Nutritional Contents and Processing of Plant-Based Milk: A Review

Abstract

For a long time, animal milk such as cow milk has been regarded as a complete food due to its nutritional content and beneficial health effect. However, the emergence of lactose intolerance and allergy to cow milk, new lifestyles such as vegetarianism and veganism, and sustainability challenges such as water pollution and greenhouse gases emission, have pushed researchers to innovate an alternative product to replace animal milk. Plant-based milk, the aqueous liquid obtained from different plant materials such as cereals, legumes, nuts, seeds, and pseudocereals, has been developed to replace animal milk. Therefore, the knowledge of the nutritional profile and processing steps of plant-based milk production becomes essential. This review describes the information regarding the materials used, the nutritional profiles, and the processing steps of plant-based milk. There is a challenge in developing plant-based milk that has a similar nutrition content to cow milk. Processing technique in terms of formulation such as fortification is needed to produce plant-based milk with acceptable nutritional content and high consumer acceptance.