Which Plant Milk?

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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

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  • The Dirt Cure – by Dr. Maya Shetreat-Klein

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    As we discussed in our article “Stop Sabotaging Your Gut”, there is indeed merit to living a little dirty, in particular when it comes to what we put in our mouths. Having the space of an entire book rather than a small article, Dr. Shetreat-Klein expands on this in great detail.

    The subtitle mentions “growing healthy kids with food straight from the soil”; it’s worth noting that all the information here (with the exception of concerning breastfeeding etc) is equally applicable to adults too—so if it’s your own health you’re focused on rather than that of kids or grandkids, then that’s fine too.

    You may be wondering: what more is there to say than “don’t scrub your vegetables as though you’re about to perform surgery with them”?

    There’s a lot of background information on what things help or harm our bodies in the first place, most notably via our gut, and as an important extra consideration, the gut-brain axis. Incidentally, the author is a neurologist by professional background.

    Then she gets more specific, into “include and exclude” recommendations. In this matter we have one criticism: she does recommend raw milk over pasteurized, and that is, by overwhelming scientific consensus, a terrible idea. Raw milk is an abundant source of pathogens and a breeding ground for even more. There is “living dirty” and there is “living dangerously”, and drinking raw milk is the latter. See also: Pasteurization: What It Does And Doesn’t Do

    However, for the most part, the rest of her advice is sound, and there’s even a recipes section too.

    The style is something of a polemic throughout, but the extensive venting does not take away from there being a lot of genuine information in here too.

    Bottom line: please skip the raw milk, but aside from that, if you’d like to improve your diet to improve your gut and immune health, then this book can help with that.

    Click here to check out The Dirt Cure, and dirty it up!

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  • MSG vs. Salt: Sodium Comparison

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    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Q: Is MSG healthier than salt in terms of sodium content or is it the same or worse?

    Great question, and for that matter, MSG itself is a great topic for another day. But your actual question, we can readily answer here and now:

    • Firstly, by “salt” we’re assuming from context that you mean sodium chloride.
    • Both salt and MSG do contain sodium. However…
    • MSG contains only about a third of the sodium that salt does, gram-for-gram.
    • It’s still wise to be mindful of it, though. Same with sodium in other ingredients!
    • Baking soda contains about twice as much sodium, gram for gram, as MSG.

    Wondering why this happens?

    Salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) is equal parts sodium and chlorine, by atom count, but sodium’s atomic mass is lower than chlorine’s, so 100g of salt contains only 39.34g of sodium.

    Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO₃) is one part sodium for one part hydrogen, one part carbon, and three parts oxygen. Taking each of their diverse atomic masses into account, we see that 100g of baking soda contains 27.4g sodium.

    MSG (monosodium glutamate, C₅H₈NO₄Na) is only one part sodium for 5 parts carbon, 8 parts hydrogen, 1 part nitrogen, and 4 parts oxygen… And all those other atoms put together weigh a lot (comparatively), so 100g of MSG contains only 12.28g sodium.

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  • Revealed: The Soviet Secret Recipe For Success That The CIA Admits Put The US To Shame

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    Today’s edition of 10almonds brings you a blast from the past with a modern twist: an ancient Russian peasant food that became a Soviet staple, and today, is almost unknown in the West.

    Before we get to that, let’s take a sneaky look at this declassified CIA memorandum from near the end of the Cold War:

    (Click here to see a bigger version)

    The take-away here is:

    • Americans were eating 2–3 times more meat than Soviets
    • Soviets were eating nearly double the amount of grain products and potatoes

    …and both of these statistics meant that nutritionally speaking, the Soviets were doing better.

    Americans also consumed more sugar and fats, which again, wasn’t the best dietary option.

    But was the American diet tastier? Depends on whom you ask.

    Which brings us to a literal recipe we’re going to be sharing with you today:

    It’s not well-known in the West, but in Russia, it’s a famous national comfort food, a bastion of health and nutrition, and it rose to popularity because it was not only cheap and nutritious, but also, you could eat it for days without getting sick of it. And it could be easily frozen for reheating later without losing any of its appeal—it’d still be just as good.

    In Russia there are sayings about it:

    Щи да каша — пища наша (Shchi da kasha — pishcha nasha)

    Shchi and buckwheat are what we eat

    Top tip: buckwheat makes an excellent (and naturally sweet) alternative to porridge oats if prepared the same way!

