If dairy doesn’t agree with you, we bet you’ve already picked your go-to nut milk…
But, hear us out! Some nut milks are not only packed with the sweet stuff, but preservatives and even oil too… who knew?!
We picked up five popular unsweetened nut milks to take a peek at what’s really inside. Brace yourself – you might find a new fave!
Sanitarium So Good Unsweetened Almond Milk.
The first thing we noticed when we poured this one out was that it had a strange brown colour – maybe from all those almonds? On further inspection, there’s only 2.5 per cent almond in the bottle so, perhaps not. As for sugar content, there’s a super low 0.1g per 100mL, but we’re sorry to say that’s where the good news stops. With a few other additives thrown in such as emulsifiers, vegetable gum and flavouring, it tainted both the nutritional profile and the flavour for us. Our online community coordinator, Eliza, picked up on these saying, “This almond milk tastes fake, almost as if it was made from chemicals.” You might be onto something Eliza…
Vitasoy Unsweetened Coconut.
Coconut flesh does contain a little more natural sugar, so we were expecting the sugar content of this milk to be quite high. Although, we were pleasantly surprised that there’s only 0.2g of sugar per 100mL which is all from the coconut – no added sweet stuff. But unfortunately, we again met with vegetable gum, emulsifiers and flavouring, argh! Interestingly though, Vitasoy has made this milk with coconut cream and we picked up on that in the taste test. Phoebe, our writer and content creator, said, “I love the coconut flavour and it’s super creamy too. It’s just a shame about those extra add-ins.”
Nature’s Own Organic Almond Milk.
Well, well, well Nature’s Own Organic, we’ve got a few issues here! First things first, there’s agave syrup in this milk which is around 90 per cent fructose, so as you can imagine that pushes the sugar content up. In fact, the sugar comes in at over one teaspoon per serve. But then, we poured it into our glass and noticed a film appear. We headed straight back to the ingredients list and sure enough, it’s full of sunflower oil. The taste test (yep, we had too!), was just oil, oil and more oil. We’d definitely leave this one on the shelf.
If you didn’t believe us about the oil…
Nutty Bruce Organic Milk Almond & Coconut.
This blend of nut milk caught our eye because it’s a mash-up of both almond and coconut milk – it’s got to be good right? But, this milk had the highest sugar content of all the brands we tried, coming in at 2g per 100mL, which equates to a teaspoon of sugar per serve. Turns out this is from brown rice syrup (AKA rice malt syrup), which while we support as a fructose-free sweetener, we’re not a fan of it in our milk… Alex, our junior writer, said, “It’s way sweeter than I was expecting, but it’s also quite watery so I wouldn’t use it in my coffee or anything!”
Inside Out Unsweetened Coconut Milk.
First up, this was the only brand that didn’t add salt to their milk. Way to go! While the sugar content is a bit higher than the Vitasoy coconut milk, at 0.9g per 100mL, this one is made from coconut flesh (not cream), and there’s no added sweet stuff. In fact, it’s so natural that there were tiny pieces of coconut flesh in there too – it doesn’t get better than that! However, our intern, Imogen, did think it was a little bland. “I find this coconut milk quite watery, similar to a coconut water. But on the plus side, there’s a strong coconutty flavour.”
Not keen on any of these brands?
Why not whip up your own Homemade Almond Milk instead? That way you know there are no nasties in there, and you can save the pulp for baking. Win, win.
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