Flavored Milk – What Are Flavored Milk Alternatives?

Flavored milk is a popular way to help kids meet their daily dairy requirements. This type of ready-to-drink beverage can be made with chocolate, strawberry, banana, or coffee flavors and is formulated using pasteurized milk.

Often, the product is stabilized with thickeners such as k-carrageenan to prevent sedimentation of cocoa powder particles. Adding flavours and colour creates a product image which attracts new groups of consumers.

Chocolate

Chocolate flavoured milk is a dairy-based drink with cocoa powder and sugar added. It is also stabilized with a combination of emulsifiers and hydrocolloids to provide variations in texture, body and mouthfeel. The most common ingredients are milk, sugar, cocoa powder, salt, emulsifiers, and hydrocolloids such as HA gellan gum.

The addition of cocoa powder and sugar to the beverage adds sweetness and enhances its flavour. These flavoured milk added ingredients do not take away from the powerful nutrient profile that milk offers. In fact, a glass of chocolate milk provides the same 13 essential nutrients as a glass of plain white milk.

Many parents are concerned that flavored milk adds too much sugar to children’s diets. However, research shows that the amount of added sugar in flavored milk is small and does not make up a significant portion of children’s overall diets.

Moreover, compared to other refuel options and recovery shakes, chocolate low-fat milk is a more affordable and convenient way for young athletes to get the nutrients they need after a practice or game. For example, many young athletes are unable to eat a full meal after a training session and may only have time to grab a quick glass of chocolate milk before returning to their next practice or game. Providing a convenient and affordable refuel option like chocolate low-fat milk helps young athletes establish healthy refueling habits and establishes a strong foundation for sports nutrition in the future.

Strawberry

Strawberry flavoured milk is a tasty way to get kids drinking more milk. It’s also a great way to boost vitamin C and add a sweet taste to plain milk. This drink is particularly good for children who don’t like milk or find it difficult to meet their calcium needs.

Commercially prepared strawberry milk is often made from a combination of sugar and artificial flavors, but it’s easy to make at home with real strawberries and a bit of syrup. The key is to simmer the strawberries until they are soft and have lost their bright red colour, then strain them to remove the solids. This method produces a smooth strawberry puree that is ideal for drinking with milk.

You can use any type of milk for this drink – dairy or nondairy – though I prefer to use 2% milk as it’s lower in fat. It’s also delicious with soy milk, almond milk, oat milk, or coconut milk. If you’re aiming for a low-sugar version of this drink, you can replace the sugar with stevia or other plant-based sweeteners.

Once the strawberry syrup is cooled, stir it into your choice of milk and serve immediately. If you’d like, stir in some chia seeds to turn the drink into a strawberry chia jam, or top with whipped cream for a more traditional strawberry milk. This strawberry milk will keep in the fridge for a few days, but I find that it’s best served within 24 hours after making.

Banana

Banana milk is a dairy-free alternative that can be made flavoured milk at home or found in stores. It is rich in potassium and contains dietary fiber, which helps support healthy digestion. It also has a small amount of protein, which can help regulate appetite and blood sugar levels. However, it is not a good option if you are trying to lose weight because it is high in calories. The good news is that you can drink banana milk as part of a balanced diet as long as it is not consumed in large quantities.

If you enjoy banana flavoured milk, you can make it at home by blending a peeled banana, your choice of milk and vanilla extract with a bit of sugar. You can also add a pinch of salt to the mixture for added sweetness. The best way to make this is to use a high-powered blender. It is important to blend the ingredients until they are smooth. Then, you can serve it as a beverage or use it in your favourite recipes.

Korean banana milk, known as banana uyu, is an easy-to-make beverage that is enjoyed by all ages. It is available at most Korean grocery markets and some Asian grocery stores with a large Korean food section, as well as online. It can be drunk as a beverage or used to make smoothies and coffee.

Coffee

There’s a lot to love about Rhode Island food: the state’s official sandwich is the fluffernutter, Narragansett beer is as plentiful as it is tasty, and a glass of coffee milk is one of the most iconic local drinks in all the land. But ask any non-Rhode Islander about this lovable concoction, and they’ll probably give you a look that says “What the heck is that?”

It’s pretty simple: it’s milk mixed with sweetened coffee syrup, which is essentially concentrated coffee in syrup form (similar to chocolate syrup). The exact origins of this drink are unknown, but by the 1920s and 1930s, it was a standard diner drink across New England. It became a household name when two local brands of coffee syrup began making and marketing their own versions in the 1930s: Eclipse and Autocrat. The companies were fierce rivals until 1991, when Autocrat bought Eclipse and kept the brands separate, albeit with the same secret formula.

Today, there are a handful of other locally-made coffee syrups besides the main two. However, for the real deal, you’ll want to reach for a bottle of either Eclipse or Autocrat, which are widely available in southern New England grocery stores and markets. Die-hard fans claim that there is a difference in taste between the brands: Eclipse fans say their product is a little sweeter than Autocrat’s, while Autocrat fans insist theirs has more of a coffee bite.