Can you use half and half in cereal and as a normal drink in place of regular milk?

You could but it would be really high in fat, since half and half consists of half cream and half milk

I wouldn’t recommend it. I don’t even recommend regular milk. So much fat and cholesterol.

I do.

According to Calorieking.com, there are 321 calories in one cup of half and half, 147 calories in a cup of whole milk, 122 Calories in a cup of 2%, and 91 Calories in a cup of skim milk. You can decide if it’s worth it to you or not. At 2500 calories to a pound, upping to half and half from skim every day would gain you about a pound every two weeks. That’s about 26 lbs in a year.

I have always used whole milk and never like the taste of 2%, skim or the other water downed and vitamin infused milks. I use half and half to make sauces and a few other recipes. I would never consider using it as a substitute for my whole milk. I suppose you could if you like the taste.

Why would you want to use it in place of whole milk, @AshlynM?

Sugar and cream used to be the usual cereal topping. We’ve become much more aware of the fat in dairy products. It took a while for people to get used to lower fat milk and some people still think of nonfat milk as having the consistency of water, so they use whole or 2% fat milk. But if you need to fatten up a bit, cream is one way to go.

@bkcunningham Currently, I have some half and half in the fridge and was out of regular milk so I thought maybe I could use that in my cereal. I don’t mean I’d make a habit of it but I thought maybe I could use half and half if I had to. I tasted a little bit of it and I actually like it, tastes very creamy.

@JLeslie To tell you the truth, I don’t even drink regular milk all that much, just sometimes for cereal and I never drink it by itself. It gives me bad stomach cramps. But I like cereal, so I don’t see any other alternative in using milk. I’m not sure if other types of milk will give me the same cramps.

You could. If you’re really hungry go for it. Just avoid drinking the bowl after all the cereal is gone :D

@_Whitetigress Actually, I rarely drink the whole bowl of regular milk. :)

@AshlynM If you stick with milk, Lactaid pills before eating or Lactaid milk might help. Worth a try if you love milk in cereal and want to have it sometimes. Otherwise, you can try soy milk, almond milk, or rice milk. I keep trying them, but I prefer cow milk. For several years I could not tolerate milk, and almost never ate cereal during that time because of it.

It was a rare treat when I was a child to have frosted flakes with half and half. Kind of like having a bowl of ice cream for breakfast with a little crunch! So if you are out of regular milk, go ahead, it won’t kill you once in a while.

If you are lactose intolerant, try almond milk. Much better for you all around anyway.

@bkcunningham Non-fat milk is not “watered down”, it just doesn’t have the fat. Do you get whole milk without Vitamin D?

@AshlynM cool, should be no problem! :D

@zenvelo, you are correct. It just taste watered down to me. :-)

I use whole milk. There really isn’t that much extra fat in whole milk, (but then I would count it as one of my servings of fat for the day and I really don’t eat fatty foods that I would miss. I rather have a glass of milk than a chocolate bar.) but I would never use half and half unless I was trying to gain weight. I had to cut out dairy for about a year and went over to soy or almond milk. Never really liked the taste of it, but put my health first and it was tolerable on my morning or evening bowl of cereal.

When my mom lost so much weight when she was on chemo and we were trying to keep meat on her bones, I switched her skim milk in her coffee to cream. She loved it and the doctor thought it was a good idea. She was keeping very little down. That is the only time I could ever think of substituting a much fattier dairy product.

You can use anything you want. I rarely use dairy products and have found, before I discovered rice milk, that pineapple juice worked very nicely with cold cereal. So did applesauce.

I have also experimented with milk alternatives @JLeslie and I find that I like 8th Continent the best, tastewise. Next in line is Silk. I even like the 8th Continent better than cow milk, but it doesn’t last long enough after opening it for me to finish it.

@janedelila I gave up trying to switch when my lactose intolerance dissappeared, but I do think cow’s milk and dairy products are bad in general.

@AshlynM Many of my Asian friends are lactose intolerant. It seems to be a common condition. It may be why only one ancient dynasty in China (Manchu) had any recipes that contain milk. (There’s a wonderful creamed cabbage recipe.) If you notice, many Asian foods do not use dairy products.
I don’t know if lactaid products help or not. My friends just avoid dairy.

Well, you could. It sounds disgusting, to me, but you could.

I love half and half, it is great on cereal. I have never noticed it in Australia but now and again for a treat I will buy regular cream and use it on my cereal. Most of the time we use skim or 2% though. Have you tried acidopholus milk? Sometimes people who have trouble digesting regular milk can tolerate that and it is 2% and tastes fine to me. But alas, I have never seen it in Australia either??? I guess the cows here are not as talented at producing these variations.

I’ve done this, and it is very good. Try not to overindulge though, since the cream will really sneak up on you and make you feel extremely full, and much quicker than regular milk would.