Why Whole Milk is Good For You!

Whole Milk!

I drink what I think of as whole milk. I find it nutricious, the most delicious (French!) addition to coffee, and good to cook with.

And, I am always investigating nutrition and learning more and more as I travel through life.

Today, I came upon several articles about milk. I thought I would list them here for your information too. I'd love to know what you think!

-bbffair

Below is an article I found at:
 http://www.care2.com/greenliving/why-whole-milk-is-the-healthiest-choice.html

" 
Why Whole Milk is the Healthiest Choice
posted by Megan, selected from Experience Life Aug 31, 2009 3:20 pm
filed under: basics, drinks, food & recipes, health & wellness, good fats, homogenization, whole milk

By Laine Bergeson, Experience Life

I drink whole milk and eat full-fat yogurt, cream cheese, and sour cream. Sure, full-fat dairy products taste better than the skim/fat-free versions, but I don’t eat them for the taste. I eat full-fat dairy because it’s better for my health and my weight.

Yep, you heard me right: I eat dairy products with all the fat god gave ‘em, and I do it because it’s good for me.

Here’s why:

1. Our bodies cannot digest the protein or absorb the calcium from milk without the fat.

2. Vitamins A and D are also fat-soluble. So you can’t absorb them from milk when all the fat has been skimmed off. (This makes fortified skim milk the biggest sham of all — you can pump fat-free milk full of a year’s supply of vitamins A and D, but the body can’t access them).

3. Milk fat contains glycosphingolipids, types of fats linked to immune system health and cell metabolism.

4. Contrary to popular belief, low-fat and fat-free diets do not help prevent heart disease (see my last blog post, and 16,290,610 members doing good!) Science has now revealed that the link between saturated fat (long villainized as a cause of heart disease) and heart disease is tenuous at best.

5. In fact, studies now show that eating saturated fat raises good cholesterol — the kind of cholesterol you want and need in your body.

6. The world’s healthiest foods are whole foods — foods that have not been processed. Why? The nutrients in whole foods have a natural synergy with one another — that is, they work best in and are most beneficial to the body when they are taken together (not when they are isolated in, say, beta-carotene supplements of Vitamin C capsules). So when you pull some or all of the fat out of milk, you throw its nutritional profile out of whack. Basically, you discard all of the health benefits when you discard the fat.

7. And last but definitely not least: healthy dietary fat will NOT make you fat. We’ve been taught for years that dietary fat is the root of all evil (again, see my last post). But we need healthy fat in our diet for proper body composition and long-term weight maintenance. The key factor here is knowing the difference between good fats and bad fats (for more on good and bad fats and the role healthy fat plays in weight maintenance, see Weight Loss Rules to Rethink).

A final note: When it comes to whole milk, you should also drink nonhomogenized when you can. Homogenization is “the technique of crushing milkfat globules into droplets too small to rise to the surface in a cream layer,” writes Anne Mendelson in Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages (Knopf, 2008).

Homogenization offered two big advantages to the dairy industry:

(1) the abolition of the “creamline,” as it’s called, made it possible to package milk in
more convenient [read: disposable] cardboard packaging instead of traditional glass bottles

and

(2) homogenizing made it possible for a commercial dairy to “calculate the amount of fat in incoming milk, completely remove it, and homogenize it back into milk in any desired proportion…In effect, ‘whole milk’ could now be whatever the industry said it was.”

To put it more bluntly: homogenized whole milk isn’t whole. The dairy-processing industry decided that whole milk should be milk with 3.25% fat (raw milk straight from the cow averages between 4 – 5.5% fat). That way, no matter what cow produced the milk, after homogenization all the milk would taste the same.

When you buy homogenized milk, you’re buying a whole food that isn’t whole — it’s had it’s fat removed, evened out, and injected back into it in an amount less than what appears in nature. So choose whole milk, skip homogenization, and enjoy!

[Experience Life magazine is an award-winning health and fitness
publication that aims to empower people to live their best, most authentic lives, and challenges the conventions of hype, gimmicks and superficiality in favor of a discerning, whole-person perspective.

Visit www.experiencelifemag.com to learn more and to sign up for the Experience Life newsletter.] "

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And here's a link to another article on milk by a nutritionist who argues that milk has many health benefits, helps build muscle, and may aid in weight loss:

"Does milk really do a body good?

A nutritionist investigates the claims about the beverage

Milk is good for building muscle — and may even lower your risk of both heart attack and stroke.

By Alan Aragon, M.S.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22349307/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/does-milk-really-do-body-good/ "

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But, to make things confusing, I have also found that there is much debate over whether "whole milk" (the kind that separates and you have to shake) and Vitamin D milk (all mixed nicely together) are really that much different.

I spoke with a friend who was formerly a dairy farmer today and asked him about it. He thinks the difference is negligible. He also said that many cows only put out about 3% milk fat in their milk and that other cows put out 4% and others 5% so that 3.25% is pretty average. He produced raw milk, but agreed, it has its risks if it isn't handled right. He thinks what we get at Kroger's is fine and healthy.

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Whole Foods Market posts this information:  http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/guides/dairy.php
in their "Guide to Dairy:"

" Milk: From Farm to Table

Although some folks drink raw milk, most of the milk we drink these days has been homogenized and pasteurized. Want to know more about what milk goes through before it hits your table?! Keep reading.
After cows are milked, their rich, fatty milk goes through a process called homogenization, which reduces the size of the fat globules present in milk and disperses them evenly instead of having a layer of cream on top. For skim or fat-free milk, part or all of the cream layer is removed before the milk is homogenized.
Pasteurization, named after the famous French scientist, Louis Pasteur, is a process that was widely adopted early in the last century to greatly reduce the amount of potentially harmful bacteria sometimes present in milk. There are two basic methods: HTST (high temperature/short time), the most common method, heats raw milk to 161°F for at least 15 seconds. UHT (ultra-high temperature) heats raw milk to 280°F for at least 2 seconds. Pasteurization affects the flavor of milk slightly.
The purpose of pasteurization is to make milk uniformly safe for human consumption and to improve the keeping quality of milk, thereby extending its shelf life. Some vitamins and nutrients are lost when milk is pasteurized. Among these are the enzymes lipase and lactase that aid in the digestion of fats and milk sugar (lactose), and vitamins C and B6.

The Raw Facts about Raw Milk

Because of its rich flavor, high vitamin content and digestive enzymes, raw milk has a devoted following in some areas where dairy farms supply it to the surrounding community. Take note, though, that raw milk by definition is unpasteurized and can be dangerous to consume if it is contaminated with harmful bacteria, causing serious illness or even death, especially in children or individuals with compromised immune systems.

Choosing Organic Milk

Cows that produce certified organic milk are not given antibiotics or added growth hormones. In addition to having access to the outdoors, cows on certified organic farms are fed 100% organic feed, so consequently they're not exposed to persistent pesticides, herbicides or fungicides, eliminating the possibility that these chemicals may turn up as residues in the milk. (Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs, including the use of cloned animals, are also prohibited by the Organic Standards.)"

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If anyone has any views or more information, please send it in.


In the meantime, I still love my regular (not fat reduced) milk. I worry about pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics. I like the safer route of pasteurization. And, so far anyway, I still like the way it is mixed together nicely.

But, like I said, I am always learning.


-bbffair