn’t just that having to filter water removes its good minerals, but that humans are drinking water that is laden with pesticides, bacteria, pharmaceuticals and intentionally placed substances like chlorine and fluoride. Our water guys tell us that the city water around here is worse than our well water. Imagine that!
When I think of the fact that, before Europeans came here, my ancestors had drinkable water wherever they lived, I feel very upset. But, we have to deal with things the way they are rather than they way we might like them to be, and so, filtering water is necessary for many people in most of the country. If you don’t have to filter yours, Clifford, you are very, very lucky!
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Mim
I’m going to make a batch tonight and try it. I unfortunately have been buying the rice dream for quite a while. This recipe is going to save me money I can already tell.
Thanks for sharing,
Quentin
Enjoy the recipe, Quentin, and I hope it works out well for you. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Mim
Mim,
Thank you so much for your recipe on rice milk. I started to drink Rice Dream when my oldest daughter was found to be lactose intolerant at the age of 13 months. I had nursed her up to that point and had started to wean her by introducing her to cow’s milk. Her poor body couldn’t digest it. I went to Rice milk and she really enjoyed it. I am sure the sweet flavor of the rice milk compared to breast milk was very similar.
My oldest daughter is now 10 and we have since gone back to cow’s milk. She has tolerated it up until the past six months. We now have four girls and another on the way. I am excited to be able to find a recipe that I can make at home. I enjoy being selfsuffient in anything possible. This is one of those items.
As to another reader who asked about cooking rice in a pressure cooker, if he reads the warnings in the owners manual he will see that rice is a no no. It will clog the exhaust spout and make it dangerous for future use. I use my pressure canner as often as I can to store up home grown food for my family. I wish we could find foods that haven’t been grown from genetically modified seeds.
If you have a web site that sells grains that have not been genetically modified, I would appriciate the info.
Thanks again!
P.S. Have you ever substituted honey for the maple syrup? I have access to local honey, but would have to drive an hour for “pure” maple syrup? Just wondering.
Welcome, GirlsMama!
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge about pressure cookers. That’s really useful information and also good to know about pressure canners. Excellent tips!
I’m sorry to hear about your 10 year old’s allergies, but when you think about it, human beings are the only species that has tried to drink mammal milk past infancy, so, your daughter’s lactose intolerance can even be seen as normal, rather than an illness or oddness. By contrast, seed, grain and nut milks come from healthy sources meant for the consumption of older children and adults and I really hope your daughter will enjoy her homemade rice milk.
As for the honey question, because we’re vegans, we don’t use animal products in our food and have always used maple sugar as our sweetener of choice. I certainly respect your point about what is available locally, but I have no experience with using honey as a sweetener and am not sure what effect this might have on the milk or its shelf life. Perhaps someone else will come along who has used honey in this way.
Again, thank you so much for taking the time to share your wisdom here. It’s much appreciated and good luck with the recipe!
Mim
Just found your site looking for a rice milk recipe. I’m going to try to make almond milk tomorrow and am excited to try your rice milk recipe after that’s gone. I just wanted to say I enjoyed your post and look forward to reading through some of your other posts. My husband and I are trying to find ways to live a more sustainable, eco-friendly and human friendly life and are working on slowly incorporating small changes to our lifestyle so we get used to each and it doesn’t seem like so much to deal with all at once and not like so much of a sacrifice. Thank you for your insight.
Welcome to VeganReader, Jen!
I really applaud what you and your husband are doing. These small changes may be the best things you can do for yourselves, you marriage and your planet.
Almond milk is very delicious, and is a much richer milk than rice milk because of the healthy fats in the nuts. I like using it for certain things, and for others, rice milk is better. For a beverage, a blend of almond and rice milk is extremely tasty!
Have fun experimenting with milk making and I hope your family will really enjoy this recipe! Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Mim
Hi!
I’m back! As I mentioned in my previous post, this recipe is wonderful! I can’t say enough great things about it! Just wanted to ask if you’ve got any good recipes for almond milk? I’m really curious about mixing the two as you suggested before.
Also, a comment for “GirlsMama” could your daughter have a sensitivity or allergy to the milk protein? I’ve been doing some research on this, as I thought my son was lactose intolerant.It turns out he’s very sensitive to the protein found in milk, and as a result is really hard for him to digest it. There’s a significant difference in these two and the symptoms are quite different as well. I knew something was wrong and though I kept bringing it up to my pediatrician, it was always brushed off. Needless to say this recipe has been a life-saver for us!I’ve seen a complete change!
Anyway, just though I’d share this bit with you…hope it helps! =)
Thank you so much for the reciepe i think its grate but i was wondering if you know how to make oat milk is it pretty much the same method?
Greetings Sabrina!
I’m so glad the recipe turned out great for you. Hooray! Thank you for sharing what you know about cow’s milk sensitivity. It sounds like you have been through a lot with this, and I am so delighted to think of this recipe helping your son.
I will be publishing my almond milk recipe shortly. You’ve inspired me to get this up, as it’s a really good one. Please check back soon.
Mim
Welcome, Erika,
I have heard that oat milk is delicious and can imagine that oats make a lovely milk. Oatmeal was a favorite of mine when I was a child, but since being given a diagnosis of gluten intolerance, unfortunately, I don’t get to eat oats and have never experimented with making milk from them. Sorry not to have an answer for you on this one, but I do hope you’ll try the rice milk recipe and will enjoy it!
Mim
To Sabrina & Our Other Readers,
We’ve published our Almond Milk Recipe today. Please, come see it and let us know if you like it.
Mim
Hi
love this article. I was searching for a place where I could buy Rice Dream in bulk. Then I found your comments and recipie! I will try it today but when do I add the salt? It would seem to me that it would take alot of time to stain the product. ? It’s worth a try. I hope you can answer my question so I can make this milk!
Thanks so much
Lynette
Hi, I just wanted to thank you for posting the recipe and to say that you really have such a lovely and thoughtful approach in your original article and also your answers to everyone – it was really a pleasure reading the thread.
Just one comment, my family is Indian and we eat loads of rice – and have always used a pressure cooker to cook it… so I am a little confused about one reader’s comment that it is a big no-no? I wonder if they might have a particular kind of pressure cooker? It seems like a great way to cut down on the cooking time so seems worth a try.
Thanks!
Hey, I am wondering how long the milk lasts? Is it the same as on the bought products? 10 days or so? Thank you!
Hi,
Yesterday our family did a taste test with Original Rice dream from Walmart ($3.24 for large) and original Ricedream from Shaw’s (our local supermarket and $5.99 for large.) We had discovered Walmart’s lower price but my 8 year old son kept saying it didn’t taste as good.
After doing the taste test on the whole family and several friends, it was unanimous that Walmart’s Rice dream tasted inferior- stale and watery. The expiration dates were similar.
We are wondering if Walmart controls the quality of their product. Have you read or heard anything about this?
Sincerely,
J
Dear Lynette,
So sorry for the delayed response. We’ve been really busy getting our fall crops in on the farm. I appreciate you catching that I forget to mention when to add the salt. I completely overlooked this! I’ve added it into the article. When the rice is finished cooking, but before you start blending it, you add the salt to the whole batch. Hope this helps!
Mim
Welcome Snehainitalia!
I’m so glad you enjoyed this article, and I agree, all of the comments have made this piece really special. I’m sorry not to be able to advise about pressure cooking the rice as I’ve never owned a pressure cooker. My suggestion is that you experiment and see what works for you. I really appreciate you taking the time to comment!
Mim
Dear HollySG,
If refrigerated and stored in glass jars with lids, 10 days would probably be fine. Ours lasts about a week before it is gone. Hope this helps!
Mim
Welcome, ForTheHealthOfIt,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I’m afraid I have no idea of what is considered decent quality control amongst these companies. What I have learned in my life is that when foods, even natural foods, are made in huge batches in factories, the potential for quality to suffer is greater than it is when you are in total control of making small batches of natural foods in your own kitchen. That’s very interesting that your family did a taste test. I always thought that RiceDream tasted good, but my concerns about the company came to override this, as I’ve written about above, and I am so much happier making my own fresh rice milk at home.
Thanks for letting us know about your taste test.
Mim
I was happy to find a simple recipe on how to make rice milk and after reading your comment I am also surprised that the world is finally realizing these things and are looking into healthier ways to live.
I think you might be surprised to find out that a woman already wrote all about these health issues almost a 100 years ago and with surprising accurateness. Her name is Ellen G White they have a great web site all about her if you Google it i am sure you will find it.
If she was so accurate in her writings about health leads me to think that her other writings should be considered as well.
If you love to read I recommend her books.
Take care,
Curtis Jon
Welcome, Curtis Jon!
I have never heard of Ellen G. White before but I will certainly be looking her up. She sounds fascinating. Thank you for mentioning her. I hope you’ll enjoy the recipe and that it will give you satisfaction to try making your own rice milk.
Mim
My parents have been trying to get off vanilla soymilk so we switched to rice milk. I am a HUGE chocolate soy drinker and usually use soy milk for my Carnation Breakfast Drinks (I know… not a good way to start the day lol) but when I used rice milk… it tasted AWFUL!
Is there a way to make chocolate rice milk taste decent? Without making it 99% chocolate? xD
Thanks so much, and wicked recipe
Welcome MissMaggie,
Tastes certainly differ. My experience is that this rice milk recipe makes incredibly delicious chocolate milk…but I don’t use Carnation Instant Breakfast, which is a conventional food and likely to contain toxic pesticides (really not a good way to start your day, as you say!).