    Где щи, там и нас ищи (Gdye shchi, tam i nas ishchi)

    Where there’s shchi, us you’ll see

    Голь голью, а луковка во щах есть (Gol’ gol’yu, a lukovka vo shchakh yest’)

    I’m stark naked, but there’s shchi with onions

    There’s a very strong sentiment in Russia that really, all you need is shchi (shchi, shchi… shchi is all you need )

    But what, you may ask, is shchi?

    Our culinary cultural ambassador Nastja is here to offer her tried-and-tested recipe for…

    …Russian cabbage soup (yes, really—bear with us now, and you can thank us later)

    There are a lot of recipes for shchi (see for yourself what the Russian version of Lifehacker recommends), and we’ll be offering our favorite…

    Nastja’s Nutritious and Delicious Homemade Shchi

    Hi, Nastja here! I’m going to share with you my shchi recipe that is:

    • Cheap
    • So tasty
    • Super nutritious*
    • Vegan
    • Gluten Free

    You will also need:

    • A cabbage (I use sweetheart, but any white cabbage will do)
    • 1 cup (250g) red lentils (other kinds of lentils will work too)
    • ½ lb or so (250–300g) tomatoes (I use baby plum tomatoes, but any kind will do)
    • ½ lb or so (250–300g) mushrooms (the edible kind)
    • An onion (I use a brown onion; any kind will do)
    • Salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, parsley, cumin
    • Marmite or similar yeast extract (do you hate it? Me too. Trust me, it’ll be fine, you’ll love it. Omit if you’re a coward.)
    • A little oil for sautéing (I use sunflower, but canola is fine, as is soy oil. Do not use olive oil or coconut oil, because the taste is too strong and the flashpoint too low)

    First, what the French call mise-en-place, the prep work:

    1. Chop the cabbage into small strips, ⅛–¼ inch x 1 inch is a good guideline, but you can’t really go wrong unless you go to extremes
    2. Chop the tomatoes. If you’re using baby plum tomatoes (or cherry tomatoes), cut them in half. If using larger tomatoes, cut them into eighths (halve them, halve the halves, then halve the quarters)
    3. Chop the mushrooms. If using button mushrooms, half them. If using larger mushrooms, quarter them.
    4. Chop the onion finely.
    5. Gather the following kitchenware: A big pan (stock pot or similar), a sauté pan (a big wok or frying pan will do), a small frying pan (here a wok will not do), and a saucepan (a rice cook will also do)

    Now, for actual cooking:

    1. Cook the red lentils until soft (I use a rice cooker, but a saucepan is fine) and set aside
    2. Sauté the cabbage, put it in the big pot (not yet on the heat!)
    3. Fry the mushrooms, put them in the big pot (still not yet on the heat!)

    When you’ve done this a few times and/or if you’re feeling confident, you can do the above simultaneously to save time

    1. Blend the lentils into the water you cooked them in, and then add to the big pot.
    2. Turn the heat on low, and if necessary, add more water to make it into a rich soup
    3. Add the seasonings to taste, except the parsley. Go easy on the cumin, be generous with the rosemary and thyme, let your heart guide you with the salt and pepper.
    4. When it comes to the yeast extract: add about one teaspoon and stir it into the pot. Even if you don’t like Marmite, it barely changes the flavour (makes it slightly richer) and adds a healthy dose of vitamin B12.

    We did not forget the tomatoes and the onion:

    1. Caramelize the onion (keep an eye on the big pot) and set it aside
    2. Fry the tomatoes and add them to the big pot

    Last but definitely not least:

    1. Serve!
    2. The caramelized onion is a garnish, so put a little on top of each bowl of shchi
    3. The parsley is also a garnish, just add a little

    Any shchi you don’t eat today will keep in the fridge for several days, or in the freezer for much longer.

    *That nutritious goodness I talked about? Check it out:

    • Lentils are high in protein and iron
    • Cabbage is high in vitamin C and calcium
    • Mushrooms are high in magnesium
    • Tomatoes are good against inflammation
    • Black pepper has a host of health benefits
    • Yeast extract contains vitamin B12

    Let us know how it went! We love to receive emails from our subscribers!

