Almonds are incredibly healthy and provide numerous health benefits, as they are a rich source of healthy fats, protein, flavonoids, antioxidants, and beneficial phenols.
Therefore, their addition to your regular diet will provide lots of benefits and lots of body energy. However, even though numerous people consume it and believe it is even healthier than dairy, the milk variant is not as healthy as they think.
Namely, the store-bought almond milk includes more water, sweeteners, and additives, than almonds. The average carton of this milk has only a handful of almonds.
Research has found only 2 percent of almonds in the UK almond milk brand Alpro, and the rest is a mixture of sweeteners, water, added A,E, D vitamins, and carrageenan (a thickening agent).
Therefore, you need to drink the entire carton in order to get the needed nutrients. This explains the low amount of calories in it, as a cup contains only 30 calories, while a serving of almonds has 160 calories. Additionally, the nut milk costs 4 dollars per half a gallon.
Yet, due to the profits of the almond milk industry, these facts are not publicly revealed.
In 2014, White Wave, a plant-based milk company, reported that their sales in the first quarter had increased 50 percent over the previous year’s totals. Therefore, it is expected that as sales grow, this year, the industry will net 1.7 billion dollars in sales.
Moreover, the additives in this milk include a common thickener, Carrageenan, which has been found to cause inflammation of the digestive tract.
Therefore, we strongly advise you to stop buying this mixture of water, additives, sweeteners and a few almonds and do your own almond milk instead. In that way, you can add more almonds in order to add nutrients to the milk, and avoid the sweeteners and additives.
Also, its preparation is extremely easy, all you need to do is to soak raw, organic almonds in water overnight, and blend them with 3 cups of water in a heavy duty blender in the morning. Then, just strain it through cheesecloth, transfer it into a mason jar, and keep it in the fridge up to 3 days.
The following link will provide all the necessary instructions on how to prepare your own homemade almond milk, which is much healthier than the commercial variants. To enrich its flavor, you can also add cinnamon or a bit of vanilla extract.