I'm brand new to this, and on top of trying to go low-sugar, I'm a veggie (who eats fish and eggs), which means I've got a little extra push to go here.
That said, I've taken to drinking rice milk with my cereal (they go together, while it's unlikely I'll ever drink a tall frothy glass of rice milk). The side of the package says 16g of sugars, but there is no sugar in the ingredients.
The brand, by the way, is Rice Dream.
Does anyone know if rice milk is "legal" or not? Is it possibly better than soy milk?
I don't know much about the RICE DREAM, or soy milk in general. BUT, from looking on the info on the net and what the ingredients are I don't see why it wouldn't be legal, but do wonder where the grams of sugar are coming from. One site did mention it was high in sugar. I need to do some investigating to see about this
Is there a reason you don't do dairy? My son is a lacto-ovo vegetarian so I can tell you with knowing what I have to make for him, you can do SB easily with being a vegetarian, esp. if you do eat fish eggs.
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Sorry I can't be of much help at this time, but I'll try to find the info!!!
Thanks, Deb! Anything you can add, I'd be interested in.
My concerns about milk are more about the hormones, antibiotics and other chemicals in most cow milk, and the fact that when I thought about it a little, drinking another animal's milk *did* seem a little odd. (I don't impose this on anyone; I still eat ice cream and cheese, so I'm not a fist-waving "no milk" kinda gal.) Mostly, though, it's the chemicals, hormones, antibiotics and whatever else has been pumped in there.
And thanks for the reply. If it's no good, I'll stick with soy, but I thought I'd feel around until something worked, and Rice milk seems to do ok with cereal.
Kitt, organic dairy products are hormone, antibiodic free. I use mostly organics when I can find them. The hormones and antibiodics, and chemicals are usually concentrated in the fats, so if you use fat free, or low fat, you get less anyway. With the organics, you get none. I only use organic butter and eggs, and I don't eat much cheese unless it is organic. I prefer organic milk, but I use skim, so its not as bad as whole. I do eat meat, and ordinarily pay the extra for the organic types, and free range chickens. I believe there is some kind of sugar in Rice Dreams. My son is allergic to milk, and I used to buy it for him. It is too sweet to be just rice...though if it were made from white rice, it could be just from the high glycemic index.
I may have answered my own question, but if anyone here reads this and can let me know if I'm wrong, I'd appreciate it.
I called the Rice Milk manufacturers who have a great consumer hotline. According to them, they add no sweeteners to their Rice Milk (this is Rice Dream, by Imagine Foods). In processing, they use a barley enzyme, which apparently interacts with the rice (man, I'm trying to remember this now from the conversation) to create those sugars that are listed.
According to her, this product is fine for a low-sugar diet.
Can anyone see a problem with what I'm mentioning here?
Kitt, just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents for whatever it's worth. My niece's daughter is 5 and is highly sensitive to dairy, wheat and simple carbohydrates. They affect her severely emotionally (not sure they grammar was quite right there, but you know what I mean). Anyway, she uses rice milk almost exclusively for the whole family and it doesn't seem to adversely affect her. So, what they're telling you about no sweeteners being added does seem to ring true. Feel free to join us on the weekly support board and I'm sure you'll get a lot of other insight.
I would think rice milk tends to be pretty high on the glycemic index since it is very processed and not very high in protein to begin with... I have seen soy milks which in my mind rank better than dairy food-quality wise (the completely non-sweetened stuff has a better protein to carb ratio than milk) but I have never seen a rice milk that I was convinced was acceptable.
BUT I think the real test would be... does it work with your weight loss plan?