Plant based drinks in the diets of infants and young children

Abstract

Plant based drinks (PBD) do not have a role in providing nutrition to infants, other than the feeding of commercial soy and rice hydrolysate based infant formulas for medical, religious or ethical reasons. For toddlers and young children, cow’s milk (CM) has a traditional place in their modern Western diet as an important source of protein, calcium and other nutrients. While milk is not essential to provide a healthy diet for young children, considerable dietary adjustments need to be made to compensate for its absence. Most PBD are not equivalent to CM in terms of inherent nutrient content and bioavailability and are more expensive. There is notable heterogeneity in their nutritional composition. According to recent studies, children who do not drink CM grow slower than those who do. There is relatively little information about the role of specific PBD in children’s diets. Their impact needs to be assessed in the context of their percent of the diet, child age, health status, nutritional requirements and the composition of the rest of the diet. There are both questionable and valid reasons consumers and parents drink and provide PBD to young children, including misinformation, medical conditions, worries about toxins in CM and ethical/religious beliefs. Parents, and consumers in general, are increasingly acting on concerns about animal welfare related to modern farming practices and the adverse environmental impact of meat and dairy farming. Improvements in available alternative drinks and more informative labelling of such products are likely to be welcomed by the marketplace. The new technology of precision fermentation has the potential to lead to milk alternatives that address many of the concerns about both CM and PBD.