Most commercial almond milk is classified as an ultra-processed food. A study examining plant-based beverages in the USDA Branded Food Products Database found that 95% of almond milks met the criteria for ultra-processed under the NOVA classification system, the most widely used framework for categorizing food by processing level. This is true even for unsweetened varieties.
What Makes a Food “Ultra-Processed”
The NOVA system divides all food into four groups: unprocessed or minimally processed foods, processed culinary ingredients (like oils and butter), processed foods (like canned vegetables or cheese), and ultra-processed foods. The ultra-processed category doesn’t just mean “heavily manufactured.” It specifically refers to formulations made largely from food-derived substances and additives, typically containing five or more ingredients, many of which you wouldn’t find in a home kitchen.
What pushes a product into the ultra-processed group isn’t any single step like pasteurization or blending. It’s the combination of industrial ingredients: emulsifiers, stabilizers, thickeners, flavor enhancers, and other additives designed to create a product that looks, feels, and tastes like something it isn’t. By that measure, almond milk checks several boxes.
What’s Actually in Commercial Almond Milk
A carton of almond milk from the store contains far more than almonds and water. The typical ingredient list includes several categories of additives that serve different purposes.
- Gums and stabilizers keep the liquid from separating. These include locust bean gum, xanthan gum, gellan gum, and cellulose gum.
- Thickeners and emulsifiers create a texture closer to cow’s milk. Carrageenan, sunflower lecithin, tapioca starch, and added oils (canola, sunflower, or rapeseed) are common choices.
- Anti-caking agents like calcium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate prevent clumping.
- Preservatives such as ascorbic acid and potassium citrate extend shelf life.
- Fortification additives like synthetic vitamins D and B12 round out the ingredient list.
Each of these additives has a functional purpose, but collectively they’re exactly the kind of industrial ingredients the NOVA system flags. Even the fortification counts. Nutritionists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison note that fortified soy milk is classified as ultra-processed, and the same logic applies to almond milk. Those added vitamins and minerals result in a long ingredient list with names most people wouldn’t recognize.
How Commercial Almond Milk Is Made
The manufacturing process itself is industrial in scale and technique. Almonds are ground into a powder, dispersed in water, then heated to around 90°C to help the compounds dissolve. A stabilizing hydrocolloid (a type of gum) is mixed in at this stage. The mixture then goes through a colloid mill for fine grinding in liquid form, followed by centrifugal clarification that spins out any particles larger than 50 micrometers, roughly the smallest grain your tongue could detect.
After that, the liquid is sterilized using ultra-high temperature (UHT) treatment, then forced through a pressurized homogenizer at 180 bar to break down remaining particles even further. The whole thing is packaged aseptically to remain shelf-stable for months. Compare that to making almond milk at home, where you soak almonds, blend them with water, and strain through a cloth. The gap between those two processes is enormous.
Does “Unsweetened” Change Anything?
Choosing unsweetened almond milk removes added sugars from the equation, but it doesn’t change the ultra-processed classification. The sugar was never the main issue. Plant-based milks earn the label because of their preservatives, oils, emulsifiers, and stabilizers, not just sweeteners. An unsweetened almond milk with gellan gum, sunflower lecithin, and added vitamins is still ultra-processed by NOVA standards.
A BMJ Nutrition study analyzing data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey explicitly lists dairy substitutes like almond milk, coconut milk, rice drinks, and soy milk under Group 4 (ultra-processed foods), with no distinction made between sweetened and unsweetened versions.
Do the Additives Matter for Health?
This is where it gets more nuanced. The FDA considers common almond milk additives like carrageenan to be safe for human consumption under its “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) designation. But that designation only requires that a substance isn’t toxic or cancer-causing. It doesn’t account for subtler effects like inflammation.
Research on mice and human gut cell models suggests that emulsifiers like carrageenan can alter gut bacteria and trigger low-grade inflammation. In animal studies, carrageenan exposure produced changes in the digestive tract resembling those seen in people with inflammatory bowel diseases, including ulcerative colitis. Emulsifier-induced inflammation in these studies was also linked to disrupted blood sugar metabolism and increased food intake, with some mice eating twice as much as control groups. Some researchers have suggested these additives could be partly responsible for rising rates of inflammatory bowel disease and metabolic syndrome over the past several decades.
It’s worth noting that these findings come primarily from animal studies, and food-grade carrageenan behaves differently from the degraded form historically used to induce inflammation in lab settings. Still, the evidence is enough that many consumers prefer to avoid these ingredients when possible.
How to Find Less-Processed Options
If you want almond milk without the ultra-processed label, your best bet is making it yourself. Homemade almond milk is just almonds, water, and maybe a pinch of salt. It lacks the gums, emulsifiers, and preservatives that define the commercial version, which also means it separates faster and lasts only a few days in the fridge.
If homemade isn’t practical, look for organic or “clean label” brands that contain only almonds and water, with no added stabilizers, oils, or thickeners. These products do exist, though they’re a small minority. In the USDA database analysis, only about 5% of almond milks avoided the ultra-processed classification. The shorter the ingredient list, the better. If the label reads “almonds, water, salt” and nothing else, you’re in the clear. The moment you see gellan gum, sunflower lecithin, or “natural flavors,” the product falls back into ultra-processed territory.
One tradeoff to consider: the less-processed versions typically skip fortification too, meaning you won’t get the added calcium, vitamin D, or B12 that many people rely on plant milks to provide. If those nutrients matter to your diet, you may need to get them elsewhere.