I’m the kind of guy that eats the same thing for breakfast every single morning, which is cereal with milk. For years this posed a problem when trying to go camping because after a few days in the wilderness, no matter how wonderfully packed with ice my coolers may be, any milk I bring gets weird. So for awhile I gave up when camping, skipped cereal for other breakfasts. But that wasn’t the same. Then I made some dietary changes in my normal life that moved me from my normal skim milk lifestyle into the realm of soy milk and oat milk. This is not about using either of those while camping…
When I made the switch at home to those less attractive tasting “milks” for non camping purposes it taught me what my tolerance is for trying alternative milks. I hate oat milk, literally went through one container of it, and haven’t bought it again. But surviving that culinary disaster made me brave enough to try powdered milk. Powdered milk has always been kind of a joke in my mind, because growing up my father would tell of how he’d drink it during the Great Depression. I associated it with hard times, and a dairy loving parent. But knowing how much I dislike oat milk, I figured I’d give powdered milk a try when camping. Couldn’t be worse tasting, right? Also I live in a hurricane zone so anytime I learn that I can add some food to my life that requires no refrigeration, that’s worth a lot.
Anyway I find myself out camping and I’ve brought no other alternatives for breakfast along during a four day trip. Which forces me to try powdered milk finally. I brought one of my normal cereal choices, and that just leaves me with in this case some Great Value (Walmart) brand powdered milk that requires nothing more than adding water to it. I figure out that one of the packets is roughly 4 days worth of milk, so I pour a quarter packet into a bowl and mix with water. Cold water is a must, because warm water makes this stuff taste like warm milk, and warm milk doesn’t seem right. So that’s the trick, cold water plus powdered milk makes something that looks like milk. But that’s an important thing to remember, “looks like.” The alternative milks on the market like soy and oat are basically ground up nuts or oats mixed with water to look milky. Beyond that eating them is a matter of deluding yourself to think you have real milk. But you don’t.
Powdered condensed milk however IS real milk, and frankly compared to the skim milk that my brain insists it has to be somewhat like it ends up being not bad at all. This finally brings my breakfast routine safely to campsites, so I can do my milk and cereal, some (instant) coffee, and feel like I’m at home diet wise. I’m now a huge fan for camping and presumably if the need ever arises hurricane situations where my town loses power and this sort of food makes perfect sense.
