I wasn’t able to find the cashew milk I’ve been loving recently for my matcha lattes, so I went searching for another option at the grocery store last week.  I typically like to stick with the Malk brand because they only contain a few ingredients and they are clean, but I thought I’d try to find another brand that could work, too.  Sadly, I wasn’t excited about what I found.  I had a difficult time finding one that didn’t have added ingredients, even when searching through the organic options.  Crazy!

I’m sharing pictures of a few of the products I picked up to demonstrate just how difficult it was to find a “cleaner” version.  Though I don’t expect all of my food choices to be void of additives, this experience was a good reminder for me to always read food labels.  Products aren’t always better simply because they bear the USDA organic label, and I truly need to be paying attention.  As consumers, we never know what might be lurking in the ingredients, so checking labels is a powerful way to make sure we’re purchasing what we want to be putting into our bodies.  Especially because the ingredients are listed in order of prevalence in the food, it’s important to particularly take note of the first several ingredients.

The first option above is the Malk brand’s almond milk.  Even though I was looking for the cashew milk, the almond milk is still a fantastic demonstration of what I wanted the ingredients to look like.  Malk is stored in the refrigerated section and, sadly, I can only find it at one store locally.  As you can see from the picture, there are only three ingredients and I know what all of them are.  This is the way it should be!

It goes downhill after that, though.  Sugar is one of the first few ingredients in all of the milks.  All of them.  I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising because sugar is added to 80% of packaged products, but it simply isn’t necessary.  Sugar perpetuates so many of the lifestyle diseases that are causing so many problems for Americans.  We don’t need more of it.

In looking at the lists, I found many other ingredients too – I’m not sure what most of them are.  I didn’t do any research about them, but the natural flavors ingredient raises an eyebrow for me.  Even though it follows organic regulations, it contains additives that I don’t want in my milk.  (The pictures are linked to the products’ websites if you want to do your own research.)

Here’s the bottom line.  Read food labels.  When looking for clean foods, the organic label doesn’t necessarily guarantee that it’s the best choice.  Consumers may need to research and look at several brands before finding a winner.  That’s not to suggest that all of our food choices need to be perfectly organic and clean, but if it’s something we consume a lot, it makes sense to find a healthier option.