We like Dagoba’s fair trade organic cocoa powder. 1/4 teaspoon of it to 1 cup of rice milk yields a creamy, rich chocolate milk or hot chocolate. Add ice and put it in the blender and you’ve got a chocolate milk shake of real merit. We sweeten our chocolate drinks with maple syrup. This is how my family enjoys chocolate, and I’m wondering if it’s not the rice milk that tasted bad when you tried your recipe, but the Carnation.
I believe that Carnation Instant Breakfast is sold as a nutritional food (or, at least, it was originally marketed that way decades ago). The truth is, you’d be better off eating a really good breakfast. How about beans, rice and corn tortillas with a cup of steaming hot rice milk chocolate? A Mexican-style breakfast with incredible nutritious properties and delicious to sink your teeth into? Chocolate is one of those things it’s best to view as a treat rather than a meal, I think, and the cost of organic cocoa powder dictates that it be used only occasionally, for most families with a modest income. 1 tin of Dagoba lasts us for over half a year and we enjoy every bit of it!
Maybe your parents would splurge on some really good organic Cocoa as a treat for you all? I think if you tried it with this rice milk recipe, you’d really enjoy it.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Mim
Hi,
I like the info and your regular responses. I have a 1 year old with severe dairy and soy allergies. She drinks a lot of rice milk from Trader Joe’s because they state that it is segregated from other allergens and it is about 1/2 the price. The only reason we buy the store-bought stuff is for the calcium content. I know she only needs 2 cups for her RDA and that is important to me since my grandmother died from Osteoporosis crushing her heart and lungs, which was always blamed on her not drinking milk as a sacrifice so her children would have it through the depression and bearing 5 children. Vitamins for infants (major brands of liquids, such as Enfamil) contain NO calcium. Plus I hate to support Formula companies. The bowed leg story posted above is absolutely horrifying. It is pretty hard to get a toddler to eat leafy green vegetables and we don’t think eating brocoli every day is the answer. Perhaps she will be able to take alternative calcium supplements when she is older. I will try the recipe to have around for substituting for dairy in recipes, since oatmilk and nutmilks are too strong of flavors. Thanks for your thoroughness.
Welcome CA Beach Girl,
Thank you for coming to share your story about calcium and your daughter.
It’s very important for people to get adequate calcium at all ages, but I thought it might be of interest to you to know that the regions of the world with the highest dairy product consumption (Scandinavia, Canada and the United States) also have the highest percentages of osteoporosis. Because there is a history of this condition in your family, and you tragically lost your grandmother to it, this might be something you want to research further. I have seen articles suggesting that the people in these 3 regions of the world consume far too much protein and that this damages the body’s ability to correctly absorb calcium. I don’t have all of the facts in my mind, but I did want to mention this to you out of concern for your family.
I did not realize that you couldn’t purchase a liquid calcium supplement for children. Something you might like to look into for your little girl is Tahini. Tahini is sesame butter…like peanut butter. It can be used to make delicious hummus…or even better in some ways…Sesame Cheese which you will find a recipe for here on our site:
http://www.veganreader.com/2009/06/25/vegan-cheese-recipe-make-your-own-dairy-free-cheese/
Sesame seeds are extremely high in calcium and the soft nature of tahini makes them really easy to eat. I bet your little girl would love it and it might be easier to get her to eat more of than greens.
You are smart to be looking out for your child’s welfare with such care!
Mim
[...] Read the article for yourself and decide on your own whether or not you’re going to consume Rice Dream. [...]
For the person with the five young girls and expecting another– honey should never be given to an infant under one-year-old because of bacteria that will make infants ill. Older children and adults can handle honey but not children.
I have just read your very informative article and subsequent responses. How kind of you to respond to everyone.
I live on a yacht currently in Malaysia and try to make as many products from scratch that I can. I see first hand in the oceans the horrendous pollution that has taken place in my lifetime. By not purchasing packaging I feel In some small way that I am not contributing to this mess. I will be trying your recipe today with organic brown rice and will use a pressure cooker. Thank you.
Welcome, Arasmas,
What an interesting life you must be leading right now! Thank you for mentioning the pollution of our seas. When the famous explorer Thor Heyerdahl made his ocean voyages, he was truly horrified by the pollution he encountered, and that was now decades ago. Since then, it has gotten exponentially worse, and I want to applaud your efforts to purchase less packaging. Thank you.
I’m so glad you enjoyed this article and wish you success with making your own rice milk. I think you will really like it.
Mim
How kind of you to provide these terrific recipes. In Australia we are fortunate to have a company called Vitasoy who are (I hope) independant of the big global corporations. However, the milk is very expensive and only available in the supermarket which I try not to support becuase over here we have a duopoly and they really squeeze the poor farmers and manufacturers. So I’ll buy the rice from a health food shop and support them instead – fabulous!
Your recipe has come to me via my American friend (I am in Australia), and I am looking forward to making for myself and 2 young daughters.
I was wondering how long it keeps in the glass jars? and do you keep the jars in the fridge? Is it freezable?
Thanks for your fabulous recipe.
Welcome, Franbtc,
Thanks so much for your nice comment and I hope this helps you save money and enjoy healthier, fresher rice milk!
Welcome, Serena,
Ours keeps just fine in the fridge for at least a week in glass jars. We never make more than a week’s supply at a time, so you’ll have to see how long it stays fresh-tasting if you’d like to make more than that at a time. I just think it’s better to make it in small batches so you always know it’s good and fresh! I so hope you’ll enjoy this rice milk recipe.
Mim
Thankyou for replying so quickly to my enquiry! I’m off to make a batch right now.
Hi, thanks for the recipe! I just made today and its great:) I even make a image to explain in my language (portuguese) since I have a blog that talks about bad things like msg and aspartame.
keep posting!
See here: http://c3.quickcachr.fotos.sapo.pt/i/oac0477c2/5696665_viIZi.jpeg
Hello and thanks for the recipe; I will probably try it sometime, but I find the constant habitual use of such things to be a little too far out. Why are people so tied to having milk-like things in their diet? Humans need human milk for a couple years at the beginning of life, then other foods should suffice. Adding sugars, fats and extra carbs to an already rich diet seems a waste. Buying manufactured beverages in marginally recyclable packaging carries a huge carbon footprint. Even making one’s own requires the energy that results in more carbon consumption.
Is it flavor obsession? Texture? I cook oatmeal with water and add more if it is too dry. Sometimes I add a little oil to smooth out the texture. Surprise; dry cereal can be wet with water! And the water from our tap is high in calcium and other minerals from Sierra granite. I haven’t found any recipe that suffered from substituting water for milk, but then I don’t make gravy or white sauces.
If the desire for creamy textures or milky flavors is driving over-consumption, maybe it is time to go a little deeper than making somewhat gentler substitutes for unnecessary food cravings.
Hi- Thanks for the recipe & all the info. I’m very excited to make this.
Also if we use a pot on the stove as listed in recipe- does the rice mush mixture stick terribly to the pan after 3 hours? Does it need to constantly be stirred or is it ok to just sit for the most part in the pot?
Hi Ella,
We’ve had no problem with sticking. It’s so liquid. We use a copper-bottomed revereware pot and it works just fine. No stirring needed. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you will enjoy making your own rice milk!
Mim
Welcome Ed,
You’ve raised some good and interesting points, for sure! I stand with you in your unhappiness about packaging, and agree, too, that it is unnatural to continue to crave actual milk after infancy. Nonetheless, many dairy-based cultures around the world have survived because of their use of animal milks and the craving for this goes many generations deep in some cultures.
I’d like to bring a slightly different perspective to your thinking about this. My Native ancestors never got into the habit of drinking the milk of other animals. Nevertheless, the making of nut and seed beverages is well-documented and these have come to be called ‘milks’, I believe, simply because their creamy consistency resembles that of human and other mammal milks.
I would suggest that, given our physical need for fats and our ability to use tools to create foods for ourselves, the consumption of nut, seed and grain milks is pretty natural and healthy. And, happily, in choosing to go with plant-based beverages, the consumer can be joyful that they did not need to steal these drinks from mother animals of other species. They are gifts to us from the plant kingdom, and by making these foods ourselves at home, we are both empowering ourselves and reducing dependence on corporations. I really did think you raised some good points, Ed, but I also see the making of homemade nut, grain and seed milks as a win-win for people and their environment.
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts here.
Mim
Thank you for the recipe and the insight. I was searching for a rice milk recipe to use as a substitute for milk. I have a son with Autism Spectrum Disorder and we are just starting a GFCFSF diet. I bought the Rice Dream and he loves it, but don’t want to support any bad or damaging environmental folks. Originally, I was just thinking cost. Can you recommend a safe, organic brown rice that I can buy in bulk?
Also, we’ve looked into a CSA and are now supporting a local farmer down the street. It is good idea for those of us without a green thumb!
I love your recipe, we do strain our milk more than twice and also we use cheese cloth and the strainer to get a smoother quality. My daughter is allergic to cow’s milk and have found it difficult and expensive, and after trying Rice milk for a month the whole family is now driving it as well. We do add syrup and coco powder in our drinking milk ( the coco syrup actually has maple syrup and coco powder and oil blended together, and they do not separate, so maybe it’s the syrup that helps). Anybody have any clue on how to make Rice cheese, so many of the products you get in the store contain Casien.
