What’s your favorite alt milk? Alt milk? Like, it’s got tattoos and those little snake bite piercings, and it wears spiked chokers, and it kind of scares me, but also kind of excites me. Gross. This is “A Hot Dog Is A Sandwich.” Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. Welcome to our podcast, “A Hot Dog Is A Sandwich,” the show where we break down the world’s biggest food debates. I’m your host Josh Scherer. And I’m Nicole Enayati, and I’m your host Nicole Enayati. Sorry, I just blacked out for a second. All these milks are making me thirsty. Oh god, we are thirsty, milky boys today in “A Hot Dog Is A Sandwich-” Milky boys, Milky boys. Because Nicole, there’s a war right now. There’s a war being waged against the dairy farmers of America because- Oh, but- No, no, no. I love milk. And they hired, I actually do, I drink a lot of milk. I was raised on milk. I was raised drinking a big old glass of 2% milk during dinner. Oh, you were one of those kids? Oh my god that always freaked- How do you think I ended up so beefy? Oh my god, that used to freak me out whenever I would watch like, “Full House” and little Michelle would like eat a ham sandwich with a glass of milk, I’d be like, “Ugh, milk and ham sandwiches, those don’t go together.” Yeah, Julia still does that sometimes, and there’s that scene in “Get Out” where she’s just like, drinking a glass of plain milk, and sometimes I see that, and I get a little freaked out, but- Sorry. It’s been a minute since I’ve had a whole glass of milk. Well, I had one last night, god- You had a glass of milk, that’s cute. Anyways, I love milk. That’s cute, that’s okay. You could, Josh, don’t be embarrassed. Well, I had a handful of chocolate chips, and so- Oh, okay, so you weren’t just doing it. No. Can I ask you a question? Go ahead. Do you drink milk out of the carton? All the time- There is nothing- All the time. Better than just opening the fridge and then just, ugh, just taking back a swig of cold, dairy milk. It’s the best. I’m a huge fan of dairy. My body was built to run on it. My family comes from somewhere in central Europe and they’re all just big beefy, milky boys out there. I’m a hardcore lactose-intolerant girl. Yes you are, yes, you are. So this, Nicole, this is a sort of window into your culture today, of alternative milks. They got like the corsets on and they have like, half their head shaved. I don’t like this alt milk, alt girl pipeline. I’m not into it. Why? I can be an alt boy. You can do whatever you want. Don’t put a label on the milks. I have like a necklace that’s kinda like a spike choker. Yes, you do. I’ll wear it to my heavy metal shows. I have a corset that I wear out. Do you really? Does that make me alt? You rock a corset? Yeah, it’s really cute. We’re all alt today because we got two, four, six, eight, and I can’t count the alternative milks in front of us, but when we talk about like the war on milk, that is what the dairy lobby would want you to believe, and it’s true that Americans are consuming less dairy. A lot of people think they’re like wising up to the fact that maybe the human body wasn’t exactly meant to process lactose. Mine sure wasn’t. Nicole’s sure wasn’t. So the rise of alternative milks on the shelves have absolutely exploded, not only in grocery stores, but also in things like coffee shops, Oh, yeah. Or you may go to an expensive coffee shop now and be asked if you want macadamia nut milk, or as I call it, milkadamia. I love macadamia milk, but also like the default has become oat milk at Blue Bottle, I believe, as well as some other fancy spots. I don’t even know if- Which to me, is very fascinating, right? So a lot of these that you see right here, are products that exist in other cultures already- Sure. And then we’ve sort of put them into milk-ass-looking containers- Yes. Which is really funny to me. So for instance, coconut milk, right? Like you, Thai food, South Asian food, there’s a lot of coconut milk- Sure. Freaking Brazilian food. You know that stew, moqueca, you put the coconut milk in. Yeah, but this is different than canned coconut milk. Well, you wanna know why it’s different because let me read off these here- What do they put in it? So there’s coconut milk is the first one, and then you got organic sunflower lecithin, you got gellan gum, you got sea salt. So a lot of these companies are taking what were already legitimate products and they’re sort of like adding thickeners- Modifying it, yeah. To try and give it the pour of actual dairy milk. Sure. ‘Cause like, what do you look for in milk? Like why are you putting milk in coffee? What’s the the culinary reason? So for me it’s to cut through the acred, strong, acrid, sorry, acrid, strong coffee flavor that sometimes I don’t think is so pleasant on its own. Exactly, and like, what’s the thing that’s cutting through the strong coffee flavor? Fat. It’s the fat, right? Yeah. It’s fat. I mean there is a very specific taste to milk. Milky flavor, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think a lot of people who grew up on milk don’t think it has a taste. But then if you really focus in on it, you’re like, damn, that is milky. Yeah, well I do lactose-free milk, and I’ve noticed that lactose free milk, what? Sweeter, right? It’s sweeter. I think the enzymes are, or something. Something is just ground in there. Are they just not adding, they’re not adding supplemental sugar to milk. It might be, I don’t know. To the lactose-free milk? But it tastes so good, I love it. Do you get Lactaid brand milk? Not anymore, but I am in the Fairlife game right now, and I like Fairlife. Does Fairlife have lactose in it? It’s lactose-free. I have no idea what Fairlife has done to their milk. It’s good. Were they on “Shark Tank” or did I make that up? I didn’t see them on “Shark Tank.” Fairlife milk has, I drink a whole lot of Fairlife at home, but I will buy normal, whole milk- For cooking? For cooking. Me too. Because if you’ve ever seen milk in a recipe, that means whole milk. Yeah, it’s never 2% Lactaid. Then I get 2%, ’cause if I’m having a bowl of cereal, then it’s yeah, it’s an extra 10 freaking grams of protein, which means fantastic. Sure. But speaking of other alt milks that exist in other cultures, right? Soy milk. Sure. I