Vegetable drinks

More and more people consume vegetable drinks and less animal milk. In most cases, this replacement is due to lactose intolerance (milk disaccharide), gastric discomfort when consumed, allergy to cow's milk protein or because they do not find its consumption interesting.

Among them, the most common ones are soya, oat, almonds, rice and coconut.

But what is a vegetable drink?

A vegetable drink is a liquid product obtained from one or more ingredients of vegetable origin and water. That is, a vegetable drink of oats, should be the result of oats and water. It is therefore intuitive that the main ingredient, the one that is present in greater quantity and appears first in the list of ingredients, should be water.

Rice is often used as a way to aid in the creation of vegetable beverage pulp. That is, it is normal to find a vegetable drink that claims to be almond and find rice in its constitution, as a second ingredient, followed by almond.

Most drinks have some kind of oil, usually sunflower oil. Its function is to make the beverage more homogeneous. If you do not have a fat, you will have some gum as a stabilizer.

How to choose a vegetable drink?

When we are choosing a vegetable drink in the supermarket, we should look first at the label.

Although we find that they are less caloric and have less fat, their main disadvantage is that many of them have added sugar. The worst is that sugar usually appears as the second ingredient (ie, it is the second largest constituent). And this is not at all desirable.

Another type of ingredients that we should avoid are the emulsifiers and thickeners, which appear in the list of ingredients with E followed by a number. A beverage with several emulsifiers and / or thickeners, is thicker and thicker, due to the lack of pulp coming from the cereal of which it is made. That is, a vegetable drink, with sufficient amount of cereal or vgetable has enough consistency, and will not be watered, dispensing with all these Es.

It is also importante to avoid the stabilizers identified with Es and sweeteners.

If possible, you should have some vitamin or mineral supplementation. Although the body absorbs in a much easier way these nutrients through naturally containing foods, compared to artificially fortified foods.

Some drinks have salt in their constitution and this ingredient will take the last place in the list of ingredients. If you make some research you will easily be able to find drinks without salt.

Not to forget ...

These beverages, although rich in nutritional terms, are not equivalent to milk of animal origin. They have much lower protein content, and in cow's milk, the proteins are complete, that is, they have all the essential amino acids.

In addition, they also do not have calcium in their constitution.

Those who choose to withdraw dairy products from their diet should ingest other sources to compensate for the absence of some amino acids and calcium.

Nutritionist Mariana Freitas

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