Coconut Milk vs Soy Milk – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing coconut milk to soy milk, we picked the soy.
Why?
First, because there are many kinds of both, let’s be clear which ones we’re comparing. For both, we picked the healthiest options commonly available, which were:
- Soy milk, unsweetened, fortified
- Coconut milk, raw (liquid expressed from grated meat and water)
Macronutrients are our first consideration; coconut milk has about 3x the carbs and about 14x the fat. Now, the fats are famously healthy medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), but still, one cup of coconut milk contains about 2.5x the recommended daily amount of saturated fat, so it’s wise to go easy on that. Coconut milk also has about 4x the fiber, but still, because the saturated fat difference, we’re calling this one a win for soy milk.
In the category of vitamins, the fortified soy milk wins. In case you’re curious: milk in general (animal or plant) is generally fortified with vitamin D (in N. America, anyway; other places may vary), and vitamin B12. In this case, the soy milk has those, plus some natural vitamins, meaning it has more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, and D, while coconut milk has more of vitamins B3, B5, and C. A fair win for soy milk.
When it comes to minerals, the only fortification for the soy milk is calcium, of which it has more than 7x what coconut milk has. The coconut milk, however, has more copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium. An easy win for coconut milk.
Adding up the sections gives us a win for soy milk—but if consumed in moderation as part of a diet otherwise low in saturated fat, a case could be made for the coconut.
The real take-away here today is not this specific head-to-head but rather: milks (animal or plant) vary a lot, have a lot of different fortifications and/or additives, and yes that goes even for brands (cow milk brands do this a lot) who don’t advertise their additives because their branding is going for a “natural” look. So, read labels, and make informed decisions about which additives you do or don’t want.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
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Make Social Media Work For Your Mental Health
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Social Media, But Healthy
Social media has a bad reputation, and rightly so. It’s calculated to trick you into doomscrolling and rage-posting, and it encourages you to compare your everyday life to other people’s carefully-curated highlight reels.
Rebalancing Dopamine (Without “Dopamine Fasting”)
But it doesn’t have to be so.
Find your community
One of the biggest strengths social media has going for it is that it can, if used well, be a powerful tool for community. As for why that’s important from a health perspective, see:
How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation
Loneliness & isolation do, of course, kill people. By:
- Accidents, e.g. household fall but nobody notices for a week
- Depression and resultant decline (and perhaps even active suicidality)
- Cognitive decline from a lack of social contact
Read more:
- The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need
- How To Stay Alive (When You Really Don’t Want To)
- The Five Key Traits Of Healthy Aging
So, what’s “community” to you, and to what extent can you find it online? Examples might include:
- A church, or other religious community, if we be religious
- The LGBT+ community, or even just a part of it, if that fits for us
- Any mutual-support oriented, we-have-this-shared-experience community, could be anything from AA to the VA.
Find your people, and surround yourself with them. There are more than 8,000,000,000 people on this planet, you will not find all the most compatible ones with you on your street.
Grow & nurture your community
Chances are, you have a lot to contribute. Your life experiences are valuable.
Being of service to other people is strongly associated “flourishing”, per the science.
Indeed, one of the questions on the subjective wellness scale test is to ask how much one agrees with the statement “I actively contribute to the happiness and wellbeing of others”.
See: Are You Flourishing? (There’s a Scale)
So, help people, share your insights, create whatever is relevant to your community and fits your skills (it could be anything from art to tutorials to call-to-action posts or whatever works for you and your community)
As a bonus: when people notice you are there for them, they’ll probably be there for you, too. Not always, sadly, but there is undeniable strength in numbers.
Remember it’s not the boss of you
Whatever social media platform(s) you use, the companies in question will want you to use it in the way that is most profitable for them.
Usually that means creating a lot of shallow content, clicking on as many things as possible, and never logging off.
Good ways to guard against that include:
- Use the social media from a computer rather than a handheld device
- Disable “infinite scroll” in the settings, if possible
- Set a timer and stick to it
- Try to keep your interactions to only those that are relevant and kind (for the good of your own health, let alone anyone else’s)
On that latter note…
Before posting, ask “what am I trying to achieve here?” and ensure your action is aligned with your actual desires, and not just reactivity. See also:
A Bone To Pick… Up And Then Put Back Where We Found It
Take care!
