Is plant based “cream” with ingredients like oat base, sunflower oil, Arabic gum, locust gum, amylase… etc. healthier than real cream?
Just gets one without processed fillers. There’s plant based milks that are just water and the plant (nut, bean, etc) yogurts are a bit harder but there are a couple that have minimally processed ingredients.
Usually products with gums are healthier because they are able to give you a richer mouthfeel with less calories, but you really have to look at the label and see the calorie count and the saturated fat numbers.
Seems like it’s an individual thing. I avoid certain additives due to a food sensitivity, so I strongly lean toward plain cream from grass fed cows (and whole foods in general).
It can be hard to find dairy cream that is also not full of additives - many producers cut the more expensive cream with milk and thicken it back up with caragheenan etc.
It varies. The main thing to worry about is whether the cream has been loaded up with simple sugars.
It’s generally best to consume less processed foods but in this case you’re comparing a slightly processed food that has unsaturated fat and sometimes a high simple sugar content to an unprocessed food that is loaded with saturated fat and simple sugars of its own.
I’m not going to say that a little Gum Arabic is going to hurt you more than consuming too much saturated fat. Saturated fat is a proven health problem. Gum Arabic is not. And with the plant milks if you look hard enough you can find ones that aren’t sweetened so that’s a huge bonus over dairy too.
As long as you aren’t eating so much that you are in a large caloric surplus, and you aren’t intolerant or allergic to dairy, real cream is healthier than most of those options you listed. More nutritious and less harmful.
Products like oatmilk with sunflower oil are disgusting. And ruining your Omega 3 : Omega 6 ratio.