Thursday, June 9, 2011

FS: Milk (Nonfat verses 1%)

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This isn't your usual FS blog. Normally I just look simply at ingredients and nutrition but this one is a little more tricky. I don't have to worry about the ingredients since milk is basically all natural. Let's begin. I'm going to assume you are drinking nonfat milk since

1) Its the lowest in calories.
2) That is the typical "diet friendly" choice for milk.

I'm going to make the short argument for drinking milk with some fat so I will look at 1% milk. Let's compare the nutrition (this time from www.nutritiondata.com)

Simply looking at that chart, the two milks really aren't that different. 20 calories is not a huge difference and neither is 2g of fat. Also, for this blog, I decided to choose milk fortified with Vitamin A. I know a lot of milk has Vitamin D added too but I didn't want to assume that. Anyway! What's so special about the vitamins?

Both Vitamins A and D