Lipidomics of coconut, almond and soybean milks – Detailed analysis of polar lipids and comparison with bovine milk

In this work, the lipidomic analysis on polar components of almond, coconut, and soy beverages was performed by liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry. A comparison with bovine milk was also performed. A total of 30 subclasses of polar lipids, belonging mainly to glycerophospholipids and sphingolipids, and a total of 572 molecular species were identified. Coconut showed various kinds of sphingolipids, belonging to hexosylceramides and sulfatides. Soy is particularly rich in molecular species of phospholipids. Fatty acids with chain length from 16 to 18 were the most common in almond. Numerous species of sphingomyelins were found in bovine milk, differently from plant-based beverages. Furthermore, a principal component analysis based on the polar lipid data was applied to discriminate samples, with 21 molecular species identified as biomarkers. This research opens interesting perspectives on vegetable beverages as bovine milk alternatives, especially in vegetarian and vegan diets.