Navigating Dairy-Free Milks - Ask a Nutritionist

Transcript:

BRANDY: Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition's “Ask a Nutritionist” podcast brought to you by Nutritional Weight & Wellness. We're thrilled to be celebrating 20 years on air, discussing the connection between what you eat and how you feel while sharing practical, real life solutions for healthier living through balanced nutrition.

Thank you so much for your support and listenership over all of these years. Now let's get started with today's show. Today I'll be answering a question we received from one of our Dishing Up Nutrition listeners. They asked, “Could you address the best type and brand of alternative milk? The gums used in almond milk are confusing and coconut milk can have too strong of a flavor to add to certain foods.”

So for more context, the person that's writing in with this question was referring to using a dairy free milk that they wanted to mix with protein powder in their smoothie. I think this is a great question and one that does come up a lot during my counseling sessions with clients. And I think that's because there are so many people that are sensitive to dairy that they're searching for dairy free alternatives to some of their favorite dairy products.

And this can be pretty tricky because so often those dairy free substitutes can be very processed. As with any processed food, it’s a product that carries the risk of containing undesirable additives and also just questionable quality in the ingredients that they're using. So when it comes to dairy free or plant based milks, there are so many different products out there that it can be really confusing and the best option I think is pretty overwhelming.

So I'm going to help you figure it out. And before I suggest specific brands, I just want to walk you through what criteria I was looking for when determining a good quality product. And by the way, here at Nutritional Weight & Wellness, we always promote real, whole foods as often as possible. But if you are selecting a packaged product, these are guidelines that you can use anytime you're shopping or trying to decide what product is good quality.

Guidelines when shopping for packaged products

So this does not apply only to these dairy free alternatives, but basically anything that comes in a package. So first, anytime you're selecting a packaged product that comes with a label, you want to flip that package over and read the ingredients list before you buy it.

The front of the package is just a big advertisement. It's just there to convince you that it's the best, that you should buy it. The ingredients list on the back of the package is really what you're looking for. That's going to have the information that helps you make the final call.

So as you're reading through that ingredients list, what you're looking for is a product that is made with real food ingredients. These are ingredients that you can pronounce, ingredients that you recognize as food. And if you start stumbling on your words, it’s starting to sound more like a chemistry experiment, and you can't really tell what plant it came from or what animal it came from.

Ingredients to avoid

It's probably best just to move on. And a few ingredients that you want to watch out for are artificial ingredients, preservatives, added sugar, and even artificial sweeteners, and refined oils, things like canola oil or soybean oil. And as the listener that wrote in with today's question mentioned, a lot of those dairy free milk alternatives contain certain ingredients called gums or thickeners.

They're also known as emulsifiers. So these are ingredients that are added to those plant based milks in order to prevent all those different ingredients from separating. And it's also there to help create this texture that is more like real cow's milk. So you might see these different gums or emulsifiers listed on an ingredients list as xanthan gum, gellan gum, guar gum, soy lecithin, or carrageenan.

And I'm not even sure if I'm pronouncing all of those correctly, but that's kind of how I'm interpreting it. And as you can tell, it doesn't really sound like food to me. And unfortunately, these ingredients can cause digestive issues for a lot of people, especially if you're somebody that already has a sensitive stomach or you already have digestive concerns that you're trying to heal. So if you see those types of ingredients on a label, you probably want to steer clear of that.

One other additive that you might find in one of these dairy free milks is calcium carbonate. So calcium carbonate is basically calcium that is added to these dairy free milks to replace the calcium that's naturally found in cow's milk.

The issue with this is that calcium carbonate in particular is a type of calcium that is not very well absorbed. So that's one issue and there's also some research out there suggesting that calcium carbonate could increase your risk of developing heart issues. So if you want to learn more about this specific topic, check out the episode that aired on August 29th, 2024.

Leah, another one of the dietitians here, goes into a lot more detail about some of the risks and benefits and what else to consider when it comes to calcium supplements and foods that are fortified with calcium. So I thought that was a really great compliment to today's topic.

So hopefully that gives you enough guidance on what to look for when you're choosing a dairy free milk. We're going to take a quick break for now, but when I come back, I'll share some brands that I found actually meet that real food criteria.