Hello! I made your rice milk yesturday and I had so much fun! I followed the recipe precisely except used 3/4 tsp salt – 1 tsp would have made it too salty for me. The end result was wonderful, and I ended up making a pretty thick batch – Mostly made to be used to make creamy oatmeal. I ended up with 10 cups, and a hefty price tag of 35 cents for 10 cups of rice milk! Truly fantastic.
The only question I have is, does the rice need to be boiled for 3 hours? I like to cook my food as little as possible and worry about the long cook time for the rice. I really don’t mind a thicker and not-as-pure rice milk so I’ll probably cook it less next time and see how it turns out.
Thank you so much for this recipe, as well as the very informative article! I love how you give though-out responses to each of your readers. I also loved the article on vegans eating heavily processed foods and how its something that should be paid more attention to.
I’ve blogged about this recipe on my eating-healthy vegan blog http://nocrapdiet.wordpress.com, and will be keeping an eye on this website!
Dear Jrlenig,
I’m so glad this rice milk recipe looks good to you. May I suggest that you check out our Vegan Cheese Recipe here: http://www.veganreader.com/2009/06/25/vegan-cheese-recipe-make-your-own-dairy-free-cheese/
Copy and paste that link into your browser bar. I agree with you – the imitation cheeses that are mass manufactured are not tasty and have a very weird consistency…like rubber! I decided to invent my own cheese, and the recipe I’ve linked to is for an absolutely delicious soft cheese (like those expensive soft cheeses from Switzerland) with a cheddar-like tang and taste. This makes the most delicious sandwiches. Add some tomato, pickles, lettuce…whatever you fancy. Really yummy. I hope you’ll give it a try.
Thanks for stopping by!
Mim
Greetings, Kate!
That’s just great to hear that you had such fun with this rice milk recipe, and very nice that you blogged about it! You sound like a daring experimenter in the kitchen, so I think you can safely play with cooking times to see if you can adapt this recipe to something that suits your needs better. The 3 hour cooking time makes the rice soft and soupy…you’d have to find another way to get that ‘soupiness’. Please, let me know what you figure out and thanks again for taking the time to leave such an enjoyable comment!
Mim
Greetings dsmith29!
I truly apologize for my delayed response to your important comment. I’ve been having a busy couple of weeks. Please, let me do my best to respond.
I have read some amazing stories about Autism and diet and so applaud how you are working to educate yourself about all of this to help your son. Is Lundberg rice available where you live? We buy Lundberg’s Organic Long Grain Brown Rice in bulk and it is very cost effective. As the reader, above, noted, a batch of this milk cost her 35 cents to make! Hard to beat that price.
Because I’m not sure where you live, I’m not sure what organic and bulk options are available where your family is. Best bet would be to phone the nearest natural foods store and ask, and if you don’t live near any businesses like this, you might be able to find an online source for bulk organic brown rice. I believe there are many online stores offering this type of thing, so even folks in sparsely-populated regions can have access to good foods.
Please know, I am wishing you and your son so much luck.
Mim
Hi, thanks for your recipes, I am excited to try them!
I have been researching making grain and nut milks because my husband and I are preparing to move to a little cabin in the woods in Canada where we will have no electricity at all, at least to begin with (I’m thinking we might want to leave it that way though). So I am thinking about storage issues – do you think I can heat-process the jars of milk so that I can keep them for a while without refrigeration – I don’t really want to have to make milk every day or two (especially since I will be using a hand-powered blender)! We have lived on our sailboat for years without a fridge and find that most food keeps way longer than you’d think if you’re used to keeping everything in the fridge, especially in our cool Pacific Northwest climate, but having some kind of milk around has definitely been the trickiest piece of the puzzle.
Welcome Julia,
I must say, I’m excited about your plans of the move to the cabin in Canada. I want to preface my suggestion with the information that I have never lived without refrigeration, and so, am not an expert on this who can give you reliable advice. But, here is what I would suggest:
You are going to need to look back in time to the methods that Native Peoples and pioneers used to store food. In the days before refrigeration, Native Peoples built underground food caches for many foods, keeping them good and safe to eat. Pioneers depended on three methods of storage. In naturally cold areas, most eastern farmhouses had cold basements and this is where farmers’ wives frequently kept cow’s milk cold…but this was on a daily basis. Other families with access to ice built ice houses – buildings stuffed with layers of ice and straw – and the interior of these buildings would have been quite cold. Finally, some lucky families had spring houses (little sheds sheltering a natural spring). Spring houses were cool inside in moderate to cold weather and bottles of milk could be kept cold in the spring. Obviously, well-sealed bottles would be very important in this scenario.
Later on, ice boxes were invented. These non-electric coolers were dependent upon having an ice wagon deliver chunks of ice to the keep the box cold, and this method of cold storage was used in America well into the mid-20th century.
Will your cabin have any of these resources available to you, Julia?
If not, there is not a historic precedent I know of that you can draw from for what you’d like to do – keeping a grain/nut/seed based milk safe and potable without refrigeration. You found this problematic on your boat and will be facing the same difficulties in your new home. It will be up to you to find out how long this type of milk will keep at room temperature, but unfortunately, I don’t know how you will gauge this beyond the rather unappealing test of seeing whether you would become ill from drinking something that had spoiled. I don’t know at what point unrefrigerated rice milk would spoil…or if it would spoil at all? Like the early pioneers, you are going to be in a position of experimentation, trial and error and while there is certainly risk involved in this, there is also a tremendous amount of value in this type of exploration of a different way of life.
In your shoes, I would be researching; finding every book I can about food processing and storage in earlier times. I’m sure, with this move planned, you are already doing this, and while I’m sorry I can’t offer you more reliable advice, I want you to know that I am wishing you heartiest good luck in your venture! Your cabin sounds wonderful. Please, feel free to come back and let us know how it goes. We’d really be interested.
Mim
Hey Julia,
I found your plans very interesting – My husband and I are Canadians and our home is a sailboat too! If you read this message, please e-mail me, I’d be excited to chat with you! =)
3eskimopies @ gmail.com
I tried this rice milk recipe and it turned out slimy. I’ve tried many others like it but whatever I do, the result -never- tastes very good. It’s either got a slimy texture, or it is too watery, or not sweet enough, or it is bland goop.
Is there a way to get home made rice milk to taste like Rice Dream, or Trader Joe’s Rice Beverage? Or is this just not possible with home methods?
Does anyone have any recipes that have produced Rice Dream – like deliciousness?
I’m starting to suspect all the people who are posting Rice Milk recipes on the web are having a good laugh at my expense!
Wow! This is a great post. I stopped drinking soy milk awhile ago because I didn’t want to consume soy products and switched to rice milk (too much soy in vegetarian “food”). I usually get the rice drink from Trader Joe’s, but would occasionally get Rice Dream if I was out and at the wrong store. NEVER AGAIN! I’m also now very recently gluten-free and dairy/casein-free after a presumptive gluten intolerance diagnosis. A gluten-free diet in the stores is very expensive so I love the idea of making as many products as I can to save on cost, be more healthy, and more eco-friendly. Your site looks great I can’t wait to look around more and try making that cheese you mention above in another comment! I’m also vegetarian so it looks like I’ll be able to get plenty creative with your recipes! Thanks!
^ that should have said vegan not vegetarian. Still getting used to it.
Welcome Rice Mystery!
Thank you for sharing your not-so-great track record with trying to make your own rice milk. I’m feeling puzzled with you, as I’ve never had this recipe turn out ‘slimy’ and, so far, no one who has commented back here after trying this recipe has mentioned sliminess. Here are a couple of thoughts:
1. Maybe you need to thin the milk down more? Maybe it’s just too thick for you.
2. Could it be your water? As one of the few ingredients in a batch of rice milk, I guess you’d have to consider the quality of the water you are using.
3. Could it be the rice you are using? I use and organic, long grain brown rice. Could you be using something stickier or more glutinous?
On a final note, I heard through the grape vine (though I have no idea that this is true) that commercial rice milk is made of fermented rice. I wondered about this because, I agree, homemade rice milk is not precisely identical to the factory-made stuff. Maybe this is something you could investigate further.
I’m really sorry you haven’t found satisfaction with any of the rice milk recipes you’ve tried. You are the first person to bring this up, and that’s very intriguing. While I can’t solve your problem, maybe I can make a suggestion. Why don’t you try almond milk? It is creamier and I can’t see how it could be made slimy, simply because of the clean (non-sticky) profile of almonds. I have posted my recipe for this here:
http://www.veganreader.com/2009/09/12/almond-milk-recipe-the-creamiest-of-them-all/comment-page-1/#comment-2351
Maybe, since you just aren’t happy with your homemade rice milk so far, you could give almond milk a shot and see if you like it better.
Hope these ideas help and thanks again for sharing your experience.
Mim
Welcome Foureight!
I agree with you that vegan diets can become too soy dependent. Seed, nut and grain milks offer a great alternative to a soy-heavy diet. I so hope you will enjoy the recipes you’ll find here. Because you’re getting into a gluten-free diet, I’d like to specifically recommend an article to you. The historic Native American diet is naturally gluten free, easily prepared in a vegan manner and offers so many wonderful opportunities for scrumptious, nutritionally-complete meals. I wrote this article in hopes of sharing this perspective with all Americans, as it makes sense for people of any background who now live in America to eat the true American way. I hope you’ll enjoy this:
http://www.veganreader.com/2009/09/10/native-american-foods-the-key-to-good-eating-in-america/
I’m wishing you wonderful luck in your adventures in the kitchen.
Mim
Thank you so much for this detailed and thoughtful recipe! My husband and I use Ryza in just about everything, but for nearly $5 a liter I will be happy to pursue an alternative.
