Are you someone regularly consuming plant drinks, like almond drink, in your diet and purchase the packaged drinks from the supermarket without reading the product label about the ingredients? You could be consuming foods that disrupt your gut microbiome, causing bloating and gas and contributing to chronic inflammation in the body.
Take a look at the plant drink you are purchasing (almond, oat, rice, soy, coconut) and see if you can find any of the following ingredients on the product label: stabilisers, emulsifiers, acidity regulators? These are added in the drinks to extend their shelf-life but could negatively affect the bacteria in your gut. If you purchase organic almond drink, you typically don't see anything else on the product label than spring water, almond paste and sea salt.
If you haven't tried to make almond milk at home, you might want to give it a try as it's much easier than you think.
Homemade Almond Milk
Makes 1 litre
Ingredients
1 cup of almonds (soak them for 2-3 hours in the water)
4 cups of water
Instructions
After the almonds have soaked in the water, pour away the water and rinse almonds once more if needed.
Put the almonds and 4 cups of water in the blender and blend around 1 minute.
Take the cheese cloth, put it over a jug (I used a rubber band to secure it) and pour the blended almond-water liquid in there. Once the liquid has run through the cheese cloth, take the remaining almond pulp inside the cheese cloth and squeeze the rest of the liquid out into the jug. Pour the almond milk into a bottle and put a cap on.
Homemade almond milk keeps in the fridge for 4 days or in the freezer for 3 months.
Do not discard the almond pulp as you can use it for various purposes and in recipes, like:
bread crumbs (spread the pulp onto a parchment line baking sheet, and dry at a lowest heat in the oven or use a dehydrator)
almond flour (when you dry the pulp you can turn it into a fine flour in a spice grinder)
cookies or macaroons
crackers- I tried and made those with just rosemary and sea salt and came out very nice (just make sure you roll the dough quite thin as then the crackers come out crispier)
hummus- a good option to try if hummus from legumes make you too gassy
smoothies to make them more nutritious