remember I grew up in, despite being Orange County, like, a very diverse area. Cool. And we had like, a lot of East Asian kids in our elementary school. And I remember a lot of them would bring just Silk Soymilk that they would get from Costco. That’s so cute. Also, all of these brands, I just randomly purchased them. Like, we’re not saying like Silk or Planet Oat or Rice are like, the best or anything, I just purchased them randomly. A hundred percent. And so like soy milk is something that isn’t an alternative dairy milk. But soy milk- Is it’s its own thing. It’s its own thing. It’s existed in China for literally thousands of years. Sure. And have you ever had fresh soy milk at dim sum, they do the- Never had it, but I’ve always wanted it. Oh, fresh, fresh soy milk. It’s so, so, so good. Rice milk, like you’re halfway to horchata, basically. My father was a rice milk man, all for his whole life. Is he lactose-intolerant too? Yes, he is. Interesting. Is that common among, among Jewsians? I don’t know, maybe, maybe- I don’t know, either. I don’t know, but he’s- He had a lot of stomach issues. Hardcore lactose-intolerant. Where our house was always filled with Rice Dream, specifically the vanilla one. Oh funny. But I just went with a regular enriched for the experiment. That’s funny, that’s funny. And then almond milk, people think of it as a newfangled thing. Almond milk has been around for like, a millennium. What? Yeah. So, so milk- What are you talking about? Milk comes, milk lemonade around the corner, almond milk is made. And you’ll see it Nicole, in like, recipes from the middle ages. Oh, no way. It’s spelled M-Y-L-K. Milk literally means to rub or express, has nothing to do with dairy. So if you, if you hear the phrase like milk up the poppy, you know. Oh that’s so cool. Yeah, so almond milk has also been around for a long time. So these are not necessarily new things, but our dependence on dairy, and the explosion of the dairy industry, especially after World War II, and it’s association with nutrition has left us here with all of these things. I’m excited. And now we got hemp for the hippies. ‘Cause you used to only be able to get hemp milk, Nicole, at them, like, with the weird stores where you thought you’d get abducted into a cult. Those were my favorite stores to walk into. And you know why they were my favorite stores? Because you almost did. No, ’cause all the cashiers, they got those little snake pipe piercings. Oh my god you- And they got like the green hair. My god. I love hemp milk. I’ll say out of this lineup right here, my go-to is hemp milk. You have, like, do you actually stock hemp milk- Yes. In your fridge? Yes, I do. And Nicole, if you are pouring a bowl of cereal. Yes? What is the alt milk that you are using? Oh, well I don’t eat cereal that much anymore. But when I used to it was just OG milk. It was lactose-free milk. Why that over an alt milk? It tastes better. Yeah? That’s the truth. Yeah, I agree It tastes so much better. Well I had a go-to for a while, and this is more when I was eating like, super, super clean, right? Which is the dark ages that we don’t like to talk about, where I’d refuse to hang out with people because I was like, I gotta go to the gym on a Friday night. I can’t go out to a bar. Tough, tough. With new friends or like, if people were having an office birthday, instead of eating a cupcake, like a normal person, I would bring protein powder mixed with yogurt. And I was like, surely this is a normal reaction to have. But during that era, I was drinking a lot of almond milk because I was like, on the off chance that dairy is actually bad for you, causes inflammation, et cetera, might as well drink almond milk. Interesting. And so I was getting almond breeze unsweetened vanilla. And I think the advantage that some of these alt milks have over dairy milk is that they can just like- Be flavored? Sugar, vanilla. Oh yeah, there’s a high- Just throwing flavor, like candy flavors in there. There’s a high concentration of sugar, or like even in oat milk, I think, it’s like they blend canola oil into- Correct- It, to make a creamy, viscous liquid similar to cow milk. Well, so the fascinating thing between like, coconut right, has natural fat in it. But they add fat don’t they, to this one? Well sometimes they’ll add fat. Sometimes they’ll add starch- Carrageenan. Carrageenan, which is, carrageenan is a natural coagulant or a thickener that is made from seaweed, I believe. Yes, seaweed based, yes. And has an upsetting early use in Japanese history. No. It’s upsetting. It’s okay, we’ll- It’s upsetting It’s okay, we’ll Google it later. It’s for personal use. Oh, like a lubricant? A lubricant, yeah. Not upsetting. No it’s not. Lubricants are not upsetting. Well it’s weird that it’s in your food, you know? What do you mean? Not really, but I mean the Greeks use olive oil. Grow up Josh! The Greek cheese is olive oil. And now I put it on my salad. Can I drink any of these- It’s weird, it’s weird ’cause oats don’t have fat. They’re just starch. Almonds are almost pure fat. And those two are now supposed to be somewhat equivalent, ’cause you’re- Can I tell you why? Just blending it? You’re just making something creamy, what? They’re blended and they look white, similar to milk. That’s weird though, we just consider that the same. I don’t like it. I’m- Rice? Okay, call someone. And hemp? And hazelnuts? They have nothing in common. They’re, just creamy whites. Some of these aren’t even white. This is a beige. Yeah, yeah. This is a beige. Can I just say this looks like a, what is that place? Home Depot looks like Home Depot, where you wanna pick out what color you want to be a cabinet. Now this is true white, and this is eggshell. Exactly. And then this, yeah. No, this is all a little bit upsetting to me for no real reason. Why are you so upset by this? No real reason. It’s just the fact that we created such a massive, monolithic demand on one product, dairy milk. And then like immediately flipped on it and suddenly like every farmer of every crop was like, I can blend that and make it white, put it in a glass. You know what I mean? It’s very strange to me. I don’t think it’s that strange. I dunno, is there anything else that we have seen and