Barley Milk Might Just Be the Most Eco-Friendly Alt-Milk on the Market
By Emily Laurence
Originally published by Well+Good
Until now, there’s only been one beverage that barley has been used for: beer. Other than that, the only places you’re likely to see it pop up is in soups, stews, and grain bowls. But Sarah Pool, the CEO and co-founder of Take Two Foods, decided to try something that hadn’t been done with barley before: Milk it.
“The lightbulb moment came from the realization that billions of pounds of golden barley are discarded each year during beer production,” Pool says. “Brewers extract the sugars from the grain, and the nutrient-dense fiber and protein that is leftover becomes what is called ‘spent grain.’ Up until now, spent barley grain has gone to feed livestock or ends up in landfills.” Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a way to give this powerhouse plant protein a second life, she thought? And then she did it.
