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Happy National Dairy Month. I have always had a heart (and a stomach) for dairy products. When it comes to milk, I recognize that I have a strong personal bias towards the “real” deal.

It may come as no surprise that the trend in per capita fluid milk consumption is a steady decrease over the past 40 plus years. According to the USDA Economic Research Service, the average American was drinking 100 pounds (which is roughly 12 gallons) more milk annually in 1975 than in 2018.

It also baffles me that after a steady decrease from 2000 to 2014, whole milk is on the rise. In fact, whole milk consumption keeps increasing, and in 2018 it exceeded consumption of 2 percent milk. Flavored whole milk consumption has also increased steadily since 2014. Skim milk and 1 percent milk consumption has decreased almost every year since 2012. (We can talk another day about how drinking 8 ounces of milk gives you the same amount of saturated fat as eating four pieces of bacon.)

For anyone with a milk allergy or with sensitivity to lactose, drinking milk is not an option. Thankfully, there are many choices available as milk alternatives. Actually, there are more choices than ever before. A recent 2019 report estimated that the dairy alternatives market reached $15.4 billion globally in 2018.  

Seeing the liquid from plants labeled as “milk” has always been a little hard for me to swallow. I guess we can credit the coconut for starting all of that. My extension colleague, Susan Zies, recently contributed to the OSU Extension Live Healthy Live Well Blog with an excellent article about milk alternatives. Let’s take a look at the nutrition of rice, soy, oat and almond milk, which are the current market leaders in this category. 

As a reference, milk is 87 percent water. It is made up of about 5 percent carbohydrates, which is lactose. A little more than 3 percent of milk is protein, mostly casein and some whey. This means there is 8 grams of protein in an 8-ounce serving of milk. The fat level depends on what you purchase; whole milk has 8 g fat, 2 percent milk has 5 g fat, 1 percent milk has 2 g fat, and skim milk has no fat. Milk contains many vitamins and minerals, with the rock star nutrient being nearly 300 milligrams of calcium per serving. 

Rice milk is a good option for those with both soy and milk allergies. Rice milk is comparable to cow’s milk in terms of calories, calcium, vitamin A and vitamin D. However, rice milk contains only 1 gram of protein per 8 oz serving. 

Soy milk is much more comparable to the protein content of cow’s milk. Soy milk is also rich in calcium, vitamin D and iron.

Oat milk is much higher in iron compared to cow’s milk and other plant-based beverages and even contains a little more calcium than cow’s milk. However, oat milk contains about half the protein of cow’s milk.

Almond milk is also a good source of calcium compared to cow’s milk. But like rice milk, almond milk is also very low in protein. 

Remember that not all plant-based milk alternatives are created equal. It is important to do your research on plant-based milk alternatives to ensure that your beverage of choice meets your personal nutritional needs.

Today I’ll leave you with this quote from Phyllis Diller: “I asked the waiter, 'Is this milk fresh?' He said, 'Lady, three hours ago it was grass.'”

Emily Marrison is an OSU Extension Family & Consumer Sciences Educator and may be reached at 740-622-2265.

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