Oat Milk Company Proves Why We Should Never Give Up on Our Dreams

I grew up drinking cow's milk and if anyone had told me then that as an adult I'd live in a virtually dairy-free home and that the milk my family would drink would be oat milk, I would have laughed at you.

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And yet, here we are.

My dairy-loving self married a man who has a dairy allergy. As in not intolerance or that simple tummy troubles if eaten. No, my husband has a full-blown allergy and will enter into anaphylactic shock if he ingests dairy and if any splashes on his skin, his skin will bubble and burn.

No yogurt, no ice cream, no real butter, no cow's milk, no cheese. I know how awful it is for me, a self-professed dairy lover, but I can't even imagine what it must be like for my husband.

I've tried to find dairy alternatives so that my husband can feel somewhat normal, but the vegan options of dairy products are generally not very good. My husband doesn't really know the difference but I can't, in good conscience, feed him cheese that smells and tastes like burned plastic so we tend to not eat many dishes that call for cheese.

We tried substituting soy milk for cow's milk but didn't like the taste and almond milk is out because my son and I have a slight almond allergy. So, oat milk it is. And, it's not awful, but it's not cow's milk.

Founded in Sweeden in the early 90s by food scientist Rickard Öste and his brother Bjorn, Oatly has become the biggest oat milk company in the world. In an exciting move for the company, it will go public, hitting the Nasdaq stock exchange tomorrow, May 27.

I'm honestly not the biggest fan of oat milk, but I love the story about Oatly going public. I mean, the brand was somewhat obscure and just chugging along for nearly 30 years but its founders never gave up on their dream and belief in their company and now half of Oatly is part-owned by the Blackstone Group whose investors include Oprah, Jay-Z, and even the founder of Starbucks.

There's a lovely story in this and that is that if there's something you believe in and are passionate about it, you should stick with it. Imagine if the founders of Oatly just gave up. The world would have no idea of its goodness or be able to own a slice of the world's largest oat milk company.