Plant-Based Milk: Soya want to be lactose free?
Welcome back to my series of blogs looking at milk alternatives. In this blog I’m going to take a look at soya milk. Don’t forget to check out the video of the FoodMarble taste test at the end!
This is the fifth in my series looking at different plant-based and lactose-free milks. The first four I looked at were pea milk, coconut milk, rice milk and almond milk.
All about soya
Soya milk was probably the first plant-based milk I ever heard of as a child, and was one of the first non-dairy milk alternatives available in Ireland. In terms of ingredients this particular milk we tasted has water, soya beans (6.5%), tri-calcium phosphate (calcium enrichment), gellan gum (stabilizer), natural flavouring, and added vitamins. In terms of claims this packaging is simple and only says that it’s a source of calcium and vitamins. From the ingredients we know these are mostly added rather than being naturally occurring. So, let’s compare this to dairy based milk.
Soya milk actually has a higher protein content than dairy milk, along with lower fat, carbs and sugars, and equal calcium. As long as you can deal with the lack of sweetness (you could buy sweetened, this one was unsweetened) this is a very good alternative to dairy milk; doing better or equaling the important stats of protein, fat and calcium, while also being drastically lower in sugars. The bad news for IBS sufferers is that soya milk is naturally high in FODMAPs, due to soya’s high FODMAP content (high in fructans and galacto-oligosaccharides). So, IBS sufferers beware.
In the blind taste test this milk was neutrally flavoured and the testers had a hard time identifying it.
The FoodMarble Taste Test!
For a bit of fun, I challenged some of the FoodMarble team to a blind taste test, to see how many they could identify. Considering the team, I figured that the best way to get them to try a variety of mystery milks was to mix it with coffee! Indeed, the idea of drinking seven cups of coffee had a lot of my colleagues excited. Each group of two had seven cups of half milk, half coffee placed in front of them and after trying all seven, they guessed each one. They got a point for each correct answer. The milks they tasted were:
Stay tuned for the rest in the series!
Let’s see how they got on!
Just to recap…What are plant-based milks?
Plant milks have been used for centuries, with almond milk and coconut milk used in cooking as early as the 13th century. In fact, a drink made from ground and sweetened tiger nuts called Horchata can be dated back to 1200 AD in northern Africa. These nuts originate from Spain. In modern times Horchata is more widely known as a Mexican rice-based drink, so some simple deduction leads us to the conclusion that the colonists from Spain who arrived in Mexico couldn’t find tiger nuts to make their drink and looked to rice as an alternative. They also added cinnamon to the mix and to this day it remains an incredibly popular drink in Mexico.
Plant milks are made by simply watering down a heated slurry, made by grinding the plant. However modern manufacturers try and re-create the texture and mouthfeel of dairy milk by adding some other ingredients. Depending on the situation some will also be sweetened to give a more pleasant taste.
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