Welcome LindseyH,
You are very welcome, and this is definitely both a cheaper and fresher way to get your rice milk. Good luck with trying the recipe!
Mim
[...] cereal. But I wondered how they make it, so I did a little research. In doing so I came across this blog post on VeganReader.com suggesting that Monsanto is a shareholder in Rice Dream. Ugh. Then I read this [...]
Thank you for this recipe!
I was wondering what the yield is on this recipe and if you know how to store this? Can we water bath or pressure can? We would only use about a pint a week so I would like to be able to save the rest.
How long will it store in the fridge unopened and opened?
Thanks!
This post was shown to me by one of my fellow blog writers over at Not Dabbling in Normal. We are beginning March 1st a challenge to refrain from processed foods for a month. As a vegan I am going to be trying your recipe for rice/nut milk, I’ll link back to you when I post about it! Thanks Kim
Dear Dill,
It might help you to look over some of the comments here that go back and forth about storage times. Because our experience is in making a week’s supply at a time, I know it keeps for a week just fine in the fridge, stored in lidded mason jars, but I’m afraid I don’t know how long it would stay good beyond that, because we’ve never had the experience of trying to see how that would go.
In your case, if you only use a pint a week, why not cut the recipe down to make only a small amount at a time? It’s so easy to make, and that way, you’d be sure your rice milk was as fresh as possible on a weekly basis. If you think about it, on old-time farms, people milked cows on a daily basis, a what with milking, scalding milk pans, straining milk and separating it, this was a lot more labor-intensive that whipping up a small batch of this rice milk would be. I’m biased towards making things fresh, so long term storage for perishable items, just isn’t something I have experience with. Pickles and preserves, yes, but long-storage milk…I’m just not sure.
You are very welcome for this recipe and I hope your experimenting with it will produce just the right amount for your needs!
Mim
Warm welcome to The Inadvertent Farmer!
We applaud your efforts to do a month without processed foods. I am curious to know more about your approach to this! I’ve visited your blog today, but didn’t come across an article specifically about how you’re doing this, and want to invite you to come back here and link to one if you publish one.
Cutting down as much as possible on processed foods is not only smart, it is an opportunity to see how much you can do for yourself, thus increasing your confidence in your own abilities. We try to buy as few processed foods as possible. The few we do buy on a regular basis include:
Corn flour
Sunflower and Olive Oils
Vinegar
Salt
Maple Syrup
Spices
That’s about the extent of our processed food list at this point, as we don’t have the ability to process these things at home (though we could experiment with making vinegar at some point). Everything else, we buy in the most unprocessed form possible (brown rice, dried beans, bulk nuts, etc.)
I’d be really happy to hear more about your project and how it goes and thank you for taking the time to comment here!
Mim
I thought I was all alone!! I’m obsessed with the slow food movement but it’s a lot of work. I love it but it’s a challenge since I have a 1 and 3 year old and wonderful husband of course. I wish we could have some support group. I’m in Northern California. Where do you live?
P.S. How long does the rice milk last? I assume I store it in the fridge.
Love this thanks for posting it. I’ll be linking to it for our Real Food Challenge at Not Dabbling in Normal. Hopefully some of our readers will use it.
[...] to Make You Own Milk Alternatives: Making Rice Milk at Home How to Make Almond Milk at [...]
So i just finished drinkin my daily smoothie with Rice Milk that is store bought, and i thought to myself that with this economy healthy means much more expensive, i thought about making my own rice milk would be not only cost effective but also healthier than store bought. I googled “how to make rice milk” and your site came up. I’m really happy to see that people share these thoughts that we may not think about it all that much. But my boyfriend just told me that cow milk is much more healthier than rice milk, although i dont agree i couldnt give him an answer for my opinion. What is your take on that?
Greetings, Be_healthy!
Thanks for asking your question here. While I wouldn’t want to start a quarrel between you and your boyfriend, I must respectfully disagree with his opinion about cow milk being healthier for people than rice milk. Here are a few reasons why:
- Cow milk is healthy for…baby cows, not humans. Just as human milk is healthy for baby humans, all mammals produce a milk for their babies that is healthy, just for them. Human beings are the only mammals on the planet that a) drink the milk of another species and b) drink mammal milk past infancy. Think about it – lions, bears, deer…none of these animals drink mammal milk once they grow past infancy, and they certainly never drink the milk of other animals. So, it’s not natural or healthy for adult humans to be drinking any kind of mammal milk…and certainly not the milk of a completely different species, right?
- The consumption of dairy products (milk, cheese, etc.) has been linked to countless human health problems including high cholesterol which leads to heart attacks and strokes, and some very serious digestive health issues. There are numerous scientific studies out there which support the natural sense of the fact that grown humans should not be drinking a mammal milk. We don’t need it, and it’s not good for us. By contrast, plant-based milks like rice milk, almond milk, oat milk, etc. are easy to digest, cholesterol free and perfectly fine for humans of all ages to drink.
-Environmentally speaking, the factory farming methods which produce dairy products in the USA have destroyed our soil and water and have polluted our air with methane and increased the effects of global warming. Dairy farming, as it is conducted in America, is totally ruinous to our environment.
-Ethically speaking, it’s important to understand that dairy cows lead wretched lives. They are forced to bear children who are then stolen from them, causing them severe anguish. Every glass of cow milk you drink means a veal calf being confined, tortured and slaughtered in infancy. This is very concerning, not just because of the suffering of the animals, but because human beings consume that suffering when they eat dairy products. The stress, pain and fear of these animals are transformed into chemicals that are then present in dairy and meat and I can’t believe that consuming this is good for human mental or spiritual health, you see.
My bet is that your boyfriend has very good intentions at heart, but probably just hasn’t had the time or opportunity to study the subject of dairy production and consumption. Most American children are taught that drinking cow’s milk is good for them. Billions of dollars in advertising have been spent over the past century marketing this idea to the public, and loving mothers have been taught that children must have cow’s milk to be healthy. This is simply untrue and unnatural, but like most Americans, your boyfriend has likely heard this belief voiced enough to take it at face value as being true.
Perhaps, as the two of you continue getting to know one another, you can take the opportunity to learn as much as you can about human and environmental health, with the goal of building a future together that is healthy for the planet and healthy for you. Wishing you good luck!
Mim
My daughter was just recently diagnosed with Asthma and has been batteling severe asthma for most of her 5yrs of life. We just recently found out she is allergic to Milk, walnuts, eggs, severly allergic to peanuts and a little reactive to soy and corn. This is a total life style change for the family because we are a dairy family all raised that way by our parents. I was goggling recipes to make rice milk pudding and other traditional recipes made with milk and dairy products. Your recipe for rice milk is the first things I came across. Very interesting and would save a lot of money. Changing everything in our cabinets will be expensive and every little bit of savings helps. Do you know if the homemade rice milk can be used to make pudding and other traditional dairy things including ice cream. We have been buying rice dream milk and ice cream just started a week ago. Any readers that have recipes please post as well. This is a total family lifestyle change that i am learning will be for the better of our family and our world.
Welcome, Dawn!
I’m very sorry to hear about your daughter’s struggle with asthma. That can be scary and painful to see a little one suffering in this way, and I am so glad you are starting to make dietary changes that may help your daughter heal. Like you, I was raised in a dairy-oriented family, so I understand that it can seem overwhelming to have to make changes. Let me assure you, once you get the hang of this, it will come to seem easy and normal.
Packaged non-dairy products can be a good temporary solution while you are making a big transition (things like packaged rice milk and rice milk ice cream). But, you may find that you might like to start doing things yourself as much as you can, to cut down on the processed, packaged foods which are expensive and generally of poorer quality than the foods you can prepare freshly yourself.
The rice milk recipe we’ve published here is definitely a money-saver, and because you have control of the ‘production’ of it, you can be certain that what you are making is as fresh and healthy as possible for your family.
Now, as to making puddings and ice creams – my advice on this depends on whether your daughter is allergic to all nuts or just peanuts and walnuts. If she can eat almonds, I would recommend using almond milk for puddings and frozen desserts. This is my almond milk recipe:
http://www.veganreader.com/2009/09/12/almond-milk-recipe-the-creamiest-of-them-all/
I make a chocolate almond milk pudding that is absolutely delectable, following a typical cornstarch pudding recipe and simply using almond milk instead of cow’s milk. To me, almond milk has a creamier taste (more like cow’s milk), but if your daughter is allergic to all nuts, you can certainly make pudding with rice milk, as well.
Ice cream is another matter. If you look at the labels of commercial non-dairy ice creams, you will see that they have thickeners in them like guar gum and various seaweed-based texturizers. These are added to ‘fake’ the consistency of creaminess. By contrast, the homemade ice creams I have made are more like a sorbet or granita – more icy and granular than smoothly creamy. They have a very creamy taste because of the almond milk, but the consistency is different, because these milks freeze into an iciness rather than the solid creaminess you are used to in cow’s milk ice cream.
Now, if you feel like your little girl might feel deprived by not having the texture of creaminess that is present in non-dairy ice creams because of the addition of gums and other additives, it probably won’t be harmful to let her have packaged ice creams once in awhile. However, as a long-term strategy, I would suggest learning to make these things at home, even if the end results are a little bit icier than creamier, simply because this will help your daughter in the future. As an adult, she will be able to depend on herself to produce fresh food, rather than depending on processed foods, because you will have set her such a powerful and meaningful example by preparing staples and treats from scratch.
