Something I have decided to do is to start eating healthier and to eat a strictly vegetarian diet (with a vegan diet being the final goal). However, what I am discovering is that eating healthy is, for me, a lot like relationships, in that the more I attempt to do better and learn about it, the more confused, frustrated, and discouraged I become .

Here’s an example…

All of my life I have consumed considerable amounts of milk products, and I mean a considerable amount, like upwards of 2 or more liters a day of milk and chocolate milk, although, to the surprise of others, I never gained much weight. But since learning the negative health effects of milk consumption, I made the switch to drinking vanilla flavored soy milk, under the impression that soy milk is healthier. (I have tried rice, almond, soy, and coconut milks, but I haven’t like them as much as the soy milk I have bought.)

Unfortunately, as I am discovering is the case with most health food alternatives, soy milk is ridiculously expensive . Since I make what I believe would quality as a poverty-level income , affording soy milk is a challenge for me, and right now I really can’t afford it. Also I have read on the Internet that the additives in commercial soy milk make it unhealthy for me, such as corn starch and loads of sugar.

I thought it would be worth trying to make soy milk at home, and the recipes online I have read seem simple enough even for my cooking-challenged self to do and they all say the outcome is healthy and delicious!

Wrong!

All the soy milk I have made has tasted horrible despite the huge amounts of sugar and flavoring I have added to it, and I haven’t found any recipe to make it taste good, although some of the extra steps I have found have made it taste less bad but still bad.

So milk is bad for me and I have learned does horrible things to me (I’ve noticed my body has thanked me in its own way for drinking soy milk), commercial soy milk is bad and too expensive for me, all the other milk alternatives don’t taste too good and are as expensive or more expensive, and homemade soy milk tastes unbearably bad.

See it’s like relationships – confused, frustrated, and discouraged .

It is difficult to explain to folks on PC my relationship with beverages. For as long as I can remember I have consumed huge quantities of liquids, and I find that it helps me focus on my intellectual pursuits. What I do is maybe 2 hours of intense studying followed by a routine beverage break, which usually consisted of some kind of milk, or until recently soy milk. Water is not off the table either – a few months ago I took down around 2-3 liters of water in like 2 hours. I will not and do not drink sodas (ex. Coca-Cola, Pepsi), alcohol, and coffee, but most other things I will, as long as it is cold.

It is stressful for me right now to have temporarily broken from my routine in not drinking milk or soy milk as during my beverage breaks, and water is a terrible substitute for those. When I am stressed like this I eat a lot of unhealthy foods I otherwise wouldn’t consider eating, feel bad and fat for eating it, and then throw it up, and I was contemplating doing that last night because I ate too much chocolate. (I never eat chocolate.)

I haven’t talked to the dietician that works at the health centre I visit because she has been booked, and with the price of gas right now, I might have to hold off on that 125 KM drive.

Anyone else have some advice for me, like how to make homemade soy milk taste better? .