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Best milk alternatives & which to avoid

Welcome back. Before we went on break, I reviewed a few key aspects of how to determine if a product is good quality, and I pointed out a few additives that you really want to watch for when you're choosing a dairy free milk. So now that you know what you're looking for in terms of ingredients, when it comes to the best type of milk alternatives, I typically suggest an organic nut milk, coconut milk, or a hemp seed milk that meets the criteria of having a real food ingredients list.

And I don't typically suggest soy milk, because like dairy, many of my clients are sensitive to soy. Another thing to note about soy is that most of the soy grown in the United States is heavily treated with pesticides. So it's very difficult to find a non GMO and organic soy product. And you might be thinking, what about oat milk?

Well, I also don't suggest oat milk because it's quite high in carbohydrates. And especially when you combine that with a little bit of fruit in a smoothie, for example, it can cause a pretty big blood sugar spike, which many of you know by now, those blood sugar spikes can contribute to inflammation in the body, weight gain, high blood pressure, and the list goes on.

So if we can avoid a blood sugar spike, all the better. When I was preparing for this episode, I did come across a few brands of those milk alternatives that don't contain any artificial additives, no gums, no sweeteners, no refined oils. Really the only ingredients were basically nuts or seeds, water, and salt.

So a very short and simple ingredients list, just what you're looking for. So here are the brands that I found: Malk unsweetened almond or cashew milk, Califia organic unsweetened almond milk, and Elmhurst unsweetened nut milk. So this list is also short and simple.

And I did want to mention a brand of coconut milk that was also organic, didn't have any additives. And that's Native Forest, organic, unsweetened, canned coconut milk. Even though this particular listener that wrote in with a question was looking for something that wasn't coconut. I think it's just good to know what your options are. I personally really love the taste of coconut. So Native Forest is a good one to look for.

So as a disclaimer, if you decide to purchase any of these brands, I encourage you to read the label again before you buy it. Because sometimes products that meet that real food criteria today may change their recipe and then the next time you go and buy it, you'll find that there's now additives like refined oils or artificial ingredients that were not in the same product a month ago.

Another thing to watch for is that one brand may carry several products that are similar, but some of those products may meet the real food criteria and some of them may not. So you have to be very careful and read the fine print every single time.

Another option: make your own dairy free milk alternative

Another option for getting high quality dairy free milk alternative is to make your own. This way you can avoid the headache of trying to buy a product that's not quote contaminated with unwanted additives or get bamboozled by buying a product that was once real food but then they change their formula overnight.

So making your own plant based milk is a fairly simple process actually, but you do need a good blender. So the basic method is that you soak a cup of raw nuts in filtered water overnight, then you add that to a blender with three to four cups of water, and then blend it until smooth. Some recipes I've tried call for a date for a hint of sweetness, and maybe a little vanilla to round those flavors out, but the basic ingredients are the same.

And once everything is blended, you just strain that through some cheesecloth or a thin dish towel. There's even these specialized mesh bags called nut milk bags designed for this exact purpose to strain those solids away from the liquid. So you're just going to strain that liquid into a pitcher or a glass jar and those solid particles are going to separate.

And that milk is going to keep in the refrigerator for four to five days. You can also make hemp milk using the same method. You just use a half a cup of hulled hemp seeds with three to four cups of filtered water and blend it until it's smooth in the blender. Some recipes mention that you don't even need to strain hemp milk. You can just use it as is. So that might be a good option for those of you that want to skip that step of straining.

Recap

I hope this information was useful and helps you decide what dairy free milk to use. And just to recap, what you're looking for is a real food ingredients list. You want to read the label carefully and choose a dairy free milk that contains a very short list of just nuts or seeds, water, and maybe a little salt.

That's all you really need. And I understand that following a dairy free diet can be really challenging. So if this way of eating is what you've decided is best for you, but you need a little help to develop a meal plan that's dairy free without leaning into those highly processed dairy free alternative products, please let us help you do that.

Any of the dietitians here at Nutritional Weight & Wellness would love to sit down with you one on one and put together a menu that is tasty, it suits your personal taste preferences, but also supports your health needs.

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