8th Continent Light Vanilla Soy Milk Review

I never buy chocolate milk and rarely do I even use chocolate milk mix to make chocolate milk. In fact the only reason that I have it is because it was a gift. I usually only like to flavor my milk with something natural and something healthy, such as a piece of fruit that changes the flavor of milk and not necessary changes the flavor to be super sweet. This stems from the fact that I do not really care for sweets and have no desire to have sweet milk. Generally, my son and I drink soy milk and a while back I accidentally picked up a vanilla flavored one. I was not sure what to expect but hoped that since it was brand I liked we would enjoy it. So for that week my son and I drank 8th Continent Light Vanilla Soy Milk.

I figured since it was called light vanilla that it would not be overly sweet and I was used to the 8th Continent Original Flavor Soy Milk so I imagined that it would be somewhat close to that. The fact that it was light vanilla really showed through in its taste. The vanilla flavor was not dominating or overwhelming, which I particularly liked, however I thought that the vanilla flavoring tasted a bit artificial. This made me think that we would not be getting this particular soy milk again. However, I wanted to check the ingredients before I made that decision.

The ingredients of 8th Continent Light Vanilla Soy Milk were soy milk made of water, soy protein, soybean oil, and calcium phosphate, sugar, fructose, potassium citrate, sodium polyphosphate, dipotassium phosphate, soy lecithin, carrageenan, natural and artificial flavors, salt, xanthan gum, sucralose, riboflavin or vitamin B2, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D2, and vitamin B12. Sure enough there were artificial flavors. I was disappointed by this, if I can help I try to avoid artificial flavors as often as I can. I will admit that there was some appeal to the vanilla soy milk, but most of that was in its inexpensive price and nutrition facts and not its ingredients.

The nutrition facts for 8th Continent Light Vanilla Soy Milk looked pretty good. In one cup of the soy milk there was only 60 calories with 20 calories from fat. According to the company the light vanilla soy milk has 40% less calories than the regular vanilla soy milk they offer and 25% less calories than the leading light vanilla flavored soy milk. Also there was 110 milligrams of sodium, 390 milligrams of potassium, 5 grams of carbohydrates and sugars each, and 6 grams of protein in the soy milk. Finally, the minerals and vitamins section of the nutrition facts listed vitamin A with 10%, calcium with 30%, vitamin D with 25%, vitamin B12 with 15%, iron with 6% and riboflavin with 25%. Overall the nutrition facts were not that bad.

In the end I was fine with accidentally getting the 8th Continent Light Vanilla Soy Milk. The taste was not horrible and if nothing else it was a change. It actually made me think that I should keep an eye out for other vanilla soy milks and try them in the future if I could find ones with all natural ingredients. In the end this soy milk was pretty good, the soybeans in it were even grown in the USA and not genetically engineered, but the soy milk was not great. I do not suspect that we will be getting it again. I would only recommend it to someone who was indifferent to artificial flavoring because it generally is less expensive than other brands.