Is Non-dairy Milk Healthier?

With people being increasingly concerned about health, there’s a multitude of alternative milk that is now available – pea, almond, potato, oat, cashew, peanut, coconut, hemp, rice, hazelnut – just to name a few.

Confused about Plant-Based Milk?

Plant based milk has less nutrients (protein, calcium, vitamin A, and potassium) compared to cow’s milk. However about 27% of consumers actually believe that it has more. A good number of people lack the accurate understanding about the great difference in the nutrients you can get from plant-based milk compared to cow’s milk.

So, what is the healthiest milk?

Real milk. A cup of 2% milk has 122 calories, 8 grams of protein, 125 carbs, and 5 grams of fat. On a micronutrient level it has 307 milligrams of calcium, 388mg of potassium, and 3 micrograms of Vitamin D.

Almond milk would have half the calories of 2% milk and this is very true. However, they don’t tell you that it has only 1 gram of protein and 7 grams of added sugar. It also has less of the micronutrients that we can use more of. Rice milk and coconut milk, on the other hand, cannot be an ideal alternative for cow’s milk because of the limited nutrient diversity.

What is the healthiest non-dairy milk?

Among all the alternatives, it will be soy milk. One cup would have 8g of protein, 2 grams of fibre, 450mg calcium, 380mg potassium and 3 micrograms of vitamin D. However, soy milk has added sugar even if it advertises itself as unsweetened. This is because it doesn’t have lactose which gives milk its natural sweet flavour. Milk that is made from products such as almond, help, cashew, oats and other plants fall short on the protein count and has very high amounts of sugar.

But isn’t milk bad for you?

If you are lactose intolerant, then drinking milk will result to all sorts of unpleasant symptoms. So, if you cannot tolerate lactose then it would be a good idea to take alternative milk. There is a multitude of research that supports the idea that milk is good for your overall health. Non-dairy milk isn’t bad for you, but it’s not amazing either – cow’s milk is still your best bet when looking at its nutritional content.