this like, there was a substitute good not for dairy? Hmm. Because you’ll see this in any other thing, ice cream, yogurt, all that. The coconut yogurt. Which to me is just- I like coconut yogurt. A bit asinine. Why is the asinine? I don’t know, man. People that, nondairy people deserve to enjoy the revels of yogurt. I agree entirely. I just, I find coconut yogurt, like generally bad. Oh, I think it’s good. Not a coconut yogurt fan. I like Cocojune, you don’t like Cocojune? Is that the one that still got the chunkies in it? No, that’s Coconut Cult. That’s coconut cult, yeah. I love Cocojune. I don’t love that. You do a nice little chia pudding? I don’t like chia pudding. You don’t like chia pudding? Chia milk, has anyone made chia milk? Well chia just gets really gooey. But- You know what I mean? Okay, well you could use that- Quinoa milk? I’ve had quinoa. I’m surprised I didn’t buy quinoa milk. Oh, we’re missing the quinoa milk. It’s actually really good. I like quinoa milk. Should we get to trying these milks? I’m so ready, but can I make one suggestion? Absolutely. Are you open to us putting two straws into one glass and drinking it Like we’re at an old timey diner or soda jerk? No, I’m not against that at all. Yay! That actually sounds like a nice treat for me. Okay, okay. But the glass I will say is close together. So if it gets awkward we can just stop. Yeah, just look down. Just don’t look at my eyes. Okay, okay, no problem. Yeah. Should we start with regular milk? Let’s start with regular milk. Get a baseline, this is cold? Okay, I did not take my lactate pill. I’m so sorry. You’re fine. I’m gonna be sick. Let me scoot over. Okay, we’ll get it. Are we gonna act like, okay You have a date to the sock hop yet? Nicole, drink the milk. It’s so good, I just had some, it’s delicious. It’s a whole- I’m shipping off to war soon. We the good guys again. Oh no, I sure am gonna miss you, Billy. god, I love milk. Speak into Oh boy, I love me some milk. It’s so good. That’s great. Okay, okay, we have the baseline for what- Delicious. Normal dairy milk tastes like. Okay. Very fatty, coats the palate. You got that like little bit of sweetness, a little bit of bacterial funk. Lactonic yumminess. It’s quite warm. I don’t think we had these in the fridge- Oh, I did not put them in the fridge. No, no fridge. No, no, I bought them at like, 11:40, and it’s what time right now? It’s 1:34. Probably salmonellal, that’s okay. You know room temp milk, how you do? Okay, okay, let’s try your favorite, hemp milk. Okay. Hemp milk. I love hemp milk. Well we gotta give like, full tasting notes on these. This is, okay, well if we’re looking at color bordering on like, a forest green- I will- There seems to be some particulates in there. Lots of particulates. This looks like the color of every rich Brentwood mom’s athleisure set. Yeah. Now. It’s just like vaguely earth-toned. The reason why hemp milk is so good is because it froths up whenever you have hot coffee. So it has a wonderful texture with coffee, which is why I think I use it so often. Well that is a big benefit to a lot of these. And that’s the reason they have to add ingredients to them, is because if you’re using ’em in coffee shops, which is a big market for it, a wholesale market for it, that they have to be able to froth to make cappuccino. Right, right, right, try it, it’s so good, it’s so good. Also there’s- Oh god, why is it sour? It’s not sour. Oh, oh it’s so earthy. Oh my god. It’s earthy and- Fascinating. I’ve never had hemp milk before. Mm, it’s, you’ve never had this before? No, it’s really nice Oh, my god, it’s so delicious. I don’t think it’s even close to, similar to dairy milk. Not even a little bit. But I will say the texture, once it’s warm and you pair it with coffee. The first time I had it was at Groundwork Coffee, actually. And it changed the game for me because I’m like, ugh, almond milk, ugh, soy milk. I think I’ve flipped my thoughts on all these milks. Whereas at first I was dismayed, bordering on outraged. You ever go down- Outraged? Outraged. Dismayed and outraged about the- Oh, yes, you are outraged, outraged. There’s an aisle in the grocery store that almost has a shadow cast upon it and nobody’s ever in it. And that’s the shelf-stable juice aisle. Oh. They got like, all the old brands of juice, like Langer’s pineapple- I love the Langer’s Pineapple. That’s like kind of grayish gold. And you’re like, who’s buying the $9 glass jar juices? It’s me. It’s you. It’s me. And if I can’t find like, my Dole in a can, ’cause I’m making cocktails, I will suffer Langer’s use, but there’s 90 different combinations. There’s pineapple-orange, pineapple-guava, pineapple-orange-guava, all this stuff, mango nectar, and then it’s not even the Jumex, because I love me some Jumex juice nectar. What’s Jumex? You don’t know Jumex nectar, it’s a Mexican brand. You gotta go to the- Is it pronounced Humex? Maybe, it’s probably Humex, Humex- Humex. I love it, I love it. But there’s so many of those, “Why not just treat these like juice?” the man asks himself. So now I’m kind of in. Which one’s this? Almond milk. Hemp milk, fantastic, earthy flavor. Okay, almond milk, very neutral. I love the flavor of almonds. Very neutral. Wait, gimme the almond milk. It’s Califa Farms almond milk. Oh this is so almondy. It is very almondy. Do you say almondy? Almond. It’s very almondy. See what have we got? Almonds? Okay, so yeah, there’s- There’s 40 almonds in each glass. There are, do they make that claim? No, I just said it. Okay, ’cause no, there is a legal definition of what can and can’t be considered almond milk. And frankly it needs – To be stricter. Oh, like almond beverage. Right, because some almond milks will, and somebody did like an audit on the industrial almond milk producers. And they found that like if you took homemade almond milk recipes, right, they might use, this is, I’m just spitballing numbers here. I don’t have it off the top of my head. But it might be like 40% like, almond to water by weight. Okay. Right. And they were finding out that you go to these industrial processing facilities, it’s like five to 10% Really? Like it was significantly fewer almonds. And then they’re just beefing it up with cheap chemicals like sunflower