If you’re wondering which kind of milk is best to serve your growing family, don’t get caught up in the almond milk hoopla.
That’s the No. 1 piece of advice on milk from Betsy Oriolo, a registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator in St. Elizabeth Physicians’ Weight Management Center in Florence.
“I think people have the wrong idea about almond milk,” she said. “They think it’s similar to milk and has the same amount of protein and nutrients and everything else that milk has, but it doesn’t.”
In fact, according to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion’s dietary guidelines for the years 2015 to 2020 released last year, healthy eating patterns include both fat-free and low-fat (1 percent) dairy products, including milk and fortified soy beverages (commonly known as soy milk).
Not almond milk.
Almond milk actually has no protein in it, Oriolo said, and often has less calcium and vitamin D in it than its milk and soy beverage counterparts. Although it also can be higher in calories compared to non-almond milk, it does have fewer calories than soy milk, and the main takeaway is that almond milk’s overall nutritional content is not similar to dairy milk and soy milk.
You also should probably stay away from whole milk, which is higher in saturated fat and calories, although it has the same protein content as skim (fat-free) milk, Oriolo said.
When in doubt, she said, choose fat-free or 1 percent milk, which have little to no fat, fewer calories, the same amount of protein as whole milk, serve as a good source of proteins and vitamins D and K, and contain 90 to 100 calories per 8-oz. serving.
Or, choose soy milk, which serves as a good serving of protein, may be higher in calories as compared to non-soy milk but often is fortified with calcium, vitamins A and D, and is a good source of B vitamins. Also, soy milk may help to lower cholesterol levels, although to do so requires consuming a lot of soy, or roughly four soy products or more, each day.