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  • How To Rebuild Your Neurons’ Myelin Sheaths
  • Blue Light At Night? Save More Than Just Your Sleep!

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    Beating The Insomnia Blues

    You previously asked us about recipes for insomnia (or rather, recipes/foods to help with easing insomnia). We delivered!

    But we also semi-promised we’d cover a bit more of the general management of insomnia, because while diet’s important, it’s not everything.

    Sleep Hygiene

    Alright, you probably know this first bit, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t cover it before moving on:

    • No caffeine or alcohol before bed
      • Ideally: none earlier either, but if you enjoy one or the other or both, we realize an article about sleep hygiene isn’t going to be what changes your mind
    • Fresh bedding
      • At the very least, fresh pillowcase(s). While washing and drying an entire bedding set constantly may be arduous and wasteful of resources, it never hurts to throw your latest pillowcase(s) in with each load of laundry you happen to do.
    • Warm bed, cool room = maximum coziness
    • Dark room. Speaking of which…

    About That Darkness…

    When we say the room should be dark, we really mean it:

    • Not dark like “evening mood lighting”, but actually dark.
    • Not dark like “in the pale moonlight”, but actually dark.
    • Not dark like “apart from the light peeking under the doorway”, but actually dark.
    • Not dark like “apart from a few LEDs on electronic devices that are on standby or are charging”, but actually dark.

    There are many studies about the impact of blue light on sleep, but here’s one as an example.

    If blue light with wavelength between 415 nm and 455 nm (in the visible spectrum) hits the retina, melatonin (the sleep hormone) will be suppressed.

    The extent of the suppression is proportional to the amount of blue light. This means that there is a difference between starting at an “artificial daylight” lamp, and having the blue LED of your phone charger showing… but the effect is cumulative.

    And it gets worse:

    ❝This high energy blue light passes through the cornea and lens to the retina causing diseases such as dry eye, cataract, age-related macular degeneration, even stimulating the brain, inhibiting melatonin secretion, and enhancing adrenocortical hormone production, which will destroy the hormonal balance and directly affect sleep quality.❞

    Read it in full: Research progress about the effect and prevention of blue light on eyes

    See also: Age-related maculopathy and the impact of blue light hazard

    So, what this means, if we value our health, is:

    • Switch off, or if that’s impractical, cover the lights of electronic devices. This might be as simple as placing your phone face-down rather than face-up, for instance.
    • Invest in blackout blinds/curtains (per your preference). Serious ones, like these ← see how they don’t have to be black to be blackout! You don’t have to sacrifice style for function
    • If you can’t reasonably do the above, consider a sleep mask. Again, a good one. Not the kind you were given on a flight, or got free with some fluffy handcuffs. We mean a full-blackout sleep mask that’s designed to be comfortable enough to sleep in, like this one.
    • If you need to get up to pee or whatever, do like a pirate and keep one eye covered/closed. That way, it’ll remain unaffected by the light. Pirates did it to retain their night vision when switching between being on-deck or below, but you can do it to halve the loss of melatonin.

    Lights-Out For Your Brain Too

    You can have all the darkness in the world and still not sleep if your mind is racing thinking about:

    • your recent day
    • your next day
    • that conversation you wish had gone differently
    • what you really should have done when you were 18
    • how you would go about fixing your country’s socio-political and economic woes if you were in charge
    • Etc.

    We wrote about how to hit pause on all that, in a previous edition of 10almonds.

    Check it out: The Off-Button For Your Brain—How to “just say no” to your racing mind (this trick really works)

    Sweet dreams!

    Don’t Forget…

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  • Magnesium Glycinate vs Magnesium Citrate – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing magnesium glycinate to magnesium citrate, we picked the citrate.

    Why?

    Both are fine sources of magnesium, a nutrient in which it’s very common to be deficient—a lot of people don’t eat many leafy greens, beans, nuts, and so forth that contain it.

    A quick word on a third contender we didn’t include here: magnesium oxide is probably the most widely-sold magnesium supplement because it’s cheapest to make. It also has woeful bioavailability, to the point that there seems to be negligible benefit to taking it. So we don’t recommend that.

    Magnesium glycinate and magnesium citrate are both absorbed well, but magnesium citrate is the most well-absorbed form of magnesium supplement.

