This morning I was scrolling reels on my way back from dropping the kids off to school. I came across this one by a “CGM vlogger” (there is a whole class of these now - they wear continuous glucose monitors and monitor how it reacts to various foods they eat, and make videos about it).
Basically he talks about his body’s glucose reaction to consuming oat milk, and contrasts that with whole milk. Based on my experience (I’ve worn CGMs for a sum total of 2 months in the last 4 years), what he says is legit. Oats are heavy in carbs and the fibers they contain get filtered out in the oatmilk making process, leaving them short on nutritious value.
People consider oat milk to be a legitimate substitute for milk because it “feels” similar (I don’t know about the taste - I love “normal” milk too much to try too many alternatives). What they fail to account for is that nutritionally they are very very different. “Normal” milk is balanced, with lots of fat, protein and carbs. Oat milk is only carbs.
And this is not an isolated case. If you think about the general class of “vegetarian substitutes for non-vegetarian (I recently learnt this term is an Indianism) food”, you find a general pattern - things that look and feel similar but not necessarily the same in terms of nutrition.
Like there are people who consider raw jackfruit to be a superfood, and it is super popular in vegan circles because it “has similar texture as chicken”. Asking my new friend ChatGPT (4o):
Here's a side-by-side nutrition comparison of raw jackfruit vs chicken breast (skinless, cooked) per 100 grams:
Jackfruit is carb-heavy, low-protein, and fiber-rich, with more potassium and vitamin C.
Chicken breast is high-protein, low-carb, making it ideal for muscle growth and low-carb diets.
Use jackfruit more as a plant-based meat texture substitute, not a nutritional one, especially if you're aiming for high protein.
There is no comparison in the nutrition.
And it is not just in the case of substitutes. I had blogged long ago (on my old blog) about how Andhra meals largely lack protein unless supplemented with meat “sides”. Basically they have not been designed to be eaten as a vegetarian diet.
Another example is “neer dose” (watery dose, popular in coastal Karnataka). It is normally an accompaniment for fish or meat dishes, but since vegetarians also want to enjoy it they have repurposed it to eat it with crushed jaggery (cane sugar) or small quantities of coconut chutney - that simply don’t offer the same nutrition.
In any case, neer dose is something I absolutely avoid since it is made of pulverized rice and little else, and leads to a massive glucose spike. The least you can do is to pair it with fat and protein, not more carb!
My strategy on this in general has been to "eliminate rather than substitute”. If I don’t want to have cow milk with my coffee, I just drink it black than with oat milk. I see keto-ers swear by cauliflower rice, but I find it a much superior strategy to just eliminate rice and just have whatever else you have with it “plain”.
And an even better strategy is to consume foods in ways that they have been designed. When it comes to vegetarian (not vegan) food, north west India is heavily vegetarian and has been so for a very long time. And so their traditional food (including paneer and other kinds of milk products) offers more balance than vegetarian component of regional food.
