Today at 10.30am : morning coffee at
UL, where I work: there was a little sign at the coffee bar that I could have
non-dairy alternative with my coffee (soy, oat or coconut).
I was intrigued and I asked: “how do
they taste?”. The answer that I got is irrelevant. But, actually this is the
major problem of the non-dairy alternatives: they don’t taste like milk.
In my view though, the main problem
is this: in Nutrition and in Food Science, in order to evaluate the nutritional
value of a milk we compare its amino acid profile to the profile of human milk.
The closer the profiles, the higher the nutritional value of the analysed milk.
This is where all plant derived milks suffer: their amino acid profile is very poor.
On the other hand, there is a wealth
of evidence that animal derived milk and dairy have strong anti-inflammatory
(cardioprotective included) properties.
The issue of plant VS animal derived
milks is somehow wider, some other factors that need to be considered are : presence of allergens, pesticide residues, food-miles to name few.
One of our next publications is going to be on this topic.
Till then, enjoy your animal derived dairy, they are nutritious and tasty!
Ioannis
