Nutrition In Milk And Milk Substitutes

About a year ago, Silk Soymilk ran an ad campaign featuring cows talking about the health benefits they get from drinking Silk instead of milk. Here is one example:

Clever, eh? But really, how true is it? Is a product like Silk better than milk, whether that’s pasteurized/homogenized milk or raw milk? Today, let’s look at milk and compare it to all of the various other “milks” people use to replace real dairy in their diet.

The Nutrition Facts Of Milk And Milk Substitutes

There are any number of reasons why people choose not to include milk in their diets. For those of us that adhere to a Primal or Paleo lifestyle, milk doesn’t fit. Vegans and some vegetarians don’t include milk because it’s of animal origin. And then there are those that are lactose intolerant. Finally, there are the people that have been convinced by slick marketing that non-milks are better options than the real deal.
So I suppose the starting point is to look at the nutrition facts of the main “milks” that people drink. I’m going to focus on plain ol’ “moo juice,” soy milk, almond milk, rice milk, and coconut milk. Note that there are other, lesser known, milk substitutes out there like oat milk, peanut milk, hemp milk, and milk made from other grains. Without further ado, the nutrition labels of the Big Five:

Nutrition Facts: Milk And Milk Substitutes

You probably noticed that I have listed the fat content of whole milk. There are a couple big reasons for that. First, you all know my take on pasteurized milk vs. raw milk. But I can’t find a nutrition label for raw milk. As such, for comparison purposes, we need a standardized product and whole milk, at around 3.5%, fills the bill. Raw milk is typically 4-8%, depending on the time of year, so the calorie and fat information would be a bit different. I didn’t pick skim or low-fat milk for another very big reason. Milk is not naturally low in fat, nor should it be turned into that.