If the shopkeeper in this iconic Australian ad had any idea of how many milks (or mylks, or malks) we’re peddling nowadays, she’d probably spontaneously combust.
You’ve no doubt heard of the regulars you can pick up at your local, like whole milk, low-fat, skim and fat-free. You can buy milk made from almond, soy, rice, coconut and oat, too.
And now, there’s a brand-new, and supposedly super-charged alternative… Pea milk.
Pea. Milk. Milk from peas. Peas made into milk.
It’s called Ripple (with branding that ironically looks like ‘nipple’), and the San Fran start-up behind it has raised a yuuuge $13.5 million to develop the milk, which is soy and nut-free. They “separate the good stuff from the peas from all of the stuff that kind of gives it that off-flavor and color,” to make the healthy liquid.
Ripple comes in four flavours – original, original unsweetened, vanilla and chocolate. They all boast eight times the protein of almond milk, and 50% more calcium that moo cow milk.
“It’s great over cereal, absolutely delicious in coffee, and fantastic just poured in a glass and enjoyed all by itself,” boasts their website. Pea cereal. Pea coffee.
As rank as it sounds, it’s actually pretty genius, and the blokes at the helm of this project are doing it for environmental reasons.
Harvesting dairy isn’t crash hot for the environment. A single gallon (3.7L) of milk takes a close to 4,000 litres of water to produce. There are also a fair whack of folk (like Peta) who believe dairy shouldn’t be consumed, and that it’s a product for which cows suffer.
Ripplefoods have calculated that its milk takes 96% less water to make than almond milk, 99% less than dairy milk, and 76% less than soy milk. The carbon footprint is 93% smaller than dairy. And 100% more pea-y.
No word on when the land Down Under will get a taste of the concoction, but it’s launching at WholeFoods and Target in the US next month.
Pea-ce out. Lol.
Source: CoExist.
Photo: Supplied & Getty / Netthip Kobkeattawin.