That’s my thinking on this. I will only add – I’ve been a vegan for 20 years now and enjoy a rich and varied dairy-free diet. I do not feel deprived in any way, and your little girl need not either while her mom approaches this challenge with creativity and a healthy, positive attitude. Your education is critical to your child’s health, and it’s vital that you look carefully at your daughter’s new diet to make sure she is getting all of the nutrients she needs from it. Talking with a smart nutritionist could be a big help for your family. You are on the right track, Dawn, and your daughter is lucky to have you using your time and wits to find good solutions for her!
I am wishing you the best of luck!
Mim
Hi,
I googled rice milk recipes because all the additives including “natural flavors” that are in the various rice milks….such as guar gum, carageenan, etc. I looked these up and they don’t sound the most healthy. Thanks so much for your recipe and I am on the same page as you….what you said in the article above.
One thing I question is, with your knowledge about Monsanto, how can you eat corn? Have you found corn or corn products that are organic and NON-GMO? Most people don’t realize how bad GMO products are….worse than pesticide products! I suggest people get educated on this and stop buying the worst GMO products like corn and soy. We must use our consumer power!
Chetna
Welcome Chetna!
I’m so glad you came across this article while searching for information about the additives in commercial rice milks. I hope it has been helpful to you.
I’m also very glad you have brought up the subject of corn as this is something we care so deeply about. The destruction of landraces of corn is not only an assault on human health, but is also a matter of religious desecration for Native peoples. As you say, few people are aware of what is happening with this, and we try to take every opportunity to increase education about GMOs.
We purchase our organic corn seed from Fedco.com. After considerable research, we have determined that Fedco has the best practices when it comes to testing their seed to make sure it isn’t GMO-contaminated. In terms of store-bought products, we purchase organic cornmeal from Arrowhead Mills and organic polenta meal from Bob’s Red Mill. Though, unfortunately, the organic label does not make one 100% secure from consuming GMOs, it is your best hope of avoiding them. It is my belief that the contamination of corn ranks up there with Global Warming as a matter of international urgency and it should be front page news. We will keep working to try to make it so.
You also mentioned soy. For many years, we bought organic tofu as a staple in our house, but after about 20 years of consuming it, I came to the conclusion with my doctor that it was disturbing my digestive system. Allergy tests showed an intolerance to it, and so, for almost two years now, our home has been soy-free. This was challenging at first, but we’ve gotten used to it now. My advice to anyone consuming soy would be to be absolutely certain they are buying organic, as again, this is some small protection against the consumption of GMOs which have infected nearly all of America’s soy bean supply.
Sad times for anyone just trying to eat and live, but education is our best ally. Thank you for raising these important issues, and I hope that in your further reading through this site, you will be heartened to see our firm stance on GMOs and pesticides.
Mim
I found your website when I typed in, “how to make rice milk”. This is fantastic. I have been wanting this info for a long time and I am thrilled for all the other things you have to offer. Thank you a million times. Patree
Welcome, Patree!
I am so glad that you found this recipe for rice milk right at the right moment! That’s good news to hear and I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy making this for yourself. You are extremely welcome!
Mim
Hello
First of all big thank you for the article and recipe. I made a batch as soon as I finished reading the article.
Surprisingly oil just blended in and even thou I was worried about the taste you cant actually feel it in the milk itself. And it did not part which oil mixed with other substances should do, hurrah!
I was addicted to rice dream for the past few years, but never realized what kind of company I am supporting as a result.
Plus I am eternally skint student so this recipe have saved me quite a few quid already, which is just brilliant as right now I am trying hard to cook homemade meals and become as independent from store bought meals as possible. Its my little new years resolution -to be healthier and thriftier
My batch came out creamy and thick, so I added loads of water, and it came out brilliantly. It has a bit different color but same great taste. As I didn’t have strainer I just used clean kitchen cloth
I am very happy with the outcome and just wanted to share my joy
I am really impressed with your website, and the fact that you reply to everyone on regular basis, it must take up a lot of your time. However it is soo well worth it. People keep writing comments because of that and I have to say they were very enlightening, so thank you everyone I ve learned so much today its just unbelievable.
Regards
Dominika
Welcome Dominika!
What a lovely comment to receive and I’m so delighted to know you’ve had success with making your own rice milk using this recipe. That is great to hear!
I’ve been thinking about the oil factor, as several readers have wondered how it can be that the oil doesn’t separate from the water – as you’ve seen, it doesn’t! The more I’ve thought about this, the more I’m convinced it is because rice is a starchy grain and there must be enough starch left in the milk to effectively absorb the little bit of oil that is added. Pretty neat!
I am very happy that this will help you save money and have the satisfaction of doing-it-yourself. Your New Year’s Resolution is a super one – one I’d love to see lots more people make. I am wishing you sincere good luck and happy sipping!
Mim
Hello!
I wanted to think you so much for the wonderfully thoughtful article and recipe! I plan on giving it a go this weekend once all the kiddos are shuffled outside to play. We currently drink Rice Dream rice milk and I am greatly looking forward to reducing and hopefully eliminating the need of that purchase!
Best regards,
Cate
Is there any reason why it is better not to eat the remaining rice pulp?
Welcome, Simon,
There is no reason not to eat the rice pulp, if you can think of something creative to do with it. It’s pretty mushy, but no reason it wouldn’t be fine to eat.
Mim
[...] “How to make rice milk and stop supporting rice dream.” Vegan Reader: Thoughtful Reading for a Compassionate Planet. 17 May 2009. Web. 16 Feb 2010. [...]
Just popping in to thank you again. I used your recipe over the weekend and it was so simple to follow. Our milk turned out fantastic! Our kids love it! It feels so empowering to be able to nourish our family on our own.
Hello, Cateline!
Thank you so much for coming back to tell me the rice milk recipe was a success for you, and for your children! I apologize for not responding more promptly to your initial comment. Now that spring is here, it seems like there aren’t enough hours in the day to get all of the planting done. I sit here surrounded by potatoes that are all cut up and waiting to go into the ground!
I really appreciate it when readers let me know that something worked for them and it was very kind of you to take a moment to give such helpful feedback. I so hope your family will enjoy the savings and super taste of homemade rice milk for many years to come.
Best Wishes!
Mim
Just wanted to say a massive thank you for sharing this.
I’m really touched by some of the comments you’ve written – I would like to be patient and compassionate as you’ve been.
I’ll definitely be recommending your site; you’re brilliant!
Welcome, Kathleen!
It is I who am touched by your lovely comment. Thank you so much for taking time to leave me such a kind note. I really appreciated receiving it. I get a lot of satisfaction from getting to communicate with all of the good people who read our publication…I learn from them and take encouragement from the fact that there are so many people out there seeking helpful information. Makes the world seem brighter for me!
Thank you, again, for stopping by and I hope we’ll see you again here.
Mim
Hello–
Just wondering where you found all the information about the shareholders being Monsanto, WalMart etc. I can’t believe how many labels are under the Hain Celestial umbrella. It is disheartening to think they are all in bed together. Please let me know how you found this out. I would love to be certain of the facts before spreading the news. Thank you for the recipe.
Shannon
Greetings, Sharon!
Good for you for wanting to check on sources. That’s very smart. I got the information regarding these companies from Dr. Jane Goodall’s book, ‘Harvest For Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating’. I have seen similar charts on the web, but this was the one from which I was quote regarding these corporate connections. I hope this information is helpful to you!
Mim
Thank you very much for getting back to me about where you sourced your information. Sounds like a pretty good and truthful source. And big thanks for making this recipe and information available to read on the internet.
Happy Earth Day !!!!
Shannon
I am so glad i found your site, i just had a glass of cheap rice milk from Asda, and the texture was poor, i paid £1.28 for 1litre. I searched your website and am pleased I have found your recipe. Many thanks.
I just came across your site and I think it’s wonderful especially since I’ve been contemplating becoming a vegan. I was just wondering if you have the caloric and nutrient breakdown of your rice milk recipe. Also, right now I rely almost solely on cow’s milk for my calcium intake, how do you get your calcium and vitamin D? Thanks.
Welcome, Lactoseintolerant!
If you take another look at the article, you will see where I’ve listed the places we get our calcium and Vitamin D from. If you have questions beyond this, please feel free to ask.
In our family, we think of rice milk as a condiment…not a main food staple. I believe that a varied, balanced diet comprised of whole foods provides adequate nutrition. However, if there is every any doubt about this, you can take vitamins as a supplement. Most vegans advocated taking B-12 supplements as this is a bacterial not found on washed plant foods, so this is definitely one you should read up on if you are considering going vegan. Education is power!!! Best of luck and thank you for stopping by and for your kind comment.
Mim
Welcome, Malik!
Thank you for your comment, and I hope this rice milk recipe will help you both to save money and to have a very high quality rice beverage to drink.
Mim
Hi Mim,
Somewhere on a raw foods website I followed the link to this article on your site. I must tell you I’ve been doing raw foods now for about 3 weeks and I feel great! AND I’m losing weight (whereas before the weight would NOT come off in spite of the exercise).
I have been using Rice Dream (since the 1980′s) and the 365 Whole Foods brand of rice milk. So I thank you so much for this informative article. I’m blown away by the info on whose got interests in Hain!
