Cream of the crop

So long soya — make way for pea protein and raw cow’s milk with chocolate, says Susannah Butter

COFFEE was first to be taken seriously. Now that we’ve got that right, attention has turned to milk. It’s not just black or white; there are shades of grey, or rather different shades of white, from goat’s milk to oat’s milk. And now there’s pea milk — a company planning to make pure protein milk from yellow peas has just won $110 million from investors including Goldman Sachs.

Even cow’s milk has its own identity politics. Full fat is back among healthy eaters who drink it for the good fats, calcium and iodine — but do you pasturise, and how important is it to buy it in eco-friendly glass bottles?

Milk and its variants are big money. The plant-based beverage industry is a £6.9 billion market and projected to grow to more than £11 billion this year. Oat milk is leading the boom. It gets points for foamability in cappucinos and having a smaller environmental footprint than almond milk. So what does your milk say about your ilk?

Raw milk

In other words, unpasteurised milk. It hasn’t been heated so it could still contain harmful bacteria — living on the edge — but also still contains all the goodness that large-scale dairy farms kill off and could help prevent respiratory infections and fever.

It usually comes from small, family farms so you are saving the dairy industry, one bowl of cereal at a time. Happily, the revolution tastes creamy and rich. You make the pilgrimage to the local farmer’s market to pick it up. Dreamers

Farm at Stroud Green Market is your favourite — the milk comes from Guernsey and

Jersey and they also sell yoghurt and cream.

Unfortunately, it’s only open on Saturdays from 10am until 2pm and because the milk is raw you need to drink it before its sell-by date, so occasionally you find yourself