Three days ago I said that I tried soy milk for the first time. I finished the entire carton pretty quickly, and decided that at the next opportunity I would buy more plant milk, to try different brands and types, and to figure out where I could find plant milk at different stores.
I noted last time that the plant milk was hidden in a random out-of-the-way corner of the store ā in the store I went to this time, the plant milk was in a section called frifor (also spelled fri for, fri-for), a play on fri for which means ācompletely without (dairy, gluten, etc)ā. Iām assuming the plant milk in the other store I went to was also in this section and I just didnāt notice the sign. I just expected to find plant milk in the same place youād find dairy milk, rather than in its own little section of the store for people with dietary restrictions.
Anyways, I bought chocolate oat milk this time. The brand is called Oatly. The soy milk I bought last time was Alpro brand. The oat milk was a few kroner cheaper than the soy milk, but I forgot to compare prices with dairy milk.
What Iāll say right now isā¦ Oatly brand chocolate oat milk is kinda how I expected plant milk to be like before I tried the soy milk from the previous post. By no means āchemical-y,ā like a lot of bozos seem to think, justā¦ āboubaāā¦? I donāt know how to put it, exactly, but itās a taste thatās distinctly āIād rather notā
So, Oatly is drinkable, in small amounts, but itās not nearly as good as the Alpro soy milk; I poured a glass of Oatly for myself and actually spat out the last bit because I āneeded a breakā. I also noticed that while Alpro didnāt smell at all, Oatly has a distinct scent to it, mild but I still donāt favor it; on the other hand Oatly resembles dairy milk slightly more in appearance (not a major concern for me), and it doesnāt stain the cup nearly as much (which is a positive).
Oatly brand chocolate oat milk is serviceable enough that Iāll drink the whole carton eventually, but I think the next time Iām shopping for plant milk Iām not gonna go for Oatly again. Iād rather pay just a little more for better-tasting moloko. Iām not sure if Iāll go for rice milk or almond milk next time, but I do think Iāll have the milk be plain rather than flavored in any way.
One last thing Iād like to address is just the packaging.
I havenāt actually thrown away the Alpro carton yet, so I have that to compare as well.
So on the Alpro the only words of Norwegian/Scandinavian are the contact information for customer service on the proper right bottom third of the carton, and the product information / ingredients / nutritional information on the reverse. There is also text in Finnish and Romanian in these same places, and some other Romanian fine print on the obverse and proper right. But as a whole the entire carton is covered in big, bold, flashy English, and I do not like this.
Because if the reverse assumes that anyone buying the milk necessarily speaks Scandinavian, Finnish, or Romanian, then why should the package assume that everyone buying also speaks English? Conversely, wouldnāt the vast majority of the packaging being entirely in English lead one to believe that one should also be able to find the ingredients and nutritional information on the back in English?
The obverse has plenty of room to in fact entirely replace the English text with translations into Scandinavian, Finnish, and Romanian; the sides, too, could cut out the marketing flourishes and convey the same information in all three languages as well. There is no reason for English to be there at all other than I guess to be trendy and to save the negligible amount of money it would take to localize the packaging beyond the literal bare minimum required by law.
I do have to wonder why Romanian, though. There are many far more widely spoken immigrant languages in Norway, Romanian is not a super widely spoken language on the global scale, and Norway and Romania are not particularly close to one another, so it seems a bit of a random choice, doesnāt it? But whatever, it is a pretty language, so I canāt object to seeing more of it.
Now Oatly on the other hand, there is a nice and clear āHAVREDRIKK SJOKOLADEā written on the front. In that regard, itās way better than the Alpro carton.
Howeverā¦ Again, most of the carton save for what the carton itself labels as āthe boring (but very important) sideā is written in English. Basically none of it is anything actually important, but itās just this really aggravating ācorporate sillyā, you know the kind, the kind of writing that feels like itās a variant of that same vile disease that also brought us āwholesome adultingā and grown-ass characters swearing like 5th graders in Hollywood blockbusters.
Like I know I probably seem really petty by focusing so much on the packaging, but I donāt want to feel cringe when buying abuse-free milk. Like I know there isnāt really any other way to do it, but I donāt want to be reminded that Iām buying from some corporation thatās cashing in on peopleās desire to not support animal abuse and trying to turn veganism from a radical movement for animal rights to a qwirkee #aesthetic under their own Brand Image of corporate silly wholesome chungus English for the globally-minded youth. Just give me the fucking plant milk, in the local language, without marketing frills. No different from the store brand apple juice and instant ramen. No different from the dairy milk.
Is that really so much to ask?
Oat milk was a little weird for me at first, but I transitioned to using it in gradually more things and it completely replaced dairy milk for me within a month. Itās to the point when I had some dairy milk randomly I thought that tasted weird!
I think with any of these replacements, unless you absolutely love the taste right off the bat you just have to get past the initial phase where your brain is still expecting dairy milk and the stuff youāre drinking is very much not thatākinda like the phenomenon where if you take a swig of something that you think is soda but ends up being milk itāll taste absolutely foul even if you normally like milk (maybe this is like an evolutionary thing to avoid getting sick from drinking spoiled/tainted stuff? Idk). Once you get past that initial sensory dissonance it becomes much more palatable. I wouldnāt have dreamed of drinking a glass of straight oat milk on day 1, but now itās totally routine for me.