I would like to share some info about IFF. I worked there in the 1980s for 6 months. I was told by a helpful employee to buy a separate set of clothes (that won’t be expensive) and to keep them in a separate closet because they will contaminate my other clothes in the closet. IFF makes 85% of the worlds perfumes! The scents would leak thru the floors and permeate all the offices/workspaces. You could NOT get the smells out by laundering the clothes! After my 6 months there, I had to throw all those (dress-up) work clothes out because the perfume/cologne smells were permanent & overpowering! I do believe that my sensitivity to chemical perfumes now, are a direct result from working there (thank God it was a short contract!).
Sometimes a marketing employee would come around and have us smell a new scent and then give us a small bottle of some name brand perfumes in appreciation for answering a questionnaire;
I would get delirious from the scents. My experience there demonstrated then that there is something definitely wrong with those products to have such a reaction to them. Your article confirmed my olfactory experience with what they’re doing in the gustatory arena.
Thank you for such forthright information. You are blessed.
~JerseyGrrl
Welcome, Jersey Grrl!
How kind of you to share your first hand experience working for IFF. Unfortunately, perfumes really bother so many people…in fact, some who are chemically sensitive become terribly ill when they have to be in a public place where others are wearing scents. Some kind groups request that members be fragrance-free when they attend public events, but for the most part, this situation doesn’t get much press.
My guess is that, with your huge exposure to these chemical scents, the best course of action for you will be to avoid chemical scents and flavorings as much as possible. It sounds like your body really got overloaded and hopefully, with time, it can try to heal itself from that. I’m so sorry for your experience.
Happily, I have never heard of even chemically-sensitive people being banned from enjoying the natural scents of living plants, trees, the earth, etc. You can still go out in nature and enjoy the real thing, while carefully avoiding man-made chemicals. It can be very challenging to avoid eating the ingredients labeled ‘natural flavors’ or ‘artificial flavors’ if you eat processed foods. A walk through the aisles of a store Whole Foods, reading labels, will quickly show anyone just how prevalent these additives are in foods being sold as Natural or Organic. Cooking from scratch from least-processed ingredients is a safe bet.
Thanks again for sharing what you know, and for your blessings!
Mim
I am so exited to have a recipe for making rice milk. My husband, son and myself only use rice milk for cereal. Thank you very much/
I had no idea who I was supporting when I bought from Imagine/Hain. While there is always a concern in me about how ethical an organic-promoting company really is as it gets bigger and bigger,I have heretofore allowed the organic plus to outweigh the concern. Thank you for opening my eyes–I will not buy from these companies again. And will redevote myself to small, local, and transparent companies. These is harder to find and more expensive (if you don’t figure in the higher cost of big companies to our planet and fellow humans), so I’ve gotten lax. You have inspired me again. Thank you for what you do!
I have a couple of questions to ask, I want to try to make your rice milk but want to know if you have to put it in the refrigerator and how long does it last? I want to thank-you for posting all the info. It was very helpful. Have a Blessed day you and your family.
Wow all this talk from one rice milk recipe!!! Some times you feel like the only freak around drinking the stuff let alone looking it up on the net. Its good to see so many conscious people.
Does anyone know how to make rice cheese??? Im trying to get off the dairy and cheese is a big hang up.Ive heard of rice cheese but dont know much about it. Any recipes???
Sorry for the delayed replies to some comments here. Spring is busy time on the farm.
Greetings, Kathleen – So glad this article inspired you and please let me applaud your efforts. You are making an important difference!
Welcome, Nancy – Thank you for your blessing. Refrigeration is discussed pretty thoroughly in the long section of comments here, as many readers have asked about this. I know it’s a lot to scan over, but I don’t want to seem to be repeating myself on these questions too many times, as this might make the comments tedious.
Greetings, Bryan – Glad you enjoyed this piece, and no, you are not a freak. Tons of folks love rice milk. As for rice cheese, I don’t have a recipe for this, but do have one for sesame cheese which is delicious:
http://www.veganreader.com/2009/06/25/vegan-cheese-recipe-make-your-own-dairy-free-cheese/
Maybe you’d like to check that out.
Best wishes!
Mim
Hello Mim,
Wow, you are certainly very committed to reply to each person that comments, and the recipe sounds great.
I mean you no disrespect, but I would like to question your approach to flavoured (Yes, British as charged) foods.
As I can see it, you could have two possible reservations about ‘natural flavours’: Either, you believe they are harmful, or you like to taste each food individually and unadulterated.
The flavour of anything, be it strawberries, pasta or cardboard, is determined by the way our brain perceives various chemicals in the food. In the case of vegetable matter, these chemicals are mainly sugars, acids, salts, and organic compounds.
Natural flavourings are simply these same sugars, acids, salts and organic compounds extracted from one place (e.g. vanilla) and put in another (e.g. rice ice cream), so they are no more harmful than they would be in their original, natural form. This dismisses the first point.
The second point, that you prefer food to taste simply of what it is, can also be dismissed, as, from your recipe, I see that you add maple syrup to your rice milk. I also assume, as most people, that you use rosemary, coriander, salt, tomato purée etc. to your cooking. You do this to make the food taste different, adding to the overall flavour of a meal. I do not see a fundamental difference between adding cumin to a curry, or making rice milk with ‘natural flavours’.
You say that “There is no meaningful nutritional value, wholesomeness or reason for the addition of these unwanted chemicals in your food. Good food doesn’t need to play tricks to be palatable”. I would like to refute this statement, bit by bit
The reason there is no nutritional value to the flavours is because this is how flavours are defined by law, if they had major nutritional value they would be listed as a main ingredient.
The reason they are added is to make the food taste good: most people prefer food that tastes good to food that tastes bad.
Making good food, in my book at least, is the art of combining and cooking ingredients so as to provide the nutrients necessary for survival, and a pleasurable experience to the palate. What you call tricks, I call seasoning.
I would be interested to hear what you think of what I have said. I hope to provoke debate rather than confrontation, for it is only in the fires of debate that truth can be forged.
Yours
JD
Hi!
Thanks for what looks like a great recipe we would love to try.
For our dietary needs, we would love to know if you have any idea of the macronutrients. I saw micronutrients discussed in the article, but didn’t see any info on macronutrients as I scanned.
Due to blood sugar sensitivity, need to be aware of what amount of carbohydrate is in what we consume. Rice can have a big impact itself, but am not sure what amount actually remains, translates into to milk.
Am hoping it fits our needs as was very excited to find this recipe due to a recent discovery of almond milk being less health supporting for my body than I thought. It was great blood sugar wise due to the low or no carb content.
So exploring rice milk now and definitely saw the ingredient list of the boxes on the shelf at the store as a fast NO. Found your lovely sharing here and am checking in to see if you have any idea or estimate of the carbohydrate content of the finished product.
Thanks much.
Peace.
Greetings Soul,
It sounds like you may need to do some extra research, given your family’s specific dietary needs. I am afraid we aren’t sure of the macronutrient profile of homemade rice milk. Do you have a nutritionist to whom you could speak who would have the training to answer a question like this? We hope you can find your answer, and thank you for taking the time to comment here.
Mim
Greetings, JD,
First, I must apologize for the delayed publication of your comment. VeganReader had a technical problem with the commenting function a few days ago which we’ve just resolved. So sorry about the delay.
Thank you for canvassing your take on flavors. You are quite right that home cooks add their own flavorings to foods – herbs, spices, salt, sweeteners, etc. You are also completely correct that all ‘tastes’ are a matter of how our brain perceives the chemicals (be they built in or added) of a given substance.
To me, however, there is a very distinct and deliberate difference between adding herbs and spices to a food and pouring laboratory chemicals on a food to alter its flavor. Did you happen to read the comment from Jersey Grrl, above, who worked in the main American flavors and fragrances factory? To me, her experience is the opposite of a healthy and natural one, and while she was exposed to all of these chemicals simultaneously over a short period of time, the American people are being exposed to them in smaller amounts on an ongoing basis. It is very difficult, in fact, to find foods here to which chemicals haven’t been added and I see this as a very unhealthy trend.
As you mentioned, you feel my concerns can be ‘dismissed’, but I’m afraid your arguments have not resolved my very real concerns about this. We do appreciate you adding your voice to the discussion, but as you can see, the overwhelming majority of those who have commented here share our concerns about adulterated foods. We wish you well in your continued thinking on this interesting and important topic.
Mim
Thank you for the recipe and all of your insight. I have been a rice dream consumer, but I have dreaded the price especially for our family of 6. You have motivated me in yet another way to make the break from supporting imagine foods. I have become a green smoothie addict lately, but I still like to have rice milk and cereal from time to time. For my 12 month old son, I think I will try your recipe, adding soaked chia seeds for calcium and maybe hemp or flax as well. Thanks again. I appreciate ones like you who freely share their knowledge.
I’m very happy to have found this website. My boyfriend and I are constantly “reskilling” ourselves, in hopes that by the time we can afford our dream farm, we will be able to pass these skills on to our children. It’s refreshing to read about other people who share these values.
Anybody know of a community out there that we could join/live amongst?
Welcome Marym -
Thank you for your kind words, and I hope this rice milk recipe will help you cut costs while improving the quality of the beverages you are making for your family!
Greetings Vanfresca -
It’s super to hear that you are working hard at reskilling! It’s fine to think that the skills we learn today may benefit the next generation. All life used to work this way, until the past few generations when paying others to do basic things for us became a sign of wealth and living high. We lost a lot when parents could no longer teach their children how to grow food, cook, and other basic life skills. We’re turning this around and the work you are doing is an important part of this. Way to go!
Mim
Re: JD and so-called “natural flavours” (Australian as charged).