lecithin. Less than like, does that tastes pretty almondy to me. Califia Farms is a good brand, right? But I think, think it’s- Not Califa farms? Isn’t it Califia? Is it, I’ve been calling it- Just read it. Read the letters on it. The letters are the clue to how you pronounce it. Califia. You act like nobody could possibly know. I thought it was Fiacalifa. The letters are like a code that give you little clues on how to say things. Me and Califa, come on the show. Let’s drink almond milk together. Unsweetened, original Ripple, plant-based milk. So I got this ’cause it’s a little wacky and wild- What? It’s made out of plant- What plant? Pea plant protein. Oh this is pea protein milk? Yeah. Okay, so pea, most people consider English garden peas, the green ones, that’s not what it is. Water pea protein blend, water pea protein vegetable oil- Pea is similar to a bean, it’s fascinating. I’ve had this before. This is yellow. This looks like the cow got into an onion patch. Pretty close dead ringer for milk, though. Is it? Drink it. What’d you think of the almond milk? I didn’t care for it. It’s got that slight- Almond milk is just almond milk, at this point. I need the vanilla in it, man, I need the flavors. I see what think. I don’t need the vanilla in it but it just is. It exists and I’m okay that it exists alongside the milk. Almonds have like a deceptively stringent flavor. Yeah. Right, It’s kind of got that there’s What’s the poison in almonds? Cyanide, it tastes like cyanide to you? Hold on, Ripple plant-based milk. It’s pretty damn good, right? If they’d bleach this a little bit to not make it upsettingly yellow. It is quite yellow. But I guess a lot of cow milk would actually be yellow, if they were like, if they were grass fed, right? Yeah. Is that a thing? If the government was- They took our milk, they took the milk. Josh, we don’t have enough straws for this. What? Just reuse your straw. I’m sorry, I don’t wanna reuse it. I’m reusing the milk straws. Stop it. Don’t you hit me, sorry. Rice milk, this is- Just drink from the glass. Oh my god, they have added this, this literally tastes like the bottom of a rice crispy bowl. That is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. No wonder my dad loved it so much. Oh my god, this is how much, wait can you hand me like, the pea protein milk? Oh, me? Yeah. They didn’t even call it milk. This is just Rice Dream rice drink. And when you read dream and drink as a verb, it’s funny. Like, do rice dream? Yes, rice dream. Do rice drink? Yes, rice drink. Rice Dream and rice drink. Oh my goodness. Okay. So if we’re just looking at like, say, sugars, this has 30 grams of carbs in a cup. The Rice Dream- Well it’s rice. Yeah. And then the pea protein one has zero. Well let’s look at the, let’s look at like, oat. What’s another? Gimme the hemp, gimme the hemp. The hemp tasted healthy. Me? Yeah, how many grams of carbs in there? 19. 19 grams of carbs, some fat, yeah, this just has 14 grams of added sugar, which makes it- This one? Delicious. No wonder Morris was slinging the rice so much. Our parents’ generation, one I think that 90% of what people have told you about diet is complete BS. Yeah. And all you have to do is just like- Yeah. Eat more fresh produce and whole grains. Love yourself. And like love yourself. Like, that’s it. Yeah, yeah. It’s a lot simpler. Yeah. You don’t need to micromanage nutrition labels, just kind of go on by- We’ll do that for you. However, our parents’ generation were so not clued in to the idea that maybe- So sad. Putting like, corn syrup and sugar in everything was bad. Every salad dressing I grew up eating- So much corn syrup. Were you a Wishbone household? Yes, oh, was I a Wishbone household. It was like eight cents cheaper than the other ones. Yeah yeah, Kraft- Yeah, I was a Wishbone household. Me too, me too. But like, Catalina dressing, French dressing. It’s just corn syrup and food dye. Jesus H Christ. That is sugar, like it is- It’s pure sugar. You could- Pure sugar. How long would it take if you took Catalina dressing, put it in a pot, turned it on high. How long would it take to read hard cracked caramel stage? 40 minutes. Because it would It would right? 40 minutes. It would get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s all sugar. Yeah, yeah. Unreal, this rice milk is delicious. It’s so good. Well, okay, it is, but it’s also just bad horchata at this point. But isn’t bad horchata still pretty damn good? Yes Yeah, it’s pretty damn good. Put a cinnamon stick in there and I’m- Oh my god it’s so good. I’m a happy man. Wow, wow, wow. Yeah, wow, Rice Dream, you’ve done it again. Well- I would legit, put this on my cereal. This is the best tasting one but probably just ’cause it’s filled with sugar. Rice Dream used to have really great, or was it So Delicious? So Delicious used to make a rice milk ice cream bar. Cool. Oh my god. But it was an ice cream cookie sandwich with rice milk. So imagine this flavor, but frozen and creamy. It was one of the best things ever. Sugar not withstanding, that is by far the most pleasant taste that’s left in my mouth. Right, right, right, right? The actual, did they toast the rice beforehand? It feels toasted. No, no. It’s delicious. No, I don’t think so. I don’t think they- god dang, what a treat. Go to that length. Next up cashew milk. What a treat, cashew milk, now. Nobody talks about cashew milk. Now we’re pushing now- Fat. Fat cashews are- Fattier. Cashews are fattier than almonds. Don’t have as much cyanide. You see what poisons in a cashew. Oh, cashew fruit is incredibly poisonous. Is it? Oh, yeah, yeah. It makes your mouth numb, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cashew fruit, it’s yeah, yeah, yeah. Are all nuts just gonna- Cashews can neurotoxin called curushiol- Oh my god. Yeah, in the raw processed state. What’s up with all these nuts filled with poison? What’s up with all these poison nuts. Maybe they’re saying don’t eat me. Yeah, that’s that probably it. I love, well cashew is used a lot in vegan cooking because it does emulate creaminess quite nicely. Mm, cashew milk, what do you think? It’s good, it’s okay. Way better than almond milk. It is way better. I’m gonna taste almond milk actually for good measure. I’m guessing