I'm an Indian guy in my twenties, living in US. I used to have cornflakes and the like for breakfast, but recently I turned lactose intolerant. I hate cornflakes without the milk.
There are a lot of breakfast options coming from my culture, but I need something that doesn't take time to make. I'm a lazy bum and can barely make it in time to my university as it is. If anyone has ideas, please let me know.
For the record it is real milk with all the lactose, but with added lactase to process it in your stomach. It still has some of the downsides of having dairy while taking lactase, but it’s pretty solid.
One other option is also the next-gen silk or NotCo’s NotMilk, both a lot more milk like than oat or other nut based milks.
Try oat milk - I love serial with that stuff. Simple toast with peanut butter it’s amazing. Granola with soya yogurt is fantastic. But the king of them all is real porridge oats done the proper way with water. Add some maple syrup or honey and you are god to go
Planet oat tastes the worst but is the only one that’s not loaded up with a bunch of oil. The unsweetened original Planet Oat is good enough and 45 calories a cup. But I guess it’s the skim milk of oat milk.
I've been eating this as breakfast as well for probably over a year now.
Can't say that I've been enjoying them because the taste is pretty bland, but they sure are healthy and help a lot with digestion.
I make them super bland though, just rolled oats with double their weight in milk.
Before I added some maple syrup to give it some flavour, but then I tried to reduce calories in my meals and this kind of stuck.
My wife has been making this and I've tried it a couple times but the cold texture is just so disgusting to me personally. Can't do it. The taste wasn't too bad (roughly the same ingredients as yours) as it reminded me of oatmeal cookie dough.
Welcome to the club of lactose intolerance! If, like me, you really like dairy, there is a very easy way to cheat the system... (Seriously, how would anyone survive without cheese?)
You can get lactase tablets. Those are little pills full of lactase, which is the protein that breaks down lactose into digestible simple sugars. All you have to do is take a lactase tablet when you eat anything with lactose, and you can continue to live your life like before.
Lactose intolerance is not black and white either. You may have some tolerance left, which may be enough to eat your cereal with milk, if that is the inly lactose you have during the day. Your tolerance can also fluctuate over time. For example, the first time I had an issue with lactose it only lasted a few weeks.
I always have tablets with me! Every time I'm eating out and am not 100% sure that the food is vegan, I take a table just to be sure. I can imagine that cooks slip in butter or cream to improve the taste.
I can have a bit of milk. But I have it with coffee, and any more than that gives me gas. I'll talk to my doctor about lactase pills, thank you for letting me know.
My pleasure! And unless the rules are different where you live, you don't need to see a doctor or get a prescription. Here (Belgium) you can easily get them from pharmacies or online.
there's a multitude of other brands and types of non dairy milk, all slightly different, try a few of them. and try them in cereal not just straight. I don't care for any kind of milk on its own, but cashew or oat milk in cereal is great.
You could try different brands of oatmilk.
It might need some getting used to, but some brands actually taste pretty close to cowmilk. I favor a brand called no milk (available at lidl at least in Germany), which has some sort of fat added I think (it`s got 3.5 percent fat like milk). You might be able to find an equivalent over in the States.
I've been on an oatmeal kick for a while. I just make (good quality) instant oats so all it takes to prepare them is a bowl or mug, and the boiling water I've already got in the kettle for tea.
I don't usually like sweet breakfasts though and most oatmeal mixing suggestions (and ALL refrigerator oat recipes) out there are full of sugar. Lately I've been making a mix in that's 2 parts thai sweet chili sauce and 1 part low sodium soy sauce.
Cheapest way is Trader Joe’s since they sell both relatively cheaply and their oat milk is pretty good. But their muesli is a bit lacking so I prefer Seitenbacher’s muesli (order direct from them). Can toss in some more dried fruits from TJ’s too.
It’s more filling and nutritious than just cornflakes.
Ooo, Aldi had Musli lately but it was one of their “limited edition” aisle things and my store ran out recently. I got really used to it for breakfast, so I’ll have to look into Seitenbacher’s!
Sweet:
Instant oatmeal - can add fruit, cinnamon, honey
Fruit salad
Smoothie - can hide a few greens in there, thicken with peanut butter, protein powder
Frozen waffles - can add fruit
Savory:
Toast/bagels - can use butter, peanut/nut butter, make a sandwich with deli meats
Omelette - many options, cooks quickly
Frozen hashbrowns and peppers and onions - can season, add spice
But when you have time for it, try adding scrambled eggs. It sounds insane, but the eggs and peanut butter compliment one another in the same way that fried chicken and waffles make a surprisingly good combo.
Cook two to three eggs, scrambled in the pan with a little bit of olive oil, add a few grinds of pepper and a pinch of powdered onion halfway thru cooking. Takes <6min, tastes good, it's my go-to quickie breakfast that's healthy. If you have more time and want to get fancy, Sautee some diced bell peppers and grape tomatoes and toss them in too
My wife and I, while not Indian, fell in love with instant upma when an Indian grocery moved into the neighbourhood.
But yeah, I get where you're coming from when you want something super low maintenance. As others are recommending, oat milk is pretty good on cereal. I only wish I could by it (or any alt-milk for that matter) by the gallon instead of in those cardboard cartons.
Hey have you tried Jamaican patties? You say you're a student and those little yellow bombs got me through university. You can usually buy them in bulk and they're a surprisingly cheap source of protein. And they tend to come in different levels of spiciness to suit your preference. They nuke in like a minute so perfect for pulling an all-nighter. I lived in Toronto at the time and it was the go-to snack for students at U of T.
I'm a little bit of a snob when it comes to Indian food. I can't stand any of the instant stuff, especially the ones available in US. I guess it's like having pizza in US for someone from Italy lol.
Yeah fair I can see that. Though I have to say, I am rather impressed by some of these curries in a shelf-stable pouch you can buy nowadays. They may not be as good as the real thing, but they taste so much better than many other convenience offerings. I bet the Indian army must have best-tasting rations!
Oh it just occurred to me you may have dietary restrictions. The classic Jamaican patty is ground beef, alas, though jerk chicken is also popular. I think I've seen vegetarian patties too, though they may be a little harder to source?
Oh it just occurred to me you may have dietary restrictions. The classic Jamaican patty is ground beef, alas, though jerk chicken is also popular. I think I’ve seen vegetarian patties too, though they may be a little harder to source?
Oh it just occurred to me you may have dietary restrictions. The classic Jamaican patty is ground beef, alas, though jerk chicken is also popular. I think I’ve seen vegetarian patties too, though they may be a little harder to source?
Also, if there's Indian store nearby (there's almost a guarantee for that), then you can get a lot of instant Indian foods like Maggi, poha, upma, etc.
Bread with butter (plant based) and/ or jam is another option.
Next time you're in the cereal aisle, check out the protein bar options. These are a good grab and go option for breakfast, no planning or cooking required. I always keep some on hand. Most of the ones I like are some version of peanut butter, but I also like the Nature Valley oatmeal bars in either cinnamon or banana bread.