Why You Need to Make Cashew Milk a Part of Your Daily Routine

What is Cashew Milk?

These days, there’s increased interest in dairy alternatives. But cashew milk is more than just a dairy alternative! Cashews, the seed of the cashew apple, native to Brazil, are rich in nutrients that come with plenty of health benefits. If you don’t find yourself snacking on cashews, drinking cashew milk is a great way to incorporate a rich nutrition value into your daily routine.

We love the creamy consistency of cashew milk. Its silky texture makes it perfect for drinking, coffee and cooking -- there are so many ways to use cashew milk every day. Cashew milk is gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan, making it a rich source of nutrients for people with plant-based or restricted diets.

Minerals

Even if you take a daily multivitamin, nutritionists and doctors typically recommend sourcing as many nutrients as you can from your food before turning to supplements or fortified products. Cashews are high in nutritional value. And while they do have vitamins, their mineral content steals the show. Cashews are full of magnesium, copper and iron. Copper is essential in the formation of new blood vessels, and together with iron forms red blood cells to help keep anemia at bay.

Elmhurst’s cashew milk has 6% of the daily recommended iron intake, making it an easy way to add iron to your diet if you are at risk of being low.

Heart Health

Here’s a fun fact: the cashew’s scientific name Anacardium comes from the Greek word for heart, because the cashew apple looks like a heart! It’s a fitting name. Nuts have long been known for promoting heart health. A balanced diet including nuts can help regulate heart health and prevent cardiovascular disease - and that includes cashews! One study found that cashews can even help decrease systolic blood pressure and increase HDL cholesterol.

Nuts are filled with good unsaturated fats. While the exact reasons still remain unclear, the monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats in nuts may help lower bad cholesterol levels. Cashew milk is not necessarily low-calorie or low fat, but it does offer the healthy fats that your body needs.

Amino Acids

One of the biggest concerns people have when reducing or eliminating animal products from their diet is their protein intake. However, animal products aren’t the only way we can give our bodies the protein they need.

Our bodies function best with a diet rich in amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, making them essential for making up the many protein-based structures such as muscles, skin, hair and fingernails. This means that even if we don’t eat all the proteins we need, our bodies can adjust by building them with amino acids. Cashews contain 18 of the 22 amino acids used by humans, including all 8 of the “essential” amino acids (albeit some in relatively low quantities, meaning you’ll want to supplement cashews with other plant-based protein sources).

So what exactly happens to those amino acids after you enjoy cashew milk? Lysine is important for calcium absorption and healing infection, while arginine plays an important role in cell division and hormone release. And just like vitamins and minerals, amino acids are better received when they come from a food source.

What better way to source these amino acids than through cashew milk? Enjoy it plain, as a dairy alternative or as a substitute for milk in cooking and baking.

Eyesight

When we think of improving our vision with food, most of us probably think of carrots or other brightly colored fruits and vegetables, rich in vitamin A and beta carotene. But cashews can play a special role in protecting your eyesight too! Cashews are high in lutein and zeaxanthin, which both protect eyes from the decline they experience as we age.

Try making vision-friendly mashed potatoes! Add cashew milk to this vegan garlic mashed potatoes recipe, to make it rich and creamy and dairy-free. Cashews are also used in Indian cuisine, so try adding it to your curries!

Bone Health

One thing’s for certain: we aren’t getting any younger. One of the toughest things to maintain as we get older is bone health...so much so that most of us even thought about it as kids, when we were reminded to drink our milk.

Luckily, dairy milk isn’t the only place to get calcium...and calcium isn’t the only nutrient we need to keep our bones healthy and strong. Cashews do contain some calcium, but they are also rich in magnesium and other minerals that promote bone health.

Quality Matters

With all the cashews’ health benefits, you want to be sure that when you are drinking cashew milk you are actually drinking cashews...and unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. Many cashew milks are full of artificial flavors, gums and carrageenan and have hardly any cashews at all! Look for cashew milk that has fewer ingredients to get the most of this amazing nut.

Our cashew milk offers up to 5 times more cashews per serving than other brands, and is free from extra ingredients, like gums. Check out our cashew milk line or see how we use it in recipes!

If you care about retaining nutritional value, building strong bones, promoting an unwavering vision and maintaining a balanced diet, you’re looking for a quality of cashew milk that only Elmhurst can offer.