this has a similar amount. Wait, Jesus, oh my god, wait, this is like, Pretty good, right? It’s pretty good. It is only 25%, or sorry, it only has 25 calories for a cup, which is like low for- That’s crazy. Anything For cash, maybe it doesn’t have too much cash. I don’t think this can have much cashew in it. They’re adding vitamins and minerals to it and then a bunch of gums. Yeah, this is kind of similar to everything. god, how are we, we’ve beaten god! We’ve beaten god with all of our chemicals. We’ve done it. You always say this Oat. I don’t like oat milk anymore. You don’t have to drink it, no one’s forcing you to be here. Yeah you are. Okay, so oat, you’re getting a lot of carbohydrates, ’cause again, oat is just a starch but also, also, also starch and fiber can, I think, be used in place of fat for certain recipes. You’re right. Wow that’s so good. In terms of milk and- Oh, I miss oat milk. I haven’t had oat milk in like, six months. Shoot. So good. It’s just, it’s just residual oatmeal liquid. That’s all it is. That’s real nice. But it’s so good. They’ve done a really good job. Yeah, okay, so if we’re looking at calories and then again this is just like, to figure out what they’re actually putting in this. There is like a fair amount of sunflower oil in there, which is really interesting because rice, I don’t know what oat farmers are are doing right now, or how they’re doing, or how rice farmers are doing, but- Probably pretty good. If you took the same modern techniques of the way they make oat milk, which is to say using an emulsifier like lecithin, to add sunflower oil into it to give it the fattiness, the actual flavor of oats is less pleasant than the flavor of rice. Fair, yes, this is fair. You do this process on rice and that’s by far the best milk we got. And they gotta repackage it. They gotta make rice milk sexy again. But Rice Dream and rice drink, Nicole. And that’s the important thing. Not only does it dream, but it also drinks. Yes. I’m sorry, it’s too Boomer-y, they need to- I know. They need to amp it up. We gotta get the kids drinking rice milk. It looks like Jamie Lee Curtis should be doing an advertising for your rice- Right, right, right, right. Dream right now. Right, right, right. Soy milk, right? The classic. Soy milk, classic. This is a delight. I remember trying it for the first time when I was a child and just thinking like, wow, what a delightful drink. Josh? Yeah. Do you think soy milk is just regular? Don’t say don’t, don’t, Nicole do not. Do you think- Finish it, I swear Nicole, you finish. Do think that soy milk- I know what you’re gonna say- Is just regular milk introducing itself? god I knew she was gonna say it. Okay, that’s pretty neutral, mm, definitely has a flavor. Don’t know what that flavor is, but it’s really good. People should start drinking more soy milk. Does it give you boobs? Yeah, soy milk- Gives you boobs. Soy milk gives men boobs. No, that’s a myth, they say that, I mean they say that soy increases estrogen levels. That’s high levels of estrogen. But it actually has high levels of something called phytoestrogen, which are plant estrogens that like, don’t interact with the body of the same. Again, none of this is like complex, right? Like, if you just like- It’s not complex? No, like I’m saying- Sounds pretty, I’m saying- You said phytoestrogen. No, but I’m saying like- Everyone’s supposed to know what that is. I’m saying eat a balanced, If you want to get big and strong enough, big old manly pecs, get under a bench press- Have some milk! And like, do it until you hurt. And then like, eat some protein and live a normal life. That’s all you need to do. It’s not complex, it’s not the soy. Just hard work and determination and suffering is the key. Suffering is the key, right? My headphones died today in the gym. And you suffered? And I was hitting, well I normally don’t hear my own suffering, but I was doing like, I’m really trying to go back to basics so I’m hitting like, long like, pause sets, right? I don’t know what that means. So like three second eccentric. So instead of just like bouncing and slamming it off the chest, I’ll like try and lock out and I’ll try and roll the bar in my chest over the course of three seconds. So I’ll go like a one, two, three decline, two second pause on the titties, then, and really try and isolate the pec. And my headphones died. And so I could hear my own noises and I would just go and it’s just a long, it is just a- Oh, my god. It was just a. Oh, my god. If I could have controlled it, I would’ve done something like, manly. I was like, I was- That’s pretty manly though. But it was just a death groan. Yeah, it was groan. So anyways, the point is it’s not, the soy isn’t preventing just the- The milk’s making us crazy! Suffer more. I cannot stress, your body is only growing because you are making it suffer. Coconut milk. Hey, we should do this straw thing like we did in the beginning. And people think that’s bad. No, we must, I think as a culture still somewhat collectively believe in the idea- Shut up and drink this with me. Of noble suffering, like- Shut up and drink this with me. I don’t know, you wanna do good things. They take hard work- Shut up. It’s not always fun. Okay, come on. Mmm. No. I had to spit it back in the cup. Oof. That is hard work. Is it just the coconut milk? Well the thing is, it doesn’t even taste like coconut. It doesn’t taste like coconut at all, which is very strange. It tastes kinda like, a little bit rancid and sour. I don’t like it. That’s yours now. Yep, sorry, are we gonna take this Maggie? Like even for cooking, I wouldn’t use this because, so you get a can of coconut milk. The ingredients is coconut milk, right? Like with this you’re getting, you’re getting all the- Josh is upset. The alt milk industry, it’s so opaque with how much of the thing they are adding in there. That would be akin to if you bought whole milk and you had no idea if it was 10% milk and 90% water or if it was all milk, right? Like, that’s the analog here, which makes it really tough to actually like, even taste the character of certain things. But I’ve come away from this with an answer for what I think the best alternative milk is. And it’s one that I really didn’t expect. Okay, say it