As many of you know, I am often publicly shamed for being the hippie of Sporting Chic. While I don't exactly think that recycling and Birkenstocks make me a hippie, I'm not shying away from this title. I've been dipping my unpainted toes into some new hippie-esqe activities, and I'm going to chronicle them here for anyone who wants to read them. (Notoriously, I also have the lowest page views on the whole website, so this is me branching out in a desperate attempt to broaden my audience.)

My first hippie activity is making homemade almond milk. Steph has deemed this action "paranoid" but she hasn't read the side of her almond milk carton yet. There's so many RANDOM ingredients in there. Like what even is calcium carbonate and gellan gum?

So I made homemade almond milk and now I literally need it in my coffee every morning. It's so creamy and fresh and delicious. I'm not necessarily like gulping it down by itself, but it is LITERALLY the best part about my coffee.

It's not the worst pain in the ass to make either. Here's what I've been doing:

1. Buy a big container of almonds, a cheese cloth, and a cute Mason jar (this is half the fun)
2. Soak 1 cup of almonds in water overnight
3. Drain out the water, then blend the almonds with 4 cups of fresh water and a tsp of vanilla
4. Strain the mixture over the cheese cloth
5. Pour in your coffee and flip out about how right I am

It's honestly a pretty quick process and it's truly super delicious. Now, I'm not claiming to be a diehard "no dairy, no meat" type of hippie (I literally eat yogurt by the shovelful and have a burger a day) but I do think that there are some benefits to almond milk, especially if you're going to make it at home. Almond milk has "healthy" fats, whatever that means, which basically helps precent high blood pressure and heart disease. Though it's not as high in calcium as regular milk, it still has a good amount and also is high in Vitamins D and E, which will help keep bones strong and keep skin glowing.

The other thing that I've been thinking about a lot lately is just the purity of what we put into our body. There are so many things that have mystery ingredients in them. Why not take out all the mystery chemicals and just make stuff ourselves? Eat stuff that grows. Eat to feel good. Make your own food, even if it's homemade pizza. (Especially if it's homemade pizza.) Just use good, real ingredients and make them yourself. That way, you know exactly what you are putting into your body. If that's being a hippie, then I'll start bringing back my homemade tie-dye t-shirts.

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