Are you familiar with fortified food products? This refers to products such as plant-based milks and yogurts, margarines, table salts, breads, cereals, muesli, juices, and plant-based meat and cheese alternatives that contain added nutrients.
Products fortified with added nutrients are recommended for vegans, as they provide many important nutrients like vitamin B12, vitamin D, and calcium.1-4. Plant-based dairy alternatives bring variety into a diet, and they also fit well into Finnish food culture. The most recommendable products contain no added sugar and are fortified with several nutrients: at least calcium, vitamin B2, vitamin B12, and vitamin D. Some oat milks are also fortified with iodine. However, you do not necessarily need to get iodine from fortified products if you take it as a regular supplement. Fortified soy milk products are often a smarter option than iodized oat milk products, as soy is higher in protein.
Vitamins are not added into organic products, but some organic plant milks are fortified with calcium. There are also non-organic products on the market that are not fortified. Particularly in the snack product category, some products are fortified, while others are not. For this reason, it is always important to check the packaging for information about added nutrients. It is recommended that vegans use fortified products as part of a balanced and varied diet, including the necessary supplements, to ensure adequate intake of essential nutrients.
Products and their availability
In Finland, the selection of fortified food products has been growing recently, and new products enter the market regularly. Fortified vegan products available in Finland include plant milks made from soy, rice, oats, almond, cashew, hazelnut and coconut. There are also plant-based yogurts, quarks, puddings, and sour creams made from soy or oats, as well as margarines and plant-based spreads fortified with vitamin A and vitamin D2. With plant milks, the added minerals and vitamins vary between products and manufacturers, but the most common ones are calcium, vitamins B2, B12 and D2, as well as iodine.
Plant-based milks, yogurts, and other similar products are available from many different manufacturers. You can check the selection of plant milks on the website Vegaanituotteet.net. The website also lists vegan margarines and vegetable oil based spreads.
More information about calcium, iodine, vitamin B2, vitamin B12 and vitamin D in the vegan diet.
Nutritional information
The nutritional contents of plant milks vary based on their ingredients and on whether they are fortified. The table below lists the energy-yielding nutrient contents of plant milks made from soy, oats, almonds, coconut and rice. Products chosen for the comparison are from the Alpro brand, as their selection included fortified plant milks made from all five ingredients, without added flavorings or sugar.
Table 1. Nutritional information for unflavored and unsweetened soy-, oat-, almond-, coconut- and rice milk5
| Nutritional information / 100 ml | Soy milk | Oat milk | Almond milk | Coconut drink | Rice milk |
| Energy, kcal | 33 | 40 | 15 | 14 | 47 |
| Carbohydrates, g of which sugars, g | 0,0 0,0 | 5,8 0,0 | 0,0 0,0 | 0,0 0,0 | 9,5 3,3 |
| Protein, g | 3,3 | 0,2 | 0,5 | 0,1 | 0,1 |
| Fat, g of which saturated, g | 1,8 0,3 | 1,5 0,2 | 1,1 0,1 | 1,2 1,1 | 1,0 0,1 |
| Dietary fiber, g | 0,6 | 1,2 | 0,3 | 0,0 | 0,0 |
Soy milk has the most protein out of all plant milks. It contains as much protein as cow milk. Other plant milks included in the comparison contain less than 0.5 grams of protein per deciliter. All of the compared plant milks contain at least one percent fat, but with the exception of the coconut drink, the fat they contain is healthy: they are low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fat. There is therefore no need to worry about the fat content of plant milks. Coconut-based products, on the other hand, contain higher amounts of saturated fat. Plant milks also contain small amounts of fiber, which is beneficial to health. The sugar in rice milk is sugar occurring naturally in rice, not added sugar.
Plant milks are used similarly to cow milk. Table 2 compares the nutritional contents of certain plant milks as well as cow milk.
Table 2. Comparison of plant milks and cow milk.
| Product / 100 g | Vitamin B12, µg | Vitamin D2, µg | Iodine, µg | Calcium, mg | Vitamin B2, mg | Folic acid, µg |
| Cow milk | 0,4 | 1,0 (D3) | 13,7 | 120 | 0,19 | 4,8* |
| Alpro soy milk fortified | 0,38 | 0,75 | – | 120 | 0,21 | – |
| Elovena oat milk | 0,38 | 0,75 | 22,5 | 120 | 0,21 | – |
| Fazer Aito oat milk | 0,38 | 1,0 | 16 | 120 | 0,21 | – |
| Fazer Aito oat milk ESL | 0,4 | 1,0 | 16 | 120 | 0,21 | 30 |
| Kotimaista oat milk | 0,38 | 1,0 | 22,5 | 120 | 0,21 | – |
| Oatly oat milk | 0,24 | 1,1 | 22,5 | 120 | 0,21 | – |
| Oattis oat milk | 0,4 | 1,0 | – | 120 | 0,21 | 30 |
| Oddlygood oat milk | 0,4 | 1,0 | 22,5 | 120 | 0,21 | – |
| Pirkka UHT oat milk | 0,38 | 1,0 | – | 120 | 0,21 | – |
| Pirkka ESL oat milk | 0,4 | 1,0 | 16 | 120 | 0,21 | 30 |
*Amount of folate. Folic acid is the synthetic form of folate. Folate and folic acid function similarly in the body7.
The nutritional contents of fortified soy milk are very close to those of fat-free cow milk: it contains similar amounts of calcium, vitamin B2, vitamin B12 and vitamin D. The vitamin D in cow milk is added during production, not naturally occurring. The vitamin D added into plant milks is usually vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol), which is derived from plant-based sources and is suitable for vegans8. Soy milks are not fortified with iodine, unlike many oat milks.
The non-fortified soy milk is equivalent to the fortified option when it comes to energy-yielding nutrients, but the calcium and vitamin contents are very different. Vegans should therefore favor food products which are fortified with a range of nutrients. According to Finnish national nutritional recommendations which are targeted at the whole population, liquid dairy products (e.g. milk, yogurt, buttermilk) can be replaced with fortified plant-based options, such as soy milk or oat milk2.
According to Finnish law, plant milks cannot be sold or marketed as milk, which is why advertisements and packaging often use the word “drink” (Fin. “juoma”). However, in general parlance, such as in the news, established terms like plant milk and plant cream can be used9.
Research is currently being conducted into fortifying plant-based proteins and breads with vitamin B12 as part of a drive to find solutions to ensure adequate intake of essential nutrients for vegans and others following special diets. For example, fermentation has been successfully used to enrich bread with significant quantities of active vitamin B12, which would fulfill daily vitamin B12 needs10. For the time being, the development of this technology is still slow, and the manufacturing process is challenging, which delays these products’ entry into the market.