Oat Milk Went Viral. But African Traditions Were Already Making Plant-Based Drinks. Here Is What the Industry Does Not Tell You.

The rise of oat milk did not come from a kitchen. It came from a boardroom. When oat milk sales surged over 100 percent between 2019 and 2020, the story the wellness industry told was one of discovery—as if humans had never thought to turn a grain into a drink before Oatly arrived.

But that is not the real story.

People across Africa, the Middle East, and the African diaspora have been making plant-based drinks for centuries—long before any Scandinavian company trademarked the formula. Tigernut milk, made from small tubers grown in West Africa and ancient Egypt, was documented in Egyptian burials dating back 4,000 years. Kunun — a fermented grain drink made from millet or sorghum — has nourished communities across Nigeria, Niger, and the Sahel for generations. Horchata traces its origins to the chufa plant, first cultivated in North Africa and brought to Spain during the Moorish presence. In East Africa, fermented grain drinks have sustained communities through seasonal changes for millennia.

None of these drinks went viral. None of them has a billion-dollar valuation. And that is not an accident.

Food Sovereignty Means Asking Who Benefits

Food sovereignty — the right of peoples to define their own food systems — is one of the most important and least discussed public health frameworks of our time. When a product like oat milk explodes in the mainstream, the first question food sovereignty asks is not “Is this healthy?” It is: Who controls this supply chain? Who profits from this trend? Whose ancestral knowledge is being quietly monetized, and who is getting paid?

Oat milk is a good product. Oats contain beta-glucan, a soluble fiber with genuine cardiometabolic benefits—it helps lower LDL cholesterol and supports healthy blood sugar regulation — a profile explored in depth in The Undeniable Health Benefits of Oats: Debunking Myths. For people who are lactose intolerant or who are moving away from industrial dairy for environmental or ethical reasons, oat milk is a legitimate option. None of this is in dispute.

What is in dispute is the story corporations tell about it and the story they do not tell.

What Your Ancestors Knew About Grain

Before oats, there was millet. Before oat milk, there was kunun zaki—a sweetened millet drink that communities across West and Central Africa have made for generations. Before oat milk was fortified with vitamin D in a carton, grandmothers in East Africa were fermenting grain in ways that increased bioavailability naturally. Before the Environmental Working Group began testing oat products for glyphosate residue, African farming communities were practicing forms of soil stewardship that kept their food clean.

This is not nostalgia. It is evidence. And it raises the question food sovereignty demands: what is lost when communities abandon their own food traditions and adopt someone else’s?

The answer is not only nutritional. It is cultural, economic, and spiritual. Food is how communities transmit memory. It is how grandmothers pass on knowledge to daughters. It is how the body stays in relationship with the land from which it comes. When that relationship is severed—by marketing, by migration, by poverty, by the deliberate devaluation of traditional practices—communities lose something that cannot be recovered from a label.

What Oat Milk Actually Contains

With that frame in place, here is what you should actually know about oat milk as a product.

Oats are a whole grain with genuine nutritional value. Beta-glucan supports heart health and blood sugar regulation. Commercial oat milk retains some of this benefit, though processing reduces it. Many brands fortify with calcium, vitamin D, and B12—nutrients worth having in a non-dairy diet.

What to watch for:

• Added oils — canola or sunflower oil are commonly added for creaminess. Not harmful in small amounts, but worth knowing what you are consuming.
• Added sugars — choose unsweetened varieties if you are managing blood sugar. Many brands sweeten by default.
• Glyphosate residue — the Environmental Working Group has documented residue in many oat-based products. Choosing certified organic can help reduce exposure.
• Ingredient list — read it before you buy. The fewer the ingredients, the closer you are to actual food.

Oat milk is also lower in protein than dairy or soy milk — something worth noting if protein intake matters to you. Its higher carbohydrate content means it has a higher glycemic load than almond milk or coconut milk. Pairing it with protein or fat helps slow absorption and reduce blood sugar spikes. These are practical considerations, not reasons to avoid it — just reasons to make an informed choice.

Making It at Home — The Food Sovereignty Option

Making your own oat milk is not just a money-saving tip. It is a practice of food sovereignty. One cup of rolled oats, four cups of filtered water, a blender, and a nut milk bag. Blend briefly — no more than 30 to 45 seconds, or it turns slimy. Strain and store in a glass, refrigerate. Use within five days. Shake before pouring because it separates, as real food does.

You know exactly what is in it. You are not funding a supply chain you cannot see. You are not consuming seed oils added for texture or stabilizers added for shelf life. And you are practicing something your ancestors understood intuitively: that the most nourishing food is the food you make yourself, from ingredients you recognize, using knowledge passed down through relationship rather than purchased from a corporation.

And if you are ready to go further—to explore the plant-based drink traditions your lineage actually comes from—ask about tigernut milk. Ask about kunun. Ask about fermented grain drinks made from sorghum and millet, the grains that sustained entire civilizations long before oats became trendy. The wellness industry will not promote them because there is no patent on a grandmother’s recipe — the same erasure runs through the more familiar story of how the groundnut traveled from West African foodways through George Washington Carver into every American pantry.

At Ubuntu Village, we understand that food is political, spiritual, and ancestral. What we put in our bodies is a statement about whose knowledge we trust, whose traditions we honor, and whose supply chains we are willing to fund. That awareness is where food sovereignty begins — and where ancestral health has always lived.

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References

• SPINS / Food Navigator USA (2020). Oat milk edges past soy milk for #2 slot in US plant-based milk retail market. Food Navigator USA.
• Hardy, K. et al. (2015). Dental Calculus Reveals Unique Insights into Food Items, Cooking and Plant Processing in Prehistoric Central Sudan. PLOS ONE. (Documents tigernut consumption in Neolithic northeast Africa.)
• Environmental Working Group (2018, updated 2023). Breakfast With a Dose of Roundup? EWG. See also: 2023 update showing declining but persistent residue levels.
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Authorized Health Claim: Oat Beta-Glucan and Reduced Risk of Heart Disease. FDA.

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Related Reading

• ‣ The Body Keeps the Ancestors: What Science Is Learning About Inherited Memory
• ‣ Epigenetics and Ancestral Memory: What Your Body Remembers
• ‣ Colonialism and Global Health Policy
• ‣ Reparations and Healing: A Public Health Argument