I really like oat milk. It tastes great, foams/steams well enough, has potentially the least environmental impact, and it can be shelf-stable for months which means running out of milk for my cereal is much less likely.

But once it's open, according to the packaging, I've got 10 days to drink it.

Isn't it just an oat-water slurry? If it's refrigerated, how can that go "bad"? I get that most "use within X days of opening" messages are arbitrary or especially conservative due to liability, but I just don't see what the limiting factor here would be. It doesn't seem like a particularly fertile ground for bacterial growth. But I'm not a food-ologist.

This message brought to you by the half-finished carton of oat milk I discovered in the back of the fridge this morning and am sad to be throwing away.