Plant-based milks—what’s best?

You asked us to look at some popular plant milks and their health properties, and we said we’d do a main feature, so here it is!

We’ll also give a quick nod to environmental considerations at the end too (they might not be quite what you expect!). That said, as a health and productivity newsletter, we’ll be focusing on the health benefits.

While we can give a broad overview, please note that individual brands may vary, especially in two important ways:

• Pro: many (most?) brands of plant milks fortify their products with extra vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin D and calcium.
• Con: some brands also add sugar.

So, by all means use this guide to learn about the different plants’ properties, and/but still do check labels later.

Alternatively, consider making your own!

• Pros: no added sugar + cheaper
• Cons: no added vitamins and minerals + some equipment required

Almond milk

Almond milk is low in carbs and thus good for a carb-controlled diet. It’s also high in vitamin E and a collection of minerals.

Oat milk

Oats are one of the healthiest “staple foods” around, and while drinking oat milk doesn’t convey all the benefits, it does a lot. It also has one of the highest soluble fiber contents of any milk, which is good for reducing LDL (bad) cholesterol levels.

See for example: Consumption of oat milk for 5 weeks lowers serum cholesterol and LDL cholesterol in free-living men with moderate hypercholesterolemia

Coconut milk

Coconut has a higher fat content than most plant milks, but also contains medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs). These raise HDL (good) cholesterol levels.

Read the study: How well do plant based alternatives fare nutritionally compared to cow’s milk?

Hemp milk

Being made from hemp seeds that contain a lot of protein and healthy fats (including omega-3 and omega-6), hemp milk packs a nutritious punch. It’s carb-free. It’s also THC-free, in case you were wondering, which means no, it does not have psychoactive effects.

Pea milk

It’s very high in protein, and contains an array of vitamins and minerals. It’s not very popular yet, so there isn’t as much research about it. This 2021 study found that it had the nutritional profile the closest to cow’s milk (beating soy by a narrow margin) and praised it as a good alternative for those with a soy allergy.

This is Research Review Monday so we try to stick to pure science, but for your interest… here’s an interesting pop-science article (ostensibly in affiliation with the pea milk brand, Ripple) about the nutritional qualities of their pea milk specifically, which uses particularly nutrient-dense yellow peas, plus some extra vitamin and mineral fortifications:

Read: Ripple Milk: 6 Reasons Why You Should Try Pea Milk

Soy milk

Perhaps the most popular plant milk, and certainly usually the cheapest in stores. It’s high in protein, similar to cow’s milk. In fact, nutritionally, it’s one of the closest to cow’s milk without involving cows as a middleman. (Did you know three quarters of all soy in the world is grown to feed to livestock, not humans? Now you do).

And no, gentlemen-readers, it won’t have any feminizing effects. The human body can’t use the plant estrogens in soy for that. It does give some isoflavone benefits though, which are broadly good for everyone’s health. See for example this research review with 439 sources of its own:

Read: Soy and Health Update: Evaluation of the Clinical and Epidemiologic Literature

Quick note on flavor: nut milks have the flavor of the nut they were made from. Coconut milk tastes of coconut. The other milks listed above don’t have much of a flavor—which in many cases may be what you want.

Note on environmental considerations:

A lot of us try to be as socially responsible as reasonably possible in our choices, so this may be an influencing factor. In a nutshell:

• Oats and Soy are generally grown as vast monocrops, and these are bad for the environment
  • They are still better for the environment than cow’s milk though, as for example most soy is grown to feed to cows, not humans. So including cows in the process means four times as much monocrop farming, plus adds several other environmental issues that are beyond the scope of this newsletter.
• Almonds are particularly resource-intensive when it comes to water use.
  • Still nowhere near as much as cows, though.
• Peas are grown in places that naturally have very high rainfall, so are a good option here. Same generally goes for rice, which didn’t make the cut today. (Nor did hazelnuts, sorry—we can only include so much!)
• Hemp is by far and away the most environmentally friendly, assuming it is grown in a climate naturally conducive to such.
• Making plant milk at home is usually most environmentally friendly, depending on where your ingredients came from.
• Literally any plant milk is much more environmentally friendly than cow’s milk.

See the science for yourself: Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers

See also (if you like graphs and charts): Environmental footprints of dairy and plant-based milks

If You’re Not Taking Chia, You’re Missing Out

Last Tuesday, we wrote about nutritional psychiatry, and the benefits of eating for one’s mental health.

You can check out Dr. Uma Naidoo’s to-dos, here:

The 6 Pillars Of Nutritional Psychiatry

In response, one of our subscribers wrote to mention:

❝Really interesting….just put chia seeds in my diet love them……taking the Drs advice.❞

~ Cindy, 10almonds subscriber

And then! On Friday, our tip at the top of the newsletter was:

Not sure how to incorporate chia seeds into your diet? It’s easier to want the benefits of their many brain-healthy (and otherwise-healthy, too) nutrients, than it is to know what to do with them necessarily, and not everyone enjoys seeds as a snack. So…

When you cook rice, throw in a tablespoon of chia seeds too. The cooking process will soften them and they won’t be texturally any different than the rice, but the nutrients will be all there.

They can also be thrown in with lentils, in the same fashion! Or oatmeal, when cooking it or making overnight oats.

We’ll be honest, it was Cindy’s comment that prompted us to suggest it. But wait! There was more to come in response:

❝You had a teaser ..on Chia seed.would of liked a article on the benefits . I’ve just discovered Chia seeds…❞

~ Cindy, 10almonds subscriber

So, Cindy, this one’s for you:

Nutritional powerhouse

First things first, these tiny seeds have a lot of nutrients. There are not many more nutrient-dense foods than this (there’s a kind of seaweed that might be a contender; we’ll have to do some research and get back to you).

Check them out:

USDA Nutritional Factsheet: Chia Seeds

So much protein and healthy fat, so many vitamins and minerals, and so many miscellaneous other micronutrients that we’d be here all day to list them (which is why we linked the above factsheet instead).

Antioxidants in abundance

These deserve a special mention, because they include quercetin which we’ve written about previously:

Fight Inflammation & Protect Your Brain, With Quercetin

…as well as quite a collection of others (including chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid, which may sound alarming but are great for lowering your blood pressure and against inflammation, respectively):

• The effect of chlorogenic acid on blood pressure: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials
• Synthesis, preliminary bioevaluation and computational analysis of caffeic acid analogues

There are others too, with cardioprotective effects, liver-healthy effects, and anticancer properties:

Nutritional and therapeutic perspectives of Chia (Salvia hispanica L.): a review

Good for the heart and blood

Check it out:

• Chia flour supplementation reduces blood pressure in hypertensive subjects
• Chia seed (Salvia hispanica L.) supplementation to the diet of adults with type 2 diabetes improved systolic blood pressure: A randomized controlled trial

Oh, and about diabetes? There’s more, this time pertaining to reducing after-dinner blood sugars (or “postpranidial glycemia”, in sciencese):

• Reduction in postprandial glucose excursion and prolongation of satiety: possible explanation of the long-term effects of whole grain Salba (Salvia Hispanica L.)
• Effect of whole and ground Salba seeds (Salvia Hispanica L.) on postprandial glycemia in healthy volunteers: a randomized controlled, dose-response trial

Good for the brain

Regular 10almonds readers will know that “what’s good for the blood, is good for the brain” is a very good rule of thumb already, but their highomega-3 content makes them especially so:

What Omega-3 Fatty Acids Really Do For Us

Want some?

We don’t sell them, but you can probably find them in your local supermarket and/or health food store, and if you prefer getting things online, here for your convenience is an example product on Amazon

Enjoy!