on three, one, two, three. Ripple. Oh, you got the Ripple? I think Ripple. I think pea protein milk has- Can I see the bottle real quick? Sure. I’m so sorry. I’ve drinken so much milk. Eight grams of protein for one cup. Suddenly my interests have peaked. I just really, I’m really into the texture of it, the flavor of it, maybe not the look of it, but that’s okay. I’m willing to bypass looks. Yeah, if you sort of thought that that was just fancy raw- Right? Unpasteurized grass-fed milk. That’s a pretty pleasant color. Right? It’s like the yellow, Kerrygold butter. Yeah. This is a really great product- Colostrum, colostrum. Colostrum. Ripple plant-based milk is really great. Got a lot of protein in there. To me this Planet Oat oat milk, like, You like it, I like it too. I really do like it. Really great mouth feel. Also I love the taste of grain. Me too. I love that earthy. Even the hemp milk, it like started off a little bit sour, but it gets really nice. The rice really great. Yeah, so if you’re out there and you’re one of them girls who got like the rings in, like, they got the piercings now where there’s not even a place to pierce. They just kind of like stick it in ’em. A dimple. Yeah, or not even- Oh, dermals? Dermal, yeah, you got like one of them. I like dermals, Or like, we wear like cat ears, or like, yeah they put the jewels on the teeth now. Mm. Some of them got that. And you can’t process lactose or dairy milk. Hope you learned something today. You know, I’ve spent a long time thinking about going to therapy. I spent hours just really debating if I even wanted to take the plunge. But when I finally did and I did my sessions, it ended up completely lifting this weight off of my shoulders. It was incredible to have someone to talk to and just really wanted me to be better. I also spent a lot of time thinking about doing therapy, but it was never whether or not I wanted to do it. It was, I cannot figure out how to navigate all of the medical insurance and navigate all these websites and is this actually good therapist? I had no idea. And so I actually signed up for BetterHelp and I had a great experience getting matched to the therapist because it’s just a freaking app, baby. You just clicky clicky buttons until you’re matched to the therapist. And so literally the first thing that got me to actually speak to a therapist was BetterHelp and how easy it was. And I had a great experience with my guy, I’m talking about childhood traumas instead of dumping them all on Nicole and our podcast listeners. Yeah, it’s great. If you’re thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It’s entirely online and designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. All right, if you still want me to dump all my childhood traumas on you- A little bit, little bit. I will Nicole. You just have to fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Get it off your chest with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/hotdog to get 10% off your first month. That’s BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com/hotdog. Pretty funny entering code hotdog into a therapy app. We gotta admit that is funny, you should do it. Nicole, what’s the worst decision you’ve ever made in your life? Oh god, do you have like 30 minutes? Mine is in eighth grade when I decided to take French instead of Spanish. My sister did that. I grew up in Southern California. Like, French looks better on job, but like what, nobody cares. I live in Southern California. Mexico is a hop, skip and a jump away. I have tons of friends who Spanish is their first language. I love Mexican food more than any other cuisine. I travel to Mexico and I cannot speak the language and it really bothers me. I have like a deep sense of shame about it. But I’ve decided now that in my old, wise age of 32, I’m gonna start learning on Rosetta Stone and I’m very excited about it, right? Because not only that, you can actually order in restaurants fluently and you can actually communicate with people and it’s a culture that means a whole lot to me, and I’ve been surrounded by my whole life. And I’m very excited to use all the features on Rosetta Stone to actually finally learn properly, not just the slang that I grew up with, and vague kitchen Spanish. So Nicole, that’s why we are introducing Rosetta Stone as the most trusted language learning program available on desktop or as an app. And it truly immerses you in the language you wanna learn. With our deal, you can get a lifetime membership with all 25 languages for 50% off, which, pretty good deal, man. That is a steal, Josh. And I love how easy the interface is to use. I just love how I can just pop on my computer, put my headphones on, and just totally be immersed in the language. It has desktop and app options with audio companion and ability to download lessons offline, making it super convenient. It’s also got a built-in true accent feature that gives you feedback on your pronunciation so you can work on your accent. That’s pretty cool, man, yeah, it’s an intuitive process, right? They help you pick up the language naturally. First you got words, then phrases, and then full sentences. And it’s actually designed for long-term retention. You’re not just memorizing donde esta la biblioteca over here. So if you wanna join millions of users by learning one or more of the 25 languages offered, get Rosetta Stone today. They have Spanish, French, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Polish and more. Yeah, don’t be like me and put off learning that language. There’s no better time than right now to get started. And for a very limited time, “A Hotdog is a Sandwich” listeners can get Rosetta Stone’s lifetime membership for 50% off. So visit rosettastone.com/hotdog. That’s 50% off unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com/hotdog today. Sporked found the best soy milk, the best oat milk, the best almond milk and more. Check out sporked.com for their official ranking of the best milk alternatives. All right, Nicole, I’ve heard to you and I just say, now it’s time to find out what are the wacky opinions you rattle out there in the universe. Time for a second we call- ♪ Opinions are like casseroles ♪ Baby, you’re gonna win the singing