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Comment by dhughes | Hacker News Reader

Why even drink soy "milk" why not water or some other liquid, or other animal milk you may not be allergic to?

It seems to me people are compelled to have a milk substitute whether due to allergy or ethical reasons as if we need to have something called milk in our fridges.

It reminds me of the tofurky a soy shaped turkey supposedly tastes like turkey, it would be like a person who eats a lot of meat making a carrot out of meat colouring it orange and making it taste like a carrot, why even bother.

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Because Im a powerlifter. Powerlifters need calories and Soy milk + my protein powder tastes good but my protein powder with water tastes like gasoline (and soy milk has more calories too).

I used to do soy protein + water and it was pretty bad but I could handle it. I recently switched to Beef and Egg protein from Soy protein and it tastes amazing in chocolate soy milk.

When you can't eat cheese, most desserts, pizza, and anything with a questionable production practice ("did my food share a surface with a milk product?"), and much more, you eat things without a lot of taste. I like Soy milk because it tastes good and keeps me sane while getting me my calories.

For any dietary scheme built on avoiding certain foods (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, keto, paelo etc), there is a thriving cottage industry of substitutes.

Some folk have an ethical objection to milk but want something that vaguely resembles it. For such people, whitened liquid cardboard -- soy juice -- is a popular alternative. Other people drink almond juice or rice juice.

Edit: and some people have allergies or intolerance to things in milk. I'm lactose intolerant, so I'm covered by lactose-free milk. But some people are genuinely intolerant of milk proteins etc.

  whitened liquid cardboard

I object to that characterization. I rather like the taste of plain, unsweetened soymilk. It fills a very different niche than milk, however; milk is thicker and heavier (unless it's skim crap), and I'll have it with dessert, while soymilk is lighter and more refreshing. But I don't drink either on a regular basis.

I think it varies from person to person; I know people who love it.

I found it tasted, quite sincerely, like cardboard. I was reminded of the Adams line about "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea".

I drink coffee with almond milk. I also drink it black, but not all the time. I use warm almond milk with espresso instead of a latte due to the large number of calories in a latte because of the milk. I used to drink two lattes a day.

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