What Should Really Be In Your Oat Milk

Okay, everyone loves oat milk nowadays, including myself, but we do have to be careful about what brands we choose to shop! With the recent recalls of over 50 beverages due to potential microbial contamination, oat milk has been at the top of the headlines, specifically an oat milk favorite, Oatly. Now, nothing to fear, recalls happen all the time, but during this time here is a list of a few oat milk brands that are the cleanest and some ingredients you should avoid if you can!

1. MALK

Starting out with my favorite, MALK. MALK has some of the cleanest plant-based milks on the market and you want to know why? Take a look at their ingredient list: Filtered Water, Organic Gluten-free Oats, Himalayan Salt. 3 ingredients!!! This is what an oat milk’s ingredient list should always look like, avoiding harmful and inflammatory additives like oils and gums.

2. Elmhurst Milked Oats

Similar to MALK, Elmhurst Oats has a great ingredients list again only including filtered water, whole grain oats, and salt. There are zero added sugars and or artificial sweeteners, including natural flavors which is exactly what you want to look for when shopping clean. Natural flavors could mean anything nowadays. According to government regulations natural flavors are defined as those that derive their aroma or flavor chemicals from plant or animal sources, which is extremely broad.

A few other good options for oat milk are Thrive Market’s, Mooala, and Planet Oat. However, it’s not always about the brands, so when you’re shopping around for your oat milk here are a few things to look out for:

1. Opt for a milk made with organic oats in you can

   1. Regular conventional oats are commonly treated with glyphosate for drying. Glyphosate is a weed-killer that has now been labeled as a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization.

2. Skip the “Barista Blends”

   1. Specifically marketed barista blends are designed for the coffeehouse where they are often more steamable and foamy. To get this desired result, oat milks will contain more additives such as seed oils, sunflower & safflower. Though these oils are not terrible for you, they have been shown to increase inflammation in the body as they are high in omega-6 fatty acids which can disrupt the ratio between omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

So oat milk isn’t as simple as we thought, but it can be! At the end of the day, a good motto to have when oat milk shopping is “simpler is better”. All it takes is a second glance at the ingredients list to help support a cleaner lifestyle.