Specifically it was chocolate-flavored soy milk. I figured that would be “safer”.
The experience of drinking the soy milk went roughly like so:
[pours the milk]
“Hmm. Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me, but it looks ever so slightly opaque compared to dairy milk…”
[gives it a good sniff]
“…It smells like basically nothing. Just as I like it!”
[tastes it]
…
…
…
“…Yeah??? OK! I can fuck with that!”
[puts glass down]
“Well, it feels somewhat watered down, yet also a bit saccharine; and the chocolate flavor is clearly different from what I’m used to; but on the whole it’s not bad, it’s just different, and ‘different’ is exactly what I was expecting. Really, as a whole this milk is largely indistinguishable from a different brand of dairy chocolate milk I’ve had previously.”
[gulps down the rest of the glass]
“I mean, you know, it’s not like the flavor on its own is preferable to what I’m already used to — God knows this costs a bit more as well — but I would gladly only drink chocolate milk that tastes slightly ‘off’ if it means less animal abuse. This hardly counts as any sort of sacrifice.”
[drinks two more glasses]
“Honestly, I take back what I said, this is just good. Why on Earth isn’t this just the standard milk already‽ Why was this stuff just hidden away in some random corner of the grocery store, where I nearly missed it completely‽ I mean I know the answer already, I’m just saying it’s messed up…”
The large issue with a lot of plant based milks is that they use vegetable fat/oil to up the fat content, and once you taste/notice it, at least in my experience, it feels like you’re drinking a bunch of canola oil, which is unsettling. The oil can also seperate/split/de-emulsify when being heated, which is not ideal. Soy milk is the most prone to splitting out of all the plant milks, which is why products like oat milk and almond milk are becoming more popular.