Soy milk is made by blending soaked soybeans with water and straining the solids, leaving a smooth, milk-like liquid.
You can purchase both unsweetened and sweetened versions.
The
unsweetened varieties generally contain only purified water and
soybeans, though some brands also add salt, vitamins, and/or minerals.
The sweetened varieties contain a sweetener, usually cane sugar.
They typically often include oil, salt, and vanilla to provide a flavor
closer to that of cow’s milk. Some versions also contain cocoa to
create a chocolate flavor.
Sweetened and some
unsweetened soy milk also contains a thickener or stabilizer. These
additions help the ingredients in the milk remain in an emulsion, or
uniform mixture, and retain characteristics like thicker texture and
mouthfeel.
- Locust bean gum. This thickener is obtained from the seed of the carob tree, native to the Mediterranean region.
- Gellan gum. This type is produced by fermenting a carbohydrate source using a specific strain of bacteria.
- Carrageenan. This agent is extracted from red seaweed.
Of
these, carrageenan has received the most push-back from consumers.
That’s because early research suggests a link between its consumption
and inflammatory conditions like colitis, irritable bowel syndrome
(IBS), rheumatoid arthritis, and colon cancer (4Trusted Source).
However,
this link is not necessarily related to carrageenan, but possibly only
with a form of degraded carrageenan called poligeenan. Unlike
carrageenan, poligeenan is not approved for use as a food additive (4Trusted Source).
In
fact, carrageenan is generally recognized as safe by the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA). It’s also deemed safe for the general population
by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and
the World Health Organization (WHO) (5Trusted Source).
Still,
many brands have replaced carrageenan with locust bean or gellan gum
due to the controversy surrounding its safety and poor acceptance by
consumers.