New Discovery – Kallo Soya Milk

I remember a time, only a few years ago, when there was only two choices of non-dairy milk in supermarkets, sweetened and unsweetened soya milk. Nowadays, ‘free-from’ aisles are big money, and are literally getting bigger. It’s great that we have so much choice now, but one downside is that it takes longer to do your shopping. Instead of just finding the one product you can use, you now have to actually choose from the array on offer. I don’t know how omnivores do it on a daily basis J

I usually buy my soya milk (unsweetened) from the health food shop, but due to supplier issues with Provamel I found myself in front of the non-dairy section at my local Tesco. I was lost. I had no idea which one to choose from the many brands with varying degrees of sweetness and added vitamins that were in front of me. Did I want soya, rice, oat or almond? Then something new caught my eye – Kallo soya milk. As a regular user of Kallo stock cubes, rice cakes and corn cakes, I know they are a reliable and quality brand. So I decided to give their new soya milk a try.

Kallo are the UK arm of Wessanen, a company with a 250 year history of producing natural and organic food throughout Europe. They also produce breadsticks and gluten-free cereals. Other brands under the Wessanen umbrella include Whole Earth, So Good and Rice Dream.

After buying the soya milk, I popped in to the health food shop to pick up some other bits. The sales advisor told me that she’d tried Kallo soya milk and didn’t like it, so when I first opened the carton my expectations weren’t very high. I have to say, though, it’s really nice. It’s a slightly different taste to Provamel, but the consistency is about the same so it’s perfect for adding to hot drinks or making porridge/oatbran etc.

Although I still stick to my Provamel unsweetened soya milk, I’d definitely sub it with the Kallo alternative again.

Together For Trees

Tesco have a really good campaign running at the moment that helps to educate people about the importance of the rainforests and their influence on all our lives. As with my ‘one small step’ philosophy, Tesco want to encourage people to make small changes in their lives that together will have a huge impact on halting the destruction of the rainforests. If you’re looking for some inspiration to motivate yourself to start taking those small steps, I think it’s best to let the facts speak for themselves. Full information can be found at www.tesco.com/trees.

• Rainforests regulate the climate, store carbon, clean water and provide a home to animals and birds. They are often referred to as the ‘green lungs’ of the planet because much of the oxygen in our air comes from rainforests. The trees and soil also store a huge amount of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. When the trees are cut down those gases are released back into the atmosphere, heating it up and contributing to global warming. The destruction of the rainforests creates more carbon dioxide each year than the emissions from all our planes, ships and cars put together.

• An area the size of a football pitch is destroyed every four seconds. That’s almost eight million football pitches a year. 50 years ago, it is estimated that the rainforests covered 14% of the Earth. Now they cover just 6%.

• The rainforests support more than one billion of the poorest people on the planet.

• An estimated 140 animal and plant species are lost every day through the destruction of the rainforest.

• More than 70% of all land-based species exist only in the rainforest.

• There are a huge number of items that we use everyday that originate from the rainforests, including grapefruit, coffee, tomatoes, chocolate, plant ingredients for modern medicine, oils to make cosmetics and detergents, coconuts, avocados, figs, lemons, limes, bananas, squash, pepper, tumeric, cayenne, vanilla, cloves, cinnamon and ginger. There are still many more to be discovered.