To me the issue is not about taste or nutrition as much as it is about understanding how, where, what and why something comes from where it does. So, when I see “natural tangerine flavour” in a tea I bought, I can’t help but to think, “well yes, but how and from what was it extracted?”. Indeed, what constitutes “natural” in this case?
Living in Japan, Japan is self sufficient for about 15% of its total soybean consumption. We eat a lot of it here from tofu, to natto, miso, soy sauce, as oil, in snacks and so on. Given the number of products which claim to use “Japanese” beans or else “non-GM” beans, I can’t help to wonder about the definitions of “Japanese made” and “non-GM”. Following JD, the beans are beans, they are natural etc. However, the point is, I don’t know what they are. I know the words used to market them but these words are changing all the time in response to consumer recalls, litigation etc (not just beans).
That to me is the real issue. Here’s on last thought. Vegetables plainly cooked that come from local patches/farms from people I know and trust who persevere without chemicals, simply taste better than the chemical stews available in our supermarkets. Scientifically speaking, their amino acid ratios and nutritional balance may be “by number” different, but how, where, why and by whom they were produced adds a level of cultural and community nutrition to the food. Raw ingredients which I can then turn into pickles, vinegar, wine (using methods I believe to be organic or at least transparent when not) and complete the circle of generosity and nutrition by giving these products back. Does it taste good? Yep. Would it pass a mass distribution supermarket oriented product test? Probably not. But I don’t care what some generic chain thinks and markets as delicious – I care about my family and community.
Greetings 6810,
What a fine comment you’ve left, and you’ve stated so eloquently not only the inherent difference in a whole food and a processed one, but the valuable benefits of buying from neighbors. Truly nicely said!
Thank you for taking the time to comment here and we share your views regarding chemicals in our food and the wisdom of eating locally!
Mim
I googled how to make homemade rice milk and your site came up. Thanks so much for posting all this! I’m excited to make a batch this weekend.
Great article! I’ve been making my own rice milk, as well, primarily due to cost and the desire to remove my dollars from the processed food companies; I’ll definitely try out your recipe. Loved the article, couldn’t agree more about the need to reskill ourselves; we must remember who we are. It’s a crazy world when baking your own bread (and making your own milk) is a revolutionary act.
Welcome, Robbie!
It’s great to to hear from readers like you who are already convinced of the wisdom of doing-it-yourself. I see more evidence all the time the people like you and I are not alone in our belief that we can be skilled at all kinds of basic things. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you will enjoy the rice milk recipe.
Mim
I tried making my own rice milk last night, but I used Japanese sticky rice (Botan Calrose) instead. It came out much thicker than Rice Dream in the carton and it tastes great, but was gross to swallow. I tried thinning it with water and using a Magic Bullet to whirl it until it was very silky smooth.
I added cardamom and honey.
(I’ll be trying it with brown rice and medium grain fluffy Thai rice next).
[...] do, and turned to rice milk. After a couple of weeks, though, I decided to make my own. I found a recipe here, and this is what I am demonstrating in the video below (please note that the original recipe makes [...]
Greetings, Ren,
That’s very interesting that you are experimenting with different types of rice. We have only ever used long grain brown rice, as this is also the type of rice we eat as a staple. Sounds like your first experiment didn’t turn out too well. Good luck with your next one! Thank you for stopping by.
Mim
Thank you for the wonderful recipe. I just made it and think its delicious!!
I have a question though. I am making this for my 1 year old son who has lots of food allergies. He really likes Rice Dream, but I want to avoid buying it. I can’t seem to get this thinned down enough to go through his bottle though, and he won’t accept it in a cup. I used a wire mesh strainer twice. Now I’m putting it through a coffee filter. . . I’ve gotten 2 ounces in about 30 minutes
I’d love any suggestions you might have. Thanks a lot!!
Welcome, Darlene,
We’re so glad you like the good taste of this homemade rice milk recipe, but it does sound like you’ve had a problem getting it through his bottle. That’s a puzzle we’ve not faced before. It may be that the starch in the milk (being made of rice) is gumming up the hole in the bottle? It sounds as if you’ve thinned it down considerably and it’s still not working. Have you thinned it down as much as you possibly can? Perhaps a reader will come along with a solution; I’m afraid we can’t think of one for bottle feeding.
Just briefly, we do want to reiterate for any readers with young children: homemade rice milk is not a replacement for infant formula or human milk. It does not contain the same nutrients as these two foods and should not be used as a replacement for either type of beverage. Darlene, you may already understand this quite well, but we would hate to see a mother who doesn’t understand this mistakenly try giving her infant rice milk instead of human milk or a balanced infant formula. Malnutrition would result from this in a child who is not already deriving total nutrition from solid foods. Just wanted to make sure we mentioned this as the proper nutrition of children is SO important. While it would be fine to give a child rice milk simply for a treat, it is not formulated for the nutritional needs of infants and toddlers.
We’re sorry not to be able to provide a good solution to the bottle problem, Darlene. Please, feel free to keep us posted on your progress. We really appreciated you stopping by!
Mim
Yes, thank you for addressing that. My son is 17 months old, and is drinking rice milk under the advice of an allergist.
I ran it through the blender again, and I think its getting through his bottle now, but he’s still not accepting it. He’s had so many reactions to new foods that he gets fussy about new things. Maybe I’ll try mixing it with Rice Dream for a while to get him used to it.
Can I ask one more question?? This is a vegan question in general I guess. I am vegetarian at heart (and palate) but my son is allergic to pretty much all legumes: nuts, peas, and beans; avocado, dairy, eggs, sunflower, and olive. I don’t think he can safely be a vegetarian, but I would like to get more plant based protein in his diet. He does eat quinoa and whole grains. Do you have any other recommendations??
Thanks again!!
Hello, again, Darlene!
Thank you so much for coming back, and that is very good that you have an allergist on your son’s team to help figure out how to give him optimal nutrition. His list of allergies does certainly look prohibitive of a typical vegan/vegetarian diet which derives adequate protein and nutrients from legumes, nuts, etc. It’s good that he can eat quinoa and very good he can eat rice and other grains, too. Hopefully, in addition to this, he can eat as many fresh vegetables and fruits as possible that are not on his allergy list.
I understand how important vegetarianism is to you, but your son has special nutritive challenges, and while it does sound like he can enjoy many things from the grain/vegetable/fruit world, his inability to eat legumes, in my opinion, would create a profile of malnutrition were he to try to follow a vegan diet, and his inability to eat dairy would mean trouble on a ovo-lacto-vegetarian diet.
On a healthy planet, I would be suggesting that you take a look at the diets of Asia and the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest with their emphasis on fish…but fish are so contaminated right now, I’d be concerned about things like mercury and other toxins for the baby.
Are you seeing a nutritionist as well as an allergist? What do they recommend? Do they advocate meat for your son? Something else? To me, ethical diets are an optimal choice, but you are dealing with the survival of your son, and this has to be the most important thing. Does his allergist say the boy might grow out of some of these allergies when he is older or are they permanent? My feeling is that you would need a list from a nutritionist of the foods your child can eat safely, and that you would then be working to create a fully-nutritious diet for him from this list.
You might like to check out goldminenaturalfoods.com. This company is an amazing source of organic, unusual grains and other foods. I noticed in their most recent catalog that they are promoting a new relative of the quinoa family called canahua, from Bolivia, that is very high in protein.
From your comments, it is very evident how much you care about your little boy’s health. It may be, Darlene, that with some amazing hard work on your part, you could eventually hit upon a combination of vegetarian foods that would provide adequate nutrition for your boy as he grows, but right now, with his choices so limited, the only thing I can think of your for you to do is to work closely with a very smart nutrtionist who can ensure that your son is receiving proper nourishment, right now. From the way you write, I have strong faith in the feeling that you are going to do wonderfully well with him, despite his challenges. Please, let me wish you good luck, and invite you to comment here at any time!
Mim
hello,
I live in Cape Town, and I’m slowly trying to adopt a more vegan diet. I got here searching on how to make rice milk.
I enjoyed your post, but wondered why you object to products that are grown in human sewage? I know it sounds rather ick – but it’s also completely consistent with sustainability. Our sewage is an incredible source of nutrients, properly managed, and use as a fertiliser is less harmful to the environment than nitrogen-based fertilisers that are carbon intensive in their production, and contribute to water contamination and oceanic dead zones.
Welcome David!
It’s a pleasure to receive your comment, all the way from Cape Town and to hear of your interest in a more vegan diet.
You have raised a really good question regarding our thoughts on human sewage as a fertilizer. Thank you for bringing up such an interesting topic, and while we can only reply in brief here so as not to get too off the subject of making your own rice milk, here are our general concerns:
- Human sewage has been successfully used as a fertilizer by various civilizations for thousands of years. This is certainly true.
- Here in the United States, factory farm wastes are bagged and sold as fertilizer and most store-bought soil mixes contain these wastes. Unfortunately, because of the rampant disease inherent in the cruel factory farming system, I feel that these wastes should be viewed as a hazard, though proper rotting would doubtless kill of some harmful organisms, as they do with human wastes.
- In China, which I’ve specifically cited in the above article, raw (unrotted) human waste is used on food crops, with small farmers basically emptying their chamber pots over food crops. In the United States, where we have now dealt with terrible issues of toxic imports of several products from China, no government oversight is in place to protect American citizens from dangerous products…be these manufactured items or foods.
- On a small scale, there is doubtless some safe way to use ‘humanure’ to fertilize food crops, perhaps on small family farms, but not on an industrial scale in which hunger for profits, lack of care for human and environmental health and a broken system would almost certainly result in danger for human consumers. We do not trust our government to do things correctly in the United States, and we really cannot trust other governments to do so for us.
