Q: "I clipped an article you wrote a while back on almond milk and I'm wondering, in comparison to almond milk, what you think of the health benefits of soy milk? I thought it'd be interesting and worthwhile to get your input on this matter. Thank you!" - Diane E.; Finksburg
A: I grew up drinking milk. The two percent variety was served with dinner every night and was more often than not consumed along with my morning cereal and my school lunches. Somewhere along the line, as low-fat diets became all the rage, the milk my mother bought was downgraded to the thin and watery nonfat, or skim, variety.
As an adult, I continued drinking skim milk until being otherwise influenced by a trifecta of events and information. First, despite the success of the "Got Milk?" campaign, which encouraged the consumption of cow's milk and was one of the most influential campaigns in the United States, I learned that milk was not necessarily all it was cracked up to be. According to Dr. John Pagano, milk is generally hard to digest, can be constipating, and produces a lot of mucus, and there are many alternate sources of calcium, such as canned salmon, kale, turnip greens, lettuce, celery, dates, raisins and tofu, that are less likely to produce adverse reactions.
Then came the discovery that skim milk was the next big marketing hoax. Though skim milk is pumped full of vitamins, your body absorbs few of those nutrients because vitamins D, E and A are fat-soluble which, according to news.com.au, means "your body absorbs them better when they're delivered via fat." So, if you're drinking fortified skim milk, you might as well be dumping all those vitamins down the drain.
The last straw came with the accusations and detailed accounts of abuse PETA hurled at the dairy industry over the inhumane treatment of cows.
All of this, along with my desire to overhaul my own nutrition and adopt a vegetarian, or rather, pescatarian, diet, led me to switch to soy milk which, along with almond milk, comprises the top two alternatives to dairy milk, each containing a full roster of nutritional and health benefits.
But my conversion to soy milk was short-lived as I learned more about the disadvantages and potential dangers of soy, which include links to certain cancers, and toxic aluminum that can affect the nervous system and kidneys.
Almond milk, which comes up short only in grams of protein per serving, offers a myriad of benefits while posing far fewer risks, except to those with nut allergies or low thyroid functions. So I made the switch to plain, unsweetened almond milk several years ago and have been using it ever since.
All things considered, it is my opinion that the benefits of almond milk far outweigh those of both dairy and soy milk, making it the superior choice for milk.
Please email your fitness and health questions to me at leimlight@verizon.net or mail them to:
As I See Fit
201 Railroad Ave.
Westminster, Md. 21157
