Half and half is a beverage or food made of an equal-parts mixture of two substances, including dairy products, alcoholic beverages, and soft drinks. However, when people refer to half and half in the context of cooking or baking, they are usually referring to a mixture of half whole milk and half cream. This mixture is often used in coffee and with breakfast cereals, and it can be used to add richness to recipes that otherwise call for plain whole milk or as a substitute for heavy cream when you want to lighten things up a bit. The texture of half and half is thicker and more luscious than milk, but less decadent and rich than cream. Half and half is usually homogenized, which means it wont usually separate and go weird when you pour it into coffee. The percentage of fat in whole milk is only 3.25%, while heavy creams milk fat content ranges from 36% to 40%, and half-and-half contains between 10.5% and 18% milk fat.