Food Fight: Strawberry Soy Milk

If you haven’t already noticed, I drink a fair bit of soy milk. I got into the habit a few years ago after I started thinking about nutrition and calcium and all those things that are supposed to matter to grown ups.

And yet, the taste of regular soy milk turns me off — I need some sort of added flavour to make it interesting.

Chocolate used to be my soy milk of choice, but I’ve been on a strawberry kick lately. My go-to brand is So Good, and I quite like it. But you know how it is. Sometimes, you get curious, and you want to try a couple of other brands, just to see how they stack up.

And so, here we go …

So Good Strawberry, 1.89 litres, $4.49 (sale price)

• It tastes like a strawberry milkshake, pure and simple. Sweet and milky.
• Lots of strawberry flavour.
• The least soy-milk-like of the three.
• The “freshest” tasting of the lot.
• My standard Strawberry soy milk of choice.
• Calories: 130 per 250 ml.

So Nice Strawberry, 1.89 litres, $4.49 (sale price)

• Made by the same people who make So Good (SoyaWorld Inc.), proof that you can make two competing products with a completely different spin on the same thing.
• While the So Good was like a strawberry milkshake, So Nice takes a more understated approach. More balance between soy and strawberry flavours.
• It tastes a whole lot more like soy milk than So Good.
• Less sweet than So Good.
• The strawberry flavour is more pronounced than in the Natur-a brand (see below).
• Tastes a lot like the other So Nice soy milks, FWIW.
• It’s not my favourite, but I like it. I’d happily buy it again.
• Calories: 110 per 250 ml.

Natur-a Strawberry, 0.946 litres, $1.99 (sale price)

• Doesn’t look like strawberry anything. It’s white, not pink.
• Not a strong strawberry flavour. Very subtle. Perhaps __too__ subtle.
• Soy milky. If you don’t like soy flavour, you won’t like this. There’s not enough strawberry taste to mask it.
• Chalky, like the aftertaste you get three minutes after chewing a Tums tablet.
• Doesn’t need to be refrigerated until opened.
• My least favourite of the three. Finishing the rest is going to be a challenge.
• Calories: 140 per 250 ml.

Fortifications: All very similarly fortified. The biggie for me is that all three have 30 per cent of the daily calcium value per 250 ml cup. Most of the nutrients are either at the same level, or are within a few percentage points.

The winner?: So Good Strawberry, hands down. Second place belongs to So Nice Strawberry, and Natur-a Strawberry comes in a distant third.