Vegetable alternatives to products traditionally of animal origin weigh more and more in the fridge of many consumers. Among this category of foods, the most successful are vegetable drinks. But, despite the fact that they are often known as soy, rice, oat or almond milk, they do not have any similarity with milk.
The Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU) has analyzed the main vegetable drinks on the market and has come to the conclusion that 90% of their content is water. The rest is the vegetable raw material, obviously, although it has also detected that one in ten of these products incorporates salt, sugar or vegetable oil.
In the study, 181 soy, oat, rice or almond-based beverages for sale in supermarkets have been compared. The OCU underlines the “poor nutritional contribution” of this type of product compared to milk, even if compared with semi-skimmed milk, in addition to the fact that they are 92% more expensive.
Among the drinks analysed, the best evaluations were for soybeans, due to their “higher protein content”, although, according to the OCU, the presence of isoflavones makes them inadvisable for pregnant women and children. In this category, Calcimel Ligera and Provamel Organic-bio, both from Santiveri, stand out for their “good results”, according to the OCU.
For its part, among the oat-based beverages, it estimates that the “best” is Ecocesta’s, except for celiacs, due to the “disputable” presence of gluten, while among those made from rice it valued Begetal, from Kaiku, and among the almond ones highlighted the drink marketed by Auchán.
The entity insists that water represents, “on average”, 90% of the content and explains that, in some products, it represents up to 98%, especially in almond-based drinks, which are, in its opinion, “the only ones” that can use the word milk on their labeling.
The investigation has also detected that most of the 181 selected vegetable “milks” incorporate an average of 4.4% sugar, 3.5% in the case of sugar-free drinks. Other ingredients that are added are salt, vegetable oil, vitamins, calcium and, in some cases, aromas and additives.
The OCU advises against the intake of flavored drinks, even if they are of natural origin, since “they are a substitute for this ingredient whose smell they imitate”. Nor does it recommend the presence of sweeteners, certain thickeners (such as cellulose gum or E466), some stabilizers (for example, carboxymethylcellulose or E469), or phosphates (E340, E341 and E452) that are incorporated as correctors of acidity, although he acknowledges that “they are not usually common” in this type of drink.
