I have never thought that I was lactose intolerant, just that I hate milk. Ok, HATE is a very harsh work, so let me just say that I am not very fond of milk. It has always made my stomach hurt, and my throat to feel icky. The only way I have been willing to drink milk since I was very young has been as part of a chocolate milkshake. And then not very often. I even eat my cereal dry, because I don’t like the taste of milk, either.

I have, however, cooked with milk, everything from French toast to puddings, gravy, and everything in between. If the recipe called for milk, I used milk in it. I had never thought about using a dairy alternative, but I was willing to try it when I received some Living Harvest Hempmilk in the mail. The package i got had three containers–one each of Original, Unsweetened Original, and Chocolate. I decided to use these dairy alternative products in place of regular cow’s milk in everything I made until it was gone.

I did lots of cooking with both the Original and the Unsweetened Original flavors. I made my Eggplant Parmesean, using the hempmilk to dip the eggplant slices in before dredging in gluten free flour. I made biscuits and pancakes with my Pamela’s Gluten Free Baking Mix. Cornbread with Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Cornbread Mix. Home made raspberry cobbler from scratch. And that gravy with my fried chicken livers.

All of the things I cooked using the hempmilk instead of cow’s milk came out great, with no strange taste, and by the way, no strange or funny “feeling”. It says right on the box that it contains “No THC–Never had it, Never will.”

I was most impressed with the cobbler and the gravy. The cobbler cooked up nice and golden brown, which is often a hard thing to achieve with gluten free flours. It had a very nice texture, too. But by far, to me, the best thing I made was the gravy. As gravy is usually mostly milk, it was a very good test for this product.

I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Baking Mix for the flour part. I added it to the skillet with some of the oil left over from frying my chicken livers. When I added the hempmilk, it thickened up just like it does when I use cow’s milk. There was no “taste” or flavor of hemp that I could detect. And the best part of it, my stomach didn’t hurt after eating that gravy like it usually does when I use cow’s milk. That was nice.

Hempmilk is healthy for you, too. Here is what it says on their website:

“Living Harvest Hempmilk is a delicious and nutty non-dairy beverage that provides essential and balanced nutrition for the whole family. A fantastic alternative to soymilk or dairy, our Hempmilk provides the perfect balance of naturally occurring Omega-3 and Omega-6 Essential Fatty Acids, all 10 essential amino acids with digestible protein, 15 essential vitamins and minerals, including 40% of your daily value of calcium. Hemp seeds are also free of the common allergens associated with soy, dairy, and tree-nuts. Try all our refreshing and delicious flavors and then ask yourself – “How could something this healthy taste so good?“

I did find it to taste good, and to not cause me to have the dairy stomach ache. It acted like regular cow’s milk in baking and cooking, too, so I will probably buy this next time instead of milk.