Should I Drink Rice Milk? Is it Healthy?

SIDE NOTE:

I just wanted to let you know that I will be leading a breakout session for Stupid Cancer’s annual conference, CancerCON, this coming weekend. If you’re going to be there, let me know! My session is Sunday at 10:15am titled “Optimizing Your Nutrition.”

This session will not be recorded, but I’ll be sure to share the key points via blog posts coming up in the next few weeks! And maybe do a webinar for anyone interested.

How Does Rice Milk Measure Up?

This is a follow-up for some articles Intern Lora and I wrote a month or so ago regarding the popular trend of dairy alternatives. In case you missed it, here are the parts of the series I covered before:

• Should I Drink Almond Milk? Or Soy Milk? Or Regular Milk?
• Is Almond Milk Healthy? Plus 3 Ingredient Recipe to Make Your Own.
• Is Cashew Milk Healthy? DIY Cashew Milk Recipe

My first experience with rice milk came in college when I started dating my now husband. [Side note: as a blogger, I should apparently refer to him as Mr. Cancer Dietitian. We’ll see about that :-)].

As someone who doesn’t tolerate lactose, he had been a soy or rice milk drinker for a while. Like possibly his entire life. When I first tried it, I definitely thought rice milk was better than soy milk. It’s nice and sweet!

However, when it comes to nutrition, how does rice milk stack up and compare to dairy?

Rice milk, like almond and cashew milk, contains little protein (OUCH!). Rice milk isn’t always fortified with calcium and other nutrients found in cow’s milk, but there are enriched versions. Therefore, when choosing a rice milk, especially if you buy the kind that doesn’t need to be refrigerated, make sure it is fortified with calcium and vitamins A and D.

But remember, even when these vitamins and minerals are added, rice milk still lacks the protein found in dairy milk.

Rice Dream Vanilla Rice Milk differs from other milk alternatives in that it contains no added sugar and thickening agents. During processing the rice becomes sweet, so there is no need to add sugar to the end product. But just because there isn’t added sugar doesn’t mean it is a better choice.

One cup of rice milk contains 23g of total carbohydrates. Milk contains 12g of carbohydrates and an unsweetened soymilk contains 3g. One cup of unsweetened soy is 80 calories and has 7 grams of protein, whereas 1 cup of milk has 103 calories and 8g of protein. Soymilk delivers almost as much protein in fewer calories. But you have to like the unsweetened version.

Here’s a handy dandy chart to compare the milks we have discussed:

As a reminder, this is my bottom line when it comes to choosing a milk:

If milk is your only source of protein at a meal (like many people for breakfast), I would choose dairy milk or soy milk. They are definitely the most affordable and nutritious options. If you’re just using milk as a creamer in your coffee, it doesn’t matter which one you pick because you’re not using that much of it.

Find more here: http://time.com/10093/milk-soy-almond-rice/

– Julie