portion of the pageant, I swear. I’m like JoJo Siwa. Let’s listen to that first opinion. Hello Josh, hello Nicole. Hi. This guy. And hello if you have a special guest, I feel like y’all don’t get enough recognition. So hello, special guest. I wish we did. I’m Rachel from Texas and I just, I had a question for y’all. So me and my fiance, I recently got engaged, Mazel tov! And we’re getting married soon. And I just wanted to ask, what do you think are the best and worst foods to have at a wedding? Got a lot of thoughts. You got a lot of thoughts? Yeah, so we did something like this on a show called “Aprons Off” that we did like a year, two years ago. Didn’t get a lot of these, we’re proud of the work that we did. Very proud of it. And I am a strong believer in sushi bars at weddings ’cause sushi bars are sexy and they’re cool and it’s fun watching someone make sushi and feed you. Do I think I’m in the minority, absolutely. I’m gonna go ahead and do that thing where Nicole, kind of puts yourself up here and I’m down here, right? A little piece of trash. Taco bar? Taquito bar. Just taquitos, just a bunch of taquitos. Oh really, I like taco bar. My thing about weddings, there are all of these things in life in general, that we’re sort of locked into these social scripts. You go to a wedding and then there’s the speeches and then you eat a salad and then there’s like, a little bit of dancing and then you go back and they go eat your dried chicken breast and then there’s a cake. And like nobody really cares, at least in my opinion, about any of these sort of main course meals. Kill it, kill it with fire. Yeah. You are having like, a party, why does there need to be- Structure? Or not even structure, but just like a plated dinner. It’s so archaic to me. Well for me, the reason why we did it, ’cause we thought it would bring an air of class to the party, that was the thought process. Nothing says class like steaks tenderized with bacon soda out there. I agree with you, I agree with you, I think an all, I think an all-out food party is the best buffets and pass apps is the way to do it. I think sit-down is archaic, and class smash. Class smash. Just go have fun. It’s your wedding, enjoy it. Life is short. Do whatever you want. No noodles though, they get messy. They get on people’s clothes. Appetizer section is always the best section of every menu. Stick to appies. People can make a whole meal out of it. So true. If anyone protests, it’s your wedding, dammit! Crab rangoons. Less of a food opinion than more of a genuine question. All right. Okay. What do you all do with a- We’ll take those. With the little wing tips to rotisserie chickens? I’ve been trying to figure it out because I hate food waste, but also they’re pretty goddam inedible. Yeah. Thank you, appreciate it. What a great voice. A voice for radio. Great, a great voice. Hopefully you have a face for television. Should I say what I would do? Yeah, what do you do? I would either nibble on them little bit or I’d give them to a dog or I’d make stock. But let me tell you that is the order of operations. Because I never make stock. No, no. I don’t make stock either. I attempted to save my onion scraps and put ’em in the freezer in like a little- Yeah. A little, not a bag, but a a zip locking situation. It’s not gonna do anything. I already know. I’m not that kind, that’s not my personality. I’m not a, that’s not my personality. I am not a broth girl. Yeah, I don’t know man, if you’re trying to like make yourself feel better about food waste by taking rotisserie chicken carcass and like boiling it, so you what? Get some calcium from it? Get a little bit of collagen, right? You could do it. But then you’re still throwing all that into, ultimately landfill. You’re not eating the bones, potentially. So the wing tips, yeah, you nibble on ’em because assuming you’re getting your rotisserie chicken from a place that seasons them well, which kind of doubtful because most places don’t, I will say Costco has a pretty damn well-seasoned, rotisserie chicken- Love Costco’s Rotisserie chicken. Have we done a best rotisserie chicken? Sporked did it. And I ate so much chicken that day. And Costco really holds up. So if you’re getting like a Costco chicken, the highest concentration of seasoning is likely going to be on the wingtips because it comes to a point. So it’s not like a breast where you have less surface area to meat depth. There’s no meat depth, it’s all surface area baby. So you’re getting all the marinade. So what you go and do is you’re gonna pop that in your mouth like a sunflower seed, and just kind of suck on it all day. That’s what I do with ’em. Hey Josh and Nicole, first of all, I love y’all so much and I wanna be your best friends, but- You can probably do it. Have a heart. But my an opinion is that, this is something I grew up on. My papa taught me this, is that anytime you have waffles or pancakes or French toast, anything you eat syrup with, you have to have a piece of cheddar cheese to dip in the syrup. Also really good to dip your bacon or sausage. But cheddar cheese is the one that I have have people saying weird for doing. You’re silly. I just wanna know, you think this is a good one? ‘Cause if you don’t, you need to try it. It’s delicious. Thank you, bye. Dipping cheddar cheese, I’m speaking. I’m just kidding, I’m just clarifying. It’s cheddar cheese the maple syrup? Oh, you mean the thing that she just said? Yeah, yeah, that’s what we’re talking about. Sorry, Nicole interrupted that banger right there. That brilliant idea. Nicole’s about to write a thesis over here, and I’m here interrupting what a bad co-host. Yeah, Nicole, do you have any additional thoughts on that? No, I’m a bad cohost sometimes, I’m sorry. I’m not perfect, if I was ugh, the world would not be ready. You, silly grandpa. Grandpa’s so silly. Yeah, he probably fought in a war, I imagine. Yeah, yeah. Most grandpas are of that age. There’s no reason it wouldn’t work for the same reason. A little salty snack. I would say that pancakes, waffles, French toast, right? The three genders, they’re all great, we love them. They all unite, but they’re all soft and squishy, right? Just like humans. And so if you are having bacon or sausage, so you get that additional