The advertisement featuring a pearly white, cow’s milk mustache on a smiling face sends a message often repeated at home: Dairy milk is good for you. Fat, sodium and cholesterol: Compared to dietary cholesterol in whole dairy, most plant milks are good choices — plant foods never have dietary cholesterol, Gardner said. Sodium levels are relatively equal between plant milks and dairy at about 100 milligrams of sodium. “No need to fear the fat of most plant-based milks — unsaturated fats are considered healthful in the modest quantities found in plant-based milks,” Gardner said. Plant milks have no such advantage, and this is where nutrition can stumble, Gardner said.

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