There Are Many Alternatives To Milk Sugar Sensitivity

Fifteen years ago, if you had trouble digesting lactose (milk sugar) or had other reasons for eschewing milk, there wasn’t much you could use to dampen your cereal. Even by the late 1980s, only a few kinds of milk alternatives were available, and you had to search for them.

But milk substitutes - especially those aseptically boxed, “lactescent” beverages made from soybeans, rice and sometimes almonds - now are common in most supermarkets. It’s a fast-growing category in the health-food industry.

In addition to a sensitivity to lactose - which affects up to 28 percent of American adults, particularly blacks and Asians - people have other reasons for forgoing cow’s milk. Some are concerned about saturated fat and cholesterol, some are vegetarian and don’t believe in eating animal products and a few are allergic to dairy products.

Soy milk is one alternative. “Soybeans are a prime source of protein for humans,” says Michael Potter, president of Eden Foods Inc. in Clinton, Mich., which has 35 percent of the milk substitutes market.

But soy milk had a grassy flavor and smell until 1973, when Cornell University scientists figured out how to take away the odor, Potter says.

Eden Foods, a joint venture with Japanese investors, came out with Eden Soy in 1983, the first product in the U.S. marketed in a flexible pouch. The company soon went to a shelf-stable, aseptic box. That works out well because soybeans need to be cooked to make them digestible and also to sterilize the soy milk for aseptic packaging.

Potter refers to Eden Soy as a “new liquid food product” rather than a milk substitute. Organically raised soybeans are finely ground, mixed with kombu (a flavorful sea vegetable) and other ingredients for flavor and nutritional enhancement. Then they’re homogenized, sterilized and packaged.

Soy milk was the only non-dairy competition around when Imagine Foods of Palo Alto, Calif., started selling Rice Dream in 1990.

“Some people are allergic to soy as well as to cow’s milk,” says Imagine vice president Ken Becker.

Rice Dream, basically made from cooked, milled brown rice, water and a little oil, is hypoallergenic and high in complex carbohydrates.

Using rice as a beverage base is not new. Mexicans traditionally have made the beverage horchata from rice, water, sugar and cinnamon.

“Rice Dream is not horchata,” Becker says, “though some other milk substitutes are. Rice Dream has more complex carbohydrates, fewer simple sugars.”

Other companies, many of them started within the last three or four years, have various formulas. Some use both rice and soy; some use a corn base. One uses almonds, which is similar to an ancient Arabian beverage.

All are expensive: from $1.79 to $2.65 per quart, compared to about $2 a gallon for milk. And unless they are fortified, the substitutes are low in calcium, iron and other vitamins and minerals common to milk.

“It is not an even trade,” says Linda Van Horn, a registered dietitian and professor of preventative medicine at Northwestern University Medical School.

“Milk has a lot going for it,” says Van Horn, a vegetarian who drinks milk but has a child who is allergic to it. “It is a nutritionally rich food source, a powerhouse of nutrients, especially skim milk. And it has 300 milligrams of calcium per cup.”

Van Horn says that people who opt for milk substitutes, especially for children, “should be aware they are making a major nutritional choice.

“The sheer volume of nutrients supplied by milk is important,” she says. “You can’t waste calories on high-sugar almond milk that gives fat without the iron, calcium, magnesium and other nutrients.”

If you decide to do away with milk, says Van Horn, you need to consult a dietitian or doctor to know what kinds of supplements are necessary and how much to take.

“You can do it,” she says, “but you have to go through some nutritional gymnastics.”