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Minimize Aging’s Metabolic Slump
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝I know that metabolism slows with age, are there any waypoints or things to look out for? I don’t know whether I should be eating less, or doing less, or taking some other approach entirely. What’s recommended?❞
Age and sex count for a lot with this one! As metabolism is in large part directed by hormones:
- For men, declining testosterone (often from around 45 onwards) can result in a metabolic slump
- For women, declining estrogen with the menopause does have an effect, but progesterone is the bigger factor for metabolism in the sense you are talking about.
In both cases, simply taking more of those hormones can often help, but please of course speak with an endocrinologist if that seems like a possible option for you, as your circumstances (and physiology) may vary.
If you’d like to go to that conversation well-armed with information, here are some good starting points, by the way:
- The Testosterone Drop, & Topping Up Testosterone
- Menopausal HRT: Bioidentical vs Animal (It Makes A Difference!)
And if you’re wondering about the natural vs pharmaceutical approaches…
- What Does “Balance Your Hormones” Even Mean?
- What You Should Have Been Told About The Menopause Beforehand
About your metabolic base rate
We tend to think of “fast metabolism good, slow metabolism bad”, and that’s a reasonable general premise… but it’s not necessarily always so.
After all, if you could double your metabolism and keep it there all the time, without changing anything else, well… You’ve heard the phrase “burning the candle at both ends”? So, having at least some downtime is important too.
See for example: Sleep Deprivation & Diabetes Risk
What’s critical, when it comes to base metabolic rate, is that your body must be capable of adequately processing what you are putting into it. Because if your body can’t keep up with the input, it’ll just start storing the excess chemical energy in the quickest and easiest way possible.
…which is a fast track to metabolic disorder in general and type 2 diabetes in particular. For more on the science and mechanics of this, see:
How To Prevent And Reverse Type 2 Diabetes
As for portion sizes…
Your body knows what you need, so listen to it. There is no external source of knowledge that can tell you how much food you need better than your own body itself can tell you.
You may be wondering “how exactly do I listen to my body, though?”, in which case, check out:
The Kitchen Doctor: Interoception & Mindful Eating
As for exercise…
When you exercise, your metabolic rate temporarily increases. After most kinds of exercise, your metabolism slumps again afterwards to compensate.
There are two ways to avoid this:
- Exercise Less, Move More ← it’s about maximizing time spent not sitting still
- High Intensity Interval Training ← a special kind of exercise, the only one known to keep the metabolism running high for a couple of hours afterwards, with no counter-slump
…which makes it pretty effective indeed
Would you like this section to be bigger? If so, send us more questions!
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Which Vitamin Brands Are Effective?
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝As far as specific brands of vitamin…some are good some not. I don’t like being told what buy but I guess I want to know which are effective. Could there be some brands recognized as good given to us?❞
The most reliable brands are generally those with the most transparency:
- They tell you what is in the supplement; not just the active ingredient(s), with doses, but also any buffers etc.
- They tell you, in the case of ingredients that can have various different sources, what the source is.
- They are, ideally, well-certified and independently tested.
Our previous sponsor Ora is a good example of a company that does this.
Additionally, in terms of bioavailability, generally speaking the order of preference goes liquid > capsule/softgel > tablet, so that’s something to look out for, too.
Note: “liquid” includes powders that are ingested when dissolved/suspended in water, and also includes tablets that become a liquid when dissolved/dispersed in water and ingested that way.
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Ageless Aging – by Maddy Dychtwald
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Maddy Dychtwald, herself 73, has spent her career working in the field of aging. She’s not a gerontologist or even a doctor, but she’s nevertheless been up-to-the-ears in the industry for decades, mostly as an organizer, strategist, facilitator, and so forth. As such, she’s had her finger on the pulse of the healthy longevity movement for a long time.
This book was written to address a problem, and the problem is: lifespan is increasing (especially for women), but healthspan has not been keeping up the pace.
In other words: people (especially women) are living longer, but often with more health problems along the way than before.
And mostly, it’s for lack of information (or sometimes: too much competing incorrect information).
Fortunately, information is something that a woman in Dychtwald’s position has an abundance of, because she has researchers and academics in many fields on speed-dial and happy to answer her questions (we get a lot of input from such experts throughout the book—which is why this book is so science-based, despite the author not being a scientist).