Because of this, I am not an advocate of using human waste on food crops, though I do believe that composting it back into dirt, rather than polluting our water with it, would be a much, much better idea.
I hope this explanation helps to explain our views, and we truly enjoyed your comment.
Mim
Thank you for the great rice milk recipe! I will definately be trying it very soon. I’ve made almond milk in the past and really like it, but I was looking for a more cost effective alternative I decided to look into rice milk. I would be using it as a condiment as well. My question is what is the calorie count for an 8 oz. glass without any sweetner. If I do use a sweetner is will probably be stevia. Thank you also for provide such an informative website. All the comments and responses have answered many questions for me. Thank you in advance for your response. Good health to all!
Laurie
Welcome, Laurie!
Thank you for your kind remarks. I do believe that rice milk is generally less expensive to make than almond milk, simply because rice is less expensive than almonds. Now, as for calories, we don’t have a way to test homemade rice milk for something like this, not being a laboratory. I looked up the calories in 1 cup of commercial rice milk for you and got a count of 120. However, I don’t know which milk this was, whether it has additives such as oil, sugar, etc. But, I would imagine homemade rice milk would be relatively comparable to the commercial variety.
Just as a side note, I don’t know many vegans who count calories. The vegan diet is just naturally slimming and it would be a rare thing indeed to meet an overweight vegan. Coupled with a decent amount of exercise, a vegan diet tends to produce very fit people. I’ve been a vegan for 20 years now and basically eat as much as I want whenever I want and am a slender, but not starved-looking, woman. In season, I even eat avocados every day, and even a ‘fatty’ food like this doesn’t cause any major weight changes. Whole plant foods tend not to be fattening, though I could see problems for vegans who are living on mainly processed foods high in refined starches and sugars. I thought I would mention this, though perhaps you have other health considerations that make it important to count calories. I hope my reply has been helpful in some way and that you will really enjoy making your own rice milk!
Mim
Thanks for posting this. I’ve been buying Rice Dream Rice Milk for years and the thought occurred to me just the other day Why am I buying this? I could just make it myself!
Here’s a tip that should make the process WAY easier: Use an immersion blender. My immersion blender is one of my favorite kitchen gadgets – I use it to make cream soups all the time. It eliminates all the mess and hassle of having to transfer hot liquid to your blender in small batches and it does the work in a flash.
I have just made the rice drink, and it’s simply delicious, but still so good and healthy !
I made some little adjustments: after boiling the rice in the water three hours, I added, besides 1 tablespoon of salt, 250 gr /7 oz of organic rice syrup, and 8 gr/ 0.28 oz of Bourbon Vanilla, and as you mentioned, 2 table spoons of sunflower oil.
If not diluted, this makes a great pudding ! Delicious !
Besides being a vegan, now I’m disciplining myself to quit the sweet tooth : and this recipe really helped me to find natural and healthy solutions to this !
I just wanted to share my “personalized” recipe, and thank you for yours, which was the start of my inspiration!
Thank you very much, and wish you joy, inner peace and health !
Mel
Welcome Jerry,
What a neat suggestion. I’ve seen immersion blenders, but we’re not lucky enough to own one. I can see how zippy and convenient one would be for making your own rice milk. Thanks for sharing a tip that readers with immersion blenders can try out. Fun!
Mim
Welcome, Mel!
We really enjoyed reading your personal take on rice milk, and are thrilled that the recipe worked out so well for you. That’s terrific!
You know, about the sweet tooth thing, some people have more of a struggle with this than others. I’ve come to believe that some people crave sweets while other crave salts. I’m a salty, myself, but here’s what I can tell you about what happens when you start eating from-scratch-only cooking. The amount of processed sugars in your diet is so drastically reduced that, eventually, doing something like drinking a soda or eating a piece of typical cake can almost gag you. Just WAY too much sugar.
We use maple syrup as a sweetener in our home. I like a little drop of it in my tea, but we only make desserts rarely. I just don’t want them. A piece of ripe fruit seems to do it for me as a sweet, and maybe, in time, your body will adjust itself to feeling like this, too. Please, let me wish you good luck, and thank you for your very kind comment!
Mim
I am so glad I found this website via google search on “how to make rice milk.” I think you post was really great; informative beyond what I expected. I just had a question about where you find your information on corporations such as monsanto and wal-mart, as well as the nutritional information you wrote about just after? I thought about the fact that buying products such as Rice Dream puts more dollars into the pockets of such corporations and it made me shutter, but I had to ask myself, what other products sold in my local “organic” marketplaces have corporate investors? If you could direct me to some sources and some of the ways you inform yourself that would be very helpful. I’m sure you answered the question in response to another readers post, but I didn’t feel like going though each one trying to find it, hope it doesn’t frustrate you. Thank you so much again for the recipe and insight and information, I look forward to reading some of your other posts!
Blessings
-Tom
I came across this site quite by accident. My 14 month old has multiple allergies and under the advise of an allergist and nutritionist we have been buying Rice Dream. I was looking for a place to order it in bulk as the price went up this past week. I never had considered making it myself, but I read the recipe and had a batch on the stove within the hour. I added agave nectar and the oil. It was delicious. I have found his favorite is when I add a bit of cinnamon. This last batch I used jasmine rice, it turned out very creamy even diluted but fabulous for those with a sweet tooth (like me). I will not be buying rice milk any longer.
Re Darlene, I had to find a fine mesh strainer and strain small amounts at a time, then rinse the strainer and start again. I strain 3-4 times in order to fit through a bottle. It took about 30 minutes to process after it was done cooking. Definitley worth it!
Thank you Mim for all your responses and for posting this great recipe. You have truly been a blessing to our family.
Kristen
Welcome, Tom!
I know, we’re on the way to 200 comments with this popular post, and I don’t blame you for not reading through all of them, though they do contain great information. The information I mentioned regarding Monsanto came from Dr. Jane Goodall’s book, ‘Harvest For Hope,” which featured a chart showing corporate connections to natural and organic food companies. Here is a similar chart, though not the same one:
http://www.certifiedorganic.bc.ca/rcbtoa/services/corporate-ownership.html
Regarding the nutritional information, I wrote this piece so long ago now, I’m not remembering my exact sources. Likely they came from my own collection of cookbooks with charts that feature nutritional content of various foods. Similar charts can be found on the web by searching for them.
Glad you enjoyed this rice milk article and thank you for taking the time to ask your questions!
Mim
Welcome Kristen,
That’s super to hear your first experiment with making rice milk for your little one turned out so well, and good for your for working with a nutritionist to help find an optimum diet for your child. We really encourage that!
I am so proud to think of all of the mothers whom we have helped to make this rice milk from scratch for their families. It’s so great to be able to rely on yourself, rather than a corporation, to feed the dear little children. Just super!
Thanks for stopping by, and for adding that tip for an earlier commenter. How kind of you!
Mim
For anyone trying to avoid gluten: I recently discovered that Rice Dream contains gluten despite the fact that it says “gluten free” on the label. We had a patient in our office call the company after experiencing a reaction from the milk (the patient is allergic to gluten) and they said it does contain gluten but because it is less than 2% they do not have to list it on the label.
Welcome, Julie,
Thank you for letting us know about your patient’s findings in re gluten in Rice Dream. I really wonder where the gluten would be coming from. Rice is gluten free, so what ingredient could it be? At any rate, that is important information for people with gluten sensitivity or Celiac Disease, and another good reason to make your own rice milk.
Mim
Thank you very much for posting this recipe. I have only recently discovered rice milk, and I love it. Unfortunately, my family is currently unable to afford expensive store-bought rice milk, especially on the scale that we typically drink regular milk–we usually polish off at least two gallons a week, just between the four of us.
I hope you’ll forgive me, but I don’t share all your views on vegan or vegetarian eating–as my pastor likes to say, I believe God made cows out of steak for a reason. I don’t believe that it’s wrong to avoid eating meat, but I don’t think it’s wrong to eat meat either.
I will talk to my family about how they feel about supplementing our milk with home-made rice milk. I doubt we’ll give up cow milk entirely, but even so, we could easily save $10-$15 a month.
Thank you!!! and I plan to browse through your other posts, much as I loathe educational reading =P anything my family can do to eat healthier and save money at the same time is definitely a good thing, especially right now.
Welcome, Mochiko!
So glad this recipe may help your family to save money. Homemade rice milk is definitely more economical than store-bought milk, whether from rice or from cows. People search for information about rice milk for all kinds of reasons – ethics, health, environmental concerns and budget.
We sincerely respect the views of all thoughtful people. Now, my feeling is that God didn’t make cows; God made the buffalo; man made cows. Interestingly, the buffalo and its analogues in other parts of the world (the yak, muskox, etc.) evolved naturally in their various environments so as not to cause damage to the places they lived (after all, they had to be able to keep living there!). By contrast, the corn fed cattle that are raised for milk and meat in America cause massive environmental damage, because they have not been slowly adapted by nature to live in harmony with the natural world. Just think of the Native Peoples who were able to hunt the buffalo for millenia without environmental destruction; it’s the total opposite of what the modern meat and dairy industry has done. Just thought I’d mention this.
Like your family, ours is a low-income one, and it can be hard when you’re poor to take a huge number of things into consideration like this. But, I always figure, if you love the Earth, it’s good to learn all you can about it.
Thanks so much for stopping by and for your interesting comments. You are very welcome for the recipe, and may it serve your family well!
Mim
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