    In terms of the relative merits of the glycine or the citric acid (the “other part” of magnesium glycinate and magnesium citrate, respectively), both are also great nutrients, but the amount delivered with the magnesium is quite small in each case, and so there’s nothing here to swing it one way or the other.

    For this reason, we went with the magnesium citrate, as the most readily bioavailable!

    Want to try them out?

    Here they are on Amazon:

    Magnesium glycinate | Magnesium citrate

    Enjoy!

    Don’t Forget…

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  • Laugh Often, To Laugh Longest!

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    Putting The Abs Into Absurdity

    We’ve talked before about the health benefits of a broadly positive outlook on life:

    Optimism Seriously Increases Longevity!

    …and we’re very serious about it, but that’s about optimistic life views in general, and today we’re about not just keeping good humor in questionable circumstances, but actively finding good humor in the those moments—even when the moments in question might not be generally described as good!

    After all, laughter really can be the best medicine, for example:

    The effect of laughter yoga exercises on anxiety and sleep quality in patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease

    From the roots

    First a quick recap on de-toothing the psychological aspect of threats, no matter how menacing they may be:

    Hello, Emotions: Time For Radical Acceptance!

    …which we can then take a step further:

    What’s The Worst That Could Happen?

    Choose your frame

    Do you remember when that hacker hacked and publicized the US Federal no-fly list, after already hacking a nationwide cloud-based security camera company, getting access to more than 150,000 companies’ and private individuals’ security cameras, amongst various other cyber crimes, mostly various kinds of fraud and data theft?

    Imagine how she (age 21) must have felt, when being indicted. What do you suppose this hacker had to say for itself under such circumstances?

    ❝congress is investigating now 🙂

    but i stay silly :3 ❞

    ~ maia arson crimew

    …the latter half of which, usually rendered “but I stay silly” or “but we stay silly” has since entered popular Gen-Z parlance, usually after expressing some negative thing, often in a state of powerlessness.

    Which is an important life skill if powerlessness is something that is often likely.

    It’s important for many Gen-Zs with negligible life prospects economically; it’s equally important for 60-somethings getting cancer diagnoses (statistically the most likely decade to find out one has cancer, by the way), and many other kinds of people younger, older, and in between.

    Because at the end of the day, we all start powerless and we all end powerless.

    Learned helplessness (two kinds)

    In psychology, “learned helplessness” occurs when a person or creature gives up after learning that all and any attempts to resist a Bad Thing™ fail, perhaps even badly. A lab rat may just shut down and sit there getting electroshocked, for example. A person subjected to abuse may stop trying to improve their situation, and just go with the path of least resistance.

    But, there’s another kind, wherein someone in a position of absolute powerlessness not only makes their peace with that, but also, decides that the one thing the outside world can’t control, is how they take it. Like the hacker we mentioned earlier.

    Sometimes the gallows humor is even more literal, laughing at one’s own impending death. Not as a matter of bravado, but genuinely seeing the funny side.

    But how?

    Unfortunately, fortunately

    The trick here is to “find a silver lining” that is nowhere near enough to compensate for the bad thing—and it may even be worse! But that’s fine:

    Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to do the dishes before leaving for my vacation. Fortunately, I also forgot to turn the oven off, so the house burning down covered up my messy kitchen”

    Writer’s personal less drastic example: today I set my espresso machine to press me an espresso; it doesn’t have an auto-off and I got distracted and it overflowed everywhere; my immediate reaction was “Oh! I have been blessed with an abundance of coffee!”

    This kind of silly little thing, on a daily basis, builds a very solid habit for life that allows one to see the funny side in even the most absurd situations, even matters of life and death (can confirm: been there enough times personally—so far so good, still alive to find the remembered absurdity silly).

    The point is not to genuinely value the “silver lining”, because half the time it isn’t even one, really, and it is useless to pretend, in seriousness.

    But to pretend in silliness? Now we’re onto something, and the real benefit is in the laughs we had along the way.

    Because those worst moments? Are probably when we need it the most, so it’s good to get some practice in!

    Want more ways to find the funny and make it a life habit?

    We reviewed a good book recently:

    The Humor Habit: Rewire Your Brain To Stress Less, Laugh More, And Achieve More’er – by Paul Osincup

    Stay silly!

    Don’t Forget…

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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