It’s World Plant Milk Day on 22 August, which is an ideal opportunity to try these alternative options that offer many benefits.
Plant-based milks are any animal milk alternatives made from plant-based ingredients. According to food awareness NGO ProVeg South Africa, local consumers enjoy a diverse selection of plant-based milk options.
A plethora of plant milk options
Ahead of World Plant Milk Day, ProVeg attempted to catalogue all of the options, and found 12 distinct types of plant-milk (plus a few blends), and 79 options when taking all the available brands into account.
Almond, soy and oat milk were the most common varieties (with 21, 17 and 11 options, respectively), but South Africans can also buy brown rice, cashew, coconut, hazelnut, hemp, macadamia, quinoa, rice and tiger nut milk.
More than just health benefits
The global growth in plant milk can be attributed to several key advantages that these options have over dairy milk, including health, environmental and ethical benefits.
Taste is now also often included in this list of benefits, and with so many different options to choose from it makes sense that most people will be able to find at least a couple of options they like.
The milk alternative market used to exist mainly for those with lactose intolerance or those who avoided dairy for ethical reasons.
ProVeg South Africa Director, Donovan Will, explains that this is no longer the case: “The local market for these products is growing rapidly for two reasons. Firstly, South African’s care about their health, the environment, and how animals are treated. So, if there are good tasting options that offer benefits in these areas, then we’ll try them.”
From a health perspective, plant milks contain significantly less saturated fat, no hormones or antibiotics, and no cholesterol.
Secondly, companies are making these products more accessible. “Most major retailers carry multiple plant-milk options, and restaurants and coffee shops are embracing the options, too. SA’s top coffee chain, Vida for example, has 5 plant-based options to choose from.”
A greener option
Water conservation is a major environmental benefit of plant milks. Producing a litre of soya milk requires 28L of water, while it takes 628L to produce a litre of cow’s milk. For a water-scarce country, this statistic should encourage more of us to give soya milk a try.
Other environmental benefits include less greenhouse gas emissions, less land use and less water pollution.
Find your plant milk fit
With so many benefits, and so many options, you might wonder which ones are best. According to Will, the ideal option depends on your specific needs and preferences.
“From a taste point of view, everyone’s different. Even the different brands of the same type of plant milk taste different. For example, some soya milks are sweet and creamy, and some are closer to skim milk, and have no sweetness. It’s best to try a few different options.”
To encourage more South Africans to experiment with plant milks around World Plant Milk Day, ProVeg SA has partnered with Food Lovers Market, who will be running a special on the Almond Breeze and Earth & Co. ranges, and with Vida e Caffè, which will waive the usual surcharge on all plant-milk options from 20 to 23 August. There’s never been a better time to give plant-milks a try.
Author: Pedro van Gaalen
When he’s not writing about sport or health and fitness, Pedro is probably out training for his next marathon or ultra-marathon. He’s worked as a fitness professional and as a marketing and comms expert. He now combines his passions in his role as managing editor at Fitness magazine.
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