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I've changed my diet pretty drastically from only two years ago.  I know hardly have any real sugar and when I do it's usually in a natural form of honey or maple syrup we made.  I usually use stevia to sweeten these days.  I rarely have soy, refined flour products, and have greatly reduced my intake of gluten and grains.  While these changes in diet might be hard for some they've really been very effortless for me.  But now I'm seeing that I should really try to go dairy free for a month to see if it will help my acne.  I have PCOS and  it has caused me to have horrible cystic acne.  I read the book the The Clear Skin Diet and it said that the hormones from the pregnant cow in dairy can still work and be active in your body.  This increase in hormones can aggravate acne. This makes enough sense that I think it's worth a shot, but it won't be as easy and effortless as all my other diet changes have been.
When your asked to give something up you realize what you really love and crave.  For me it's cheese and cream.  Can I really live without cream and cheese?  I almost secretly hope that this diet won't work because then I won't have to give up real cheese and cream.  I can avoid foods for a month OK (for ever I don't know), except for one thing what about cream in my mourning coffee?  I looked at the options at my local stores for non dairy creamer but was unimpressed.  Soy Delicious uses titanium dioxide to dye their product, yuck and so unnecessary.  And I'm not big on any soy creamers since I avoid soy as much as possible unless it's fermented.

I started to look into how to make my own creamer.  I decided to use almond milk (that I made) instead of coconut milk, because I prefer nutty flavors in my coffee rather than coconut.  I then knew I needed to add fat, since that's really what cream does is add fat to your coffee.  The fat adds that certain mouth feel that cream adds to your coffee.  I used coconut oil for my fat because it's actually healthy and is close to the fat in cream because it's saturated.  I also added vanilla extract to mine for flavor since I have it on hand already.  I originally added 1/4 cup of Bailey's Irish cream (which I cooked off the alcohol while reducing the almond milk down) before I realized Irish cream actually has cream in it.  So you could add up to a 1/4 cup of alcohol that goes well with coffee for added flavor.  I then added  organic cane sugar (please use only organic or cane sugar if you use sugar so that it doesn't have GMO beet sugar in it) to sweeten it.  I used real sugar in this recipe since I use stevia in my coffee I figured this would end up being a really small amount of sugar in each cup.  I used tapioca starch to thicken it, since I saw a lot of commercial versions use it in their ingredient list.  Note that you can increase the amount used if you want it thicker.

 It turned out pretty good. It does seperate but you can just shake it and it's like new.  I have been using it for a month now in place of my creamer and I no longer miss my creamer.  I never thought I'd say that! It hasn't been to hard to keep making it either.  It's as easy as making a smoothie. It's also fantastic in smoothies by the way!




Non Dairy Vanilla Almond Coffee Creamer Recipe
(makes 2 cups fits into a pint canning container) 


Ingredients

• 2 cups of almond milk (you can make your own) or coconut milk
• 4 tablespoons of coconut oil (refined if you don't want it to taste like coconut, extra virgin if you do want a coconut flavor to it)
• 4 tablespoon cane sugar (or raw honey) 
• 2 tablespoons stevia
• 2 tsp pure organic vanilla extract
• 1 tsp tapioca starch (optional helps to thicken)

Directions

1. Combine 4 tablespoons of melted coconut oil with 2 cups of almond milk, 4 tablespoons of cane sugar (so you know it's not from GMO beets) or raw honey, 2 tablespoons of stevia, 2 tsp vanilla extract, and 1 tsp tapioca starch into your blender
2. Mix together on high for about 30 -60 sec
3. Pour into your container (I used a wide mouth pint size canning jar) and store in your fridge lasts for 1-2 weeks.  It will set up thicker in the fridge and separate.  You should be be able to stir it back in place or shake it up.  If this doesn't work remelt the coconut oil and blend in your blender again. 

Optional: you could try to add other extracts  to add flavor like almond extract, amaretto, Kahlua, etc.  Just make sure that if you add alcohol you cook it for awhile on your stove top with out a lid to help lower the alcohol content before adding to your creamer mixture. 

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