kind of meaty texture. Is French toast- I think it works really well. A girl. What? French toast, a girl? French toast, waffles, pancakes, the three genders. I don’t see why that’s confusing. There’s no girl, it’s just French toast. I refuse, I refuse to be baited into this conversation. I don’t understand, anyways, French toast is my favorite take that what you will. But what- What about taking French toast and then putting cheddar cheese in it and rolling it up and then dipping it in the syrup? Well, I think they want the cheddar dipped in the syrup as like a bit of a reprieve, like a salty bite to cut, a salty bite to cut through all the sweet. But I’m saying you need salty and meaty. So I would not see cheddar cheese as a perfect facsimile of bacon or sausage. However, I’m interested in trying it because I’m open-minded, unlike Nicole. Yeah, I’m close-minded. I only think about clothes. god. Did you like that joke? That was a good, actually I did like that. Hi guys, my name is Hannah. I listen to your podcast all the time whenever I’m driving anywhere. Oh, thank you. And my unusual food opinion is that when you’re making shepherd’s pie, the best sauce to put over the meat and/or veggies is condensed tomato soup. Okay. Not a cream soup, not a tomato sauce that you’ve made yourself, but a condensed tomato soup. It’s very good, you guys should try it. Thanks, bye. Someone cooked here. This, this Hannah, this smart this- Is that you being being Marlon Brando? No, I’m not Marlon Brando. I’m kind of my own. My own. It’s pretty good. That’s a pretty good Marlon Brando. I like it- It comes to me on the day of a podcast recording, asking us to make a shepherd’s pie. Pretty great idea though. A pretty great idea. I grew up in a lot of shepherd’s pie. I did not. Well, that’s where you’re different. Neither did condensed tomato soup. Remember the story one time, I told you about condensed tomato soup? Nicole didn’t know you had to un-condense it. She’s a culinary producer, she doesn’t know how to un-condense milk. No, just kind of. I said condensed milk. Yep, yeah, you did, yeah you did. Nope, gotta do it. Ketchup, ketchup often goes inside of a- Meatloaf. A shepherd’s pie. Does it? My- You top a meatloaf- Like, white trash, South African Jewish mother would, that was one of the few things she cooked and she would put ketchup in it. Nice. So I associate it with ketchup. I know a lot of like cottage pie, shepherd’s pie or just like a nice beef stew with a potato top. But I’m talking about like the garbage person version, something that I’d make, ketchup went into it. And so you kind of want that sweetness, it’s kind of nice. But yeah, condensed tomato soup. You’re, you’re getting the sweetness, the acidity, not as much sweetness, more condensed tomato flavor. I think that is very smart. Me, too. And also it’s gonna rain tomorrow. What should I cook? I don’t know. You don’t want to even like revel in the joy of bantering back and forth about what we could possibly cook in the rain? You have two culinary professionals- We? Who spent a lot of time- I’m not cooking with you. No, but I’m saying- Are you inviting me over? You don’t even wanna like, yeah. I’m going to matinee with Becky. Oh, thanks. Are you guys, what are you seeing? No, we’re actually going separately. But like, it’s- “Love Lies Bleeding,” it’s playing at one theater in Burbank. I did see that, but we’re seeing “Funny Girl.” What’s that? It’s a musical. Oh, oh, matinee musical show. Not a movie. Yeah. Okay. You should make enchiladas. I don’t wanna do that. You should make reservations. No, it’s raining, I don’t wanna leave the house. Oh- Can I tell you what I’m gonna make anyways? Why don’t you say, start with the beginning, saying, “This is what I’m gonna make.” Why do you have to fake a conversation with me to make yourself feel better? No, that sort of makes me feel like I have an upper hand. Like I know something that you don’t. Is that what it is? Is that what it is? I don’t know. David does that to me all the time, ugh men. All right, so you know moqueca? No. All right, so it’s like a Brazilian shellfish stew with like, tomato. Yes. Okay. So this is what’s the game show where they have to like, guess the words fast, like a pyramid? The pyramid game? Is that what it’s called? Probably. Catchphrase? I don’t know, alright, so I was thinking about like, what’s a grilled cheese, tomato soup sort of, play that I can make. But then I thought about pao de queijo right? And that’s basically a self-contained grilled cheese. Yeah, it is. So then I thought, well how could I, what tomato soup could I pair with pao de queijo and then I thought to Brazil and I thought like, well they got this stew, and I was like, I can basically turn that into a bisque. So I’m gonna make sort of like hybrid coconut milk, seafood and tomato bisque. But then I realized, I said, “Josh, don’t you have toasted cassava flour, “a/k/a manioc?” Oh my gosh. In your pantry. Oh my gosh. Yes and I’m gonna get me to put that on. And I’m gonna do some quick sauteed collards. Okay. In my little moqueca-flavored bisque. In the bisque? Well, then kinda on top with the garish. Okay. Or maybe even on the side as just a little accoutrement. Okay, okay, now we’re talking. And then I’m gonna dip the pao de queijo in this here soup. Are you done? Yeah, that’s the end. That’s the end of my story. And on that note, thank you so much for listening to “A Hotdog is the Sandwich.” We got new episodes every Wednesday. We got new audio-only Wednesdays every episode. If you wanna be featured on opinions or like casseroles, hit us up at 833-DogPod1. So if people are listening to this podcast- Yes. And we’re just like, “Hey you, if this is your first time, “you might wonder when are we coming back?” What do you mean? Like Wednesdays. Like I feel like people know, everybody in the audience raise your hand if you know the schedule by now. I mean everybody knows, I counted it. I don’t think everybody knows. Yeah, I think they know what the schedule, or nobody knows the schedule, ’cause we just live in this sort of chaotic void of content these days, you know what I mean? Bye, have a good weekend because you’re listening to this on a Friday. Statistically that’s true for some people.