Saturday, October 15, 2011

Looking for a Mixed Nuts Milk - 1st try

Plain facts are hard to find. I've been looking for hard facts on the composition of almond milk, coconut milk, and breast milk. My motivation is to get the best mix of non-dairy milks to approximate the macronutrient balance (i.e. fats, carbs, proteins) of breast milk, which is arguably a good guide. I’m not trying to make baby formula, just a nice all-around milk for us to drink.

Finally found part of the info on this website. If you scroll down a bit there's a table comparing "whole" (i.e. cow's), soy, almond, rice, and coconut milks. Breast milk is missing, but I found that information on Wikipedia. I also had a box of hemp milk in the kitchen, so just for fun I added in that info:
Grams/100 ml
BREAST
COCONUT
ALMOND
HEMP
Proteins
1.1
2.3
1
0.8
Fats
4.2
23.8
2.5
2
Carbohydrates
7.5
5.5
7
0.4
So I played around with this on a spreadsheet. Of course there is no mix that works perfectly - too many variables. First, I decided to ignore the huge amount of fats in coconut, because coconut oil is so good for you. The other milks have less fat than breast milk, so any significant amount of coconut milk will bring the combined milk’s fat content up above breast milk standard. Next, I wondered, should I make proteins or carbohydrates the decisive factor? For both of these, almond milk is very close to breast milk, just a little lower. For carbs, both coconut and hemp milk are even lower in content than almond milk, so they can’t improve on plain almond milk. For proteins, coconut milk is higher, so it can bring the protein content of the mix up. So I chose to follow the proteins. Amazingly, when I tweak the coconut, almond and hemp proportions to get the proteins "right", the other two macronutrients end up not too far off, even the fats, which I'd given up on...

The "Mixed Nuts Milk" proportions are: 1/10 coconut milk, 8/10 almond milk, 1/10 hemp milk.
Grams/100 ml
BREAST
COCONUT
ALMOND
HEMP
Mixed Nuts Milk
(version 1.0)
Proteins
1.1
2.3
1
0.8
1.11
Fats
4.2
23.8
2.5
2
4.38
Carbohydrates
7.5
5.5
7
0.4
6.15
Can’t wait to try it out! Though, after doing the research and the math (and it was fun), the taste test will probably be what matters…!
p.s.: What makes this really fuzzy is, with how much water were the various milks made when these compositions were measured?

PPS: Made the almond milk, and couldn't wait to test the MNM!  I added 1/4 cup coconut milk and 1/4 cup hemp milk to 2 cups almond milk.  That makes 10 times 1/4 cup, just the right proportions.  RESULT:  It tasted realllllly nice!  None of the milks dominate, it's just creamy enough, not dry like plain almond milk and not overly creamy like the coconut milk.  

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