The Objective and Subjective Effects

of Replacing Dairy Milk with Non-

Dairy Milk Alternatives on a Mixed
Berry Smoothie
Carly Harris & Christina Constantinou
Section 1-Station 3
Clinical Condition: Dairy
Allergy
★ Cow’s milk allergies are one of the most
common food allergies among children
★ They are part of the “big 8” food allergies
★ There are a few different types of milk
allergies, all IgE-mediated
★ Why this condition?
○ A good friend passed away after going
into anaphylactic shock from a dairy
allergy
Food Product: Mixed
Berry Smoothie
★ Most children do not consume enough fruit per
day, so smoothies are a delicious and nutritious
way to incorporate fruit into the diet
★ Children with food allergies may require more
effort to meet their dietary needs, so the versatility
of smoothies was of interest
★ In order to increase fruit consumption without the
use of dairy milk, we will be testing smoothie
recipes with non-dairy alternatives.
 Food Products:
Our Variable
Variable Chosen: Cow’s Milk
(Whole milk)
Replaced with: Almond milk,
Cashew milk, or Soy milk
Almond milk, Cashew milk, and Soy milk were 3
viable options as replacements because they are
commonly found, affordable, and attempt to mimic
some of the properties Cow’s milk has
 Procedure

● In a blender, prepared control smoothie by adding

○ 1 cup whole milk
○ 1 cup frozen raspberries
○ ½ cup frozen blueberries
○ ½ cup frozen strawberries
○ 1 whole banana
○ 3 tbsp honey
● In a blender, prepared 3 other smoothies replacing whole milk (117)
with, almond milk (334), cashew milk (789) and soy milk (547)
● Placed smoothies in individual testing cups with designated sample
numbers.
 Results

Each product varied

in visual appearance

ALMOND MILK SOY MILK

WHOLE MILK
(CONTROL) CASHEW MILK
Objective Variables
Results Mean Sensory Evaluation Graphs

Figure 1: Bar graph comparing sensory evaluations of control smoothie to those made with almond, cashew and
soy milk, with standard deviation bars.
 T-Test Results
Control vs. Almond milk:
● How creamy is the sample? - 0.01
● How thick is the sample? - 0.00
● How sweet is the sample? - 1.00
● How tart is the sample? - 0.61
● Overall liking? - 0.08
Control vs. Soy milk:
● How creamy is the sample? - 1.0
● How thick is the sample? - 0.17
● How sweet is the sample? - 0.63
● How tart is the sample? - 0.27
● Overall liking? - 0.66

Control vs. Cashew milk:

● How creamy is the sample? - 0.17
● How thick is the sample? - 0.42
● How sweet is the sample? - 0.14
● How tart is the sample? - 0.57
● Overall liking? - 0.13
Nutrition Facts Label
 Discussion and Q&A
» We were surprised to find that as far as overall liking, most of our panelists preferred the control smoothie to
the non-dairy milk smoothies. This was interesting considering both Carly and I found the non-dairy one more
favorable.
» In addition, the Almond milk smoothie average for sweetness was a 2.7, compared to the control average
which was around a 5. This was particularly interesting since the almond milk used was “sweetened”.
» The only significant values were for the creaminess and thickness of the almond milk smoothie vs. control
smoothie, which may be due to the almond milks lack of “milk texture”
» As far as procedure, we found our trial run to be a success and luckily did not change any of our measurements,
as the smoothies came out very uniform.