The book answers a lot of important questions beyond the obvious “what diet/exercise/sleep/supplements/etc are best for healthy aging” (spoiler: it’s quite consistent with the things we recommend here, because guess what, science is science), questions like how best to prepare for this that or the other, how to get a head start on preventative healthcare for some things, how to avoid being a burden to our families (one can argue that families are supposed to look after each other, but still, it’s a legitimate worry for many, and understandably so), and even how to balance the sometimes conflicting worlds of health and finances.
Unlike many authors, she also talks about the different kinds of aging, and tackles each of them separately and together. We love to see it!
Bottom line: this book is a very good one-stop-shop for all things healthy aging. It’s aimed squarely at women, but most advice goes for men the same too, aside from the section on hormones and such.
Click here to check out Ageless Aging, and plan your future!
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Be A Plant-Based Woman Warrior – by Jane Esselstyn & Ann Esselstyn
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
Notwithstanding the title, this book is not about being a woman or a warrior, but let us share what one reviewer on Amazon wrote:
❝I don’t want to become a plant based woman warrior. The sex change would be traumatic for me. However, as a man who proudly takes ballet classes and Pilates, I am old enough not to worry about stereotypes. When I see a good thing, I am going to use it❞
The authors, a mother-and-daughter team in their 80s and 50s respectively, do give a focus on things that disproportionally affect women, and rectifying those things with diet, especially in one of the opening chapters.
Most the book, however, is about preventing/reversing things that can affect everyone, such as heart disease, diabetes, inflammation and the autoimmune diseases associated with such, and cancer in general, hence the dietary advice being good for most people (unless you have an unusually restrictive diet).
We get an overview of the pantry we should cultivate and curate, as well as some basic kitchen skills that will see us well for the rest of the book, such as how to make oat flour and other similar mini-recipes, before getting into the main recipes themselves.
About the recipes: they are mostly quite simple, though often rely on having pre-prepared items from the mini-recipes we mentioned earlier. They’re all vegan, mostly but not all gluten-free, whole foods, no added sugar, and as for oil… Well, it seems to be not necessarily oil-free, but rather oil-taboo. You see, they just don’t mention it. For example, when they say to caramelize onions, they say to heat a skillet, and when it is hot, add the onions, and stir until browned. They don’t mention any oil in the ingredients or in the steps. It is a mystery. 10almonds note: we recommend olive oil, or avocado oil if you prefer a milder taste and/or need a higher smoke point.
Bottom line: the odd oil taboo aside, this is a good book of simple recipes that teaches some good plant-based kitchen skills while working with a healthy, whole food pantry.
Click here to check out Be A Plant-Based Woman Warrior, and be a plant-based woman warrior!
Or at the very least: be a plant-based cook regardless of gender, hopefully without war, and enjoy the additions to your culinary repertoire
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Learn to Age Gracefully
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Supergreen Superfood Salad Slaw
10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.
When it comes to “eating the rainbow”, in principle green should be the easiest color to get in, unless we live in a serious food desert (or serious food poverty). In practice, however, a lot of meals could do with a dash more green. This “supergreen superfood salad slaw” is remarkably versatile, and can be enjoyed as a very worthy accompaniment to almost any main.
You will need
For the bits:
- ½ small green cabbage, finely diced
- 7 oz tenderstem broccoli, finely chopped
- 2 stalks celery, finely chopped (if allergic, simply omit)
- ½ cucumber, diced into small cubes
- 2 oz kale, finely shredded
- 4 green (spring) onions, thinly sliced
For the dressing:
- 1 cup cashews (if allergic, substitute 1 cup roasted chickpeas)
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 2 oz baby spinach
- 1 oz basil leaves
- 1 oz chives
- ¼ bulb garlic
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp chia seeds
- Juice of two limes
Method
(we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)
1) Combine the ingredients from the “bits” category in a bowl large enough to accommodate them comfortably
2) Blend the ingredients from the “dressing” category in a blender until very smooth (the crux here is you do not want any stringy bits of spinach remaining)
3) Pour the dressing onto the bits, and mix well to combine. Refrigerate, ideally covered, until ready to serve.
Enjoy!
Want to learn more?
For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:
- Level-Up Your Fiber Intake! (Without Difficulty Or Discomfort)
- Spinach vs Kale – Which is Healthier?
- Brain Food? The Eyes Have It!
Take care!
Don’t Forget…
Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!
Learn to Age Gracefully
Join the 98k+ American women taking control of their health & aging with our 100% free (and fun!) daily emails:
