Plant-based beverages are expensive and provide only a small fraction of the nutritional goodness of cow’s milk, according to a new study.
The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition this month, evaluated the nutritional profiles of a variety of plant-based beverages, such as soy, oat, coconut, almond or rice beverages, and compared them to standard bovine milk.
The researchers collected 103 plant-based products from supermarkets in Palmerston North, New Zealand.
The drinks were found to have much lower amounts of the 20 measured nutrients, such as calcium and protein, and were significantly more expensive than cow’s milk.
READ MORE:
* Beef to Leaf: The Challenges of Learning to Eat Like a Vegan
* Greek, natural or coconut? How to choose the healthiest yogurt
* Plant-based milks: which is better for you and the planet?
The study was conducted by scientists at Massey University’s Riddet Institute in Palmerston North.
The Riddet Institute is a Center of Research Excellence, hosted by Massey University, focusing on fundamental and advanced food research.
One of the study’s authors, Riddet Institute nutritional sciences professor Warren McNabb, said plant-based beverages were often marketed as alternatives to ruminant milks, such as cow’s milk, and consumers might believe easily that they were nutritionally interchangeable.
He said the new research showed they were not the same and, in fact, it was “nutritionally risky” for consumers with high nutrient demands, such as pregnant women and young children, to replace cow’s milk with plant-based products.
“Milk as food supplies 49% of the world’s calcium. It’s one of the most important things about milk.”
The independent study first analyzed the prices and nutritional labels of the products, and then the nutritional content was analyzed in an accredited third-party laboratory.
Selected almond, coconut, oat, rice and soy products were analyzed for their macronutrient and mineral content.
“One of the researchers noticed that during storage you get a very thick layer of semi-solids at the bottom and then a watery layer at the top. He wondered what happened to the distribution of nutrients with sedimentation.”
Further testing was done before and after the products were shaken, and it was found that many of the nutrients, such as protein and calcium, remained in the sediment of the plant-based beverages if the product was not shaken before consumption.
This was not the case for cow’s milk.
The protein content of cow’s milk was in the range of 3.3 to 3.9 g per 100 g, and McNabb said that only soy milk had content comparable to cow’s milk, and all other soy beverages vegetable origin contained less than 1.1 g of protein per 100 ml on average.
Most of the vegetable products were ultra-processed and fortified with calcium and minerals with additives such as sugar, fats, hydrogenated oils, hydrolyzed proteins, flavors or thickeners.
The oat and almond drinks contained only the equivalent of half a cup of oats or six almonds in 250 g of product.
Plant-based beverages were often promoted as having no added sugar, but McNabb said milk has no added sugar either.
“Lactose (in milk) is also poorly converted to glucose in the body, which means that milk is quite low in what we commonly call sugar.”
He said the plant-based beverages had plant equivalents to sugar that are converted to glucose in the body.
“And that’s why plant-based drinks are often naturally sweet and don’t need added sugar. But they cannot be considered low in sugar.”
McNabb said the argument that the alternatives are more environmentally sustainable also doesn’t hold water when considering the amount of product that would need to be consumed to achieve the same nutritional benefits as conventional milk.
With some plant-based beverages, you would need 18 servings to get the same amount of protein as, say, a single serving of milk.
This comes at a much higher cost to the environment and the wallet.
But not everything was bad for the alternatives. McNabb said that plant-based beverages provide some nutrients that milk doesn’t, such as fiber.
“Our final conclusion was that plant-based beverages and bovine milk were not nutritionally similar in any way.
“They are completely different foods. If you want to use alternatives, do so, but don’t consume them in the belief that they are nutritionally similar substitutes for cow’s milk.”
This was the first study to look at the actual content of plant-based milks available in New Zealand.
