Oat milk facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Oat milk

Oat milk
Place of origin	Sweden
Invented	c. 1990
Food energy (per 240ml serving)	120 kcal (502 kJ)
Nutritional value (per 240ml serving)	Protein 3 g Fat 5 g Carbohydrate 16 g
Glycemic index	60 (medium)

Oat milk is a popular plant milk made from whole oat grains. It's created by mixing oats with water and then taking out the liquid part. Oat milk has a creamy feel and a mild taste, a bit like oatmeal. You can find it in different flavors, like sweetened, unsweetened, vanilla, and chocolate.

Unlike other plant milks that have been around for hundreds of years, oat milk is quite new. It was first made in the 1990s by a Swedish scientist named Rickard Öste. Between 2017 and 2019, sales of oat milk in the United States grew ten times! One big company, Oatly, saw its sales around the world triple. By late 2020, oat milk became the second most popular plant milk in the U.S., right after almond milk, and it sold more than soy milk.

Today, you can find many products made with oat milk. These include coffee creamers, yogurt alternatives, ice cream, and even chocolate. People often drink oat milk if they follow a vegan diet or if they can't drink regular cow's milk. This includes conditions like lactose intolerance (when your body can't digest milk sugar) or an allergy to cow milk. Oat milk is also good for the planet because it needs less land and water to make compared to cow's milk and some other plant milks.

History of Oat Milk

How Oat Milk Was Invented

Before oat milk, soy milk and almond milk were already well-known. Soy milk, which came from Asia, became popular in Europe and America in the early 1900s. People used it as a milk substitute, especially if they couldn't drink dairy. This helped create a big market for plant-based drinks like oat milk.

The first time someone made an oat-based drink was in the early 1990s. Rickard Öste, a food scientist at Lund University in Lund, Sweden, invented it. He was studying how to help people with lactose intolerance and how to create sustainable food systems (ways to produce food that don't harm the environment). Soon after, Öste started Oatly, the first company to sell oat milk.

Oat Milk Becomes Popular

Oatly, the first company to sell oat milk, had its products in 7,000 coffee shops and stores by 2019. But many other companies also started making oat milk. You can find oat milk from brands like Pureharvest (Australia), Alpro (UK), and Pacific (USA). In 2018, people spent US$1.6 billion on plant milks worldwide. Experts think this number could grow to $41 billion by 2025!

In 2018, there wasn't enough oat milk to meet the huge demand in Europe and North America. This showed how much people wanted the product. To help with the demand in America, Oatly opened a new factory in New Jersey in April 2019. It could make 750,000 gallons of oat milk base each month. They also planned a factory in Utah that would be three times bigger.

In 2019, stores in the United States sold $29 million worth of oat milk. This was a big jump from $4.4 million in 2017. By 2020, U.S. oat milk sales reached $213 million. It became the second most popular plant milk, after almond milk.

By 2019, oat milk was used in many products like ice cream, yogurt, and coffee creamers. It also became popular in coffee shops like Starbucks. The growth of oat milk is partly because it's good for the environment. It needs less land and water. Also, more people are choosing vegan diets.

From 2019 to 2020, oat milk sales in the U.S. jumped by 303%. People like oat milk because it tastes similar to dairy milk. They also see it as healthy and good for the environment. Growing almonds, for example, uses a lot of water. Oat milk also works well in coffee, just like cow's milk. It can foam and mix easily.

Between 2020 and 2021, oat milk sales increased by 151%. It became the second most popular plant milk. On May 20, 2021, Oatly, the biggest oat milk maker, became a public company on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Its value was about $13 billion that day!

How Oat Milk is Made

Making the Liquid Oat Base

Making oat milk is similar to making other plant milks. Oats have a hard outer shell, so they need to be processed to turn them into a liquid.

First, oat grains are measured and milled (ground up) to break their outer shell. Then, the ground oats are stirred in warm water and mixed into a thick liquid called a slurry. This slurry is then treated with special enzymes and heat. This process helps create a thick liquid oat base.

Soaking the oats and taking out their nutrients is a key step. To get more nutrients into the liquid, makers might use chemicals, enzymes, or higher temperatures. These methods help move the good parts from the solid oat bits into the liquid. After this, the liquid is separated from the solid leftover parts using methods like filtering or spinning in a machine called a centrifuge.

Once the liquid is separated, other ingredients are added. These can include vitamins and minerals to make it more nutritious. Sweeteners, flavors, salts, and oils might also be added. Regular oat milk doesn't have as much calcium, iron, or vitamin A as cow's milk. So, these nutrients are often added to make oat milk a good nutritional choice. Finally, the oat milk is treated with heat (like pasteurization) to make it last longer on the shelf.

Making Oat Milk Smooth

Oat milk, like most plant-based milks, is made from broken-down plant parts. This means the tiny pieces in it can be different sizes. To make the milk smoother and better quality, producers use processes like homogenization. This makes all the particles a similar size. They also add stabilizers to keep everything mixed well.

Oats naturally have a lot of starch (50–60%). This can be tricky during high-heat treatments because starch can thicken quickly. To solve this, producers use enzymes that break down the starch into smaller pieces. This stops the milk from becoming too thick.

To make oat milk even healthier, companies often add important nutrients. These can include vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin B12, riboflavin, and calcium.

Good for the Planet

Since about 2015, more and more people have become interested in plant-based foods. They also care about animal welfare and how food production affects the environment. This has helped oat milk become very popular.

Compared to cow's milk and other plant milks, making oat milk creates less carbon dioxide and no methane. These are gases that contribute to climate change. Oat milk also needs much less water and land. For example, making oat milk uses only 1/15th of the water needed for cow's milk and 1/8th of the water for almond milk.

What's in Oat Milk?

Nutritional content of human, cow, soy, almond, and oat milks

Non-human milks are fortified

When you compare oat milk to cow's milk, they have similar calories per cup (120 for oat milk vs. 149 for cow's milk). Oat milk has less protein (about 40% of cow's milk) and less fat (about 63%). But it has much less saturated fat (only about 10%). Oat milk also has about 1.5 times more total carbohydrates.

Cow's milk has no fiber, but oat milk has 2 grams of dietary fiber in each serving. The amount of calcium and potassium in oat milk is similar to cow's milk, especially when vitamins and minerals are added during making. Oat milk has a glycemic index of 60, while cow's milk is 47.

How Oat Milk is Used

Oat milk is often used instead of regular milk in coffee. It's also used to make fermented foods like yogurt and kefir. Many baristas (people who make coffee) say that oat milk needs less steam than cow's milk. They also say it froths well and tastes rich and creamy, just like cow's milk. It also helps balance the taste of espresso coffee. Because of this, oat milk is becoming very popular in coffee shops.

See also

In Spanish: Bebida de avena para niños