Almond milk is a delicious substitute for cow's milk. However, you can't help but notice that it doesn't really taste like almonds.
This may lead you to a question: how many almonds are actually in almond milk?
This is a slightly complicated question to answer.
What Percentage of Almond Milk is Actually Almonds?
You have to begin by looking at almond milk recipes.
Of course, major brands don't release their recipes, though industry professionals have said the recipe is fairly standard across the board.
From some legal cases in the past, we have learned that most commercial brands of almond milk contain about 2% almonds.
A large majority of what you find in these brands is water, emulsifiers, preservatives, and sweeteners. In fact, almonds are often listed as the third ingredient on the packaging.
Homemade recipes for almond milk often call for 1 cup of almonds to every 2 to 4 cups of water, upping that percentage to between 25% and 50%.
Depending on if you choose to leave the almond mash in the milk or strain it out can have an effect on the total percentage as well.
How Many Almonds Are in a Cup of Almond Milk?
Obviously homemade almond milk has more almonds than those brands that are produced commercially.
However, we still don't know exactly how many almonds those percentages represent.
It only takes a bit of math and logic to figure out how many almonds are represented in the above percentages.
Starting with a homemade recipe, you know that it uses a cup of almonds.
Knowing that there are approximately 23 almonds in 1/4 cup, we can estimate that this homemade recipe uses close to 100 almonds.
So, if you are making 2 cups of almond milk, there would be approximately 50 almonds in each cup. If you are making a recipe where that is split among 4 cups, there would be closer to 25 almonds per cup.
Now, for store bought almond milk, it is more difficult to figure out.
Consider 1 cup of finished almond milk bought commercially.
You know it contains 2% almonds, and that a full cup would have about 23 almonds.
When you figure out 2% of 23, that means there is only approximately 0.46 of an almond in a cup of commercial almond milk.
Almond Milk Does a Body Good
No matter how many almonds are in each glass you guzzle, there are many health benefits to drinking almond milk.
Commercial brands often have many additives to stabilize the milk and thicken it. The best brands of almond milk limit additives and stick to a more natural recipe.
You can find brands with a higher percentage of almonds by looking for higher amounts of protein on the nutrition label.
Now that you know how many almonds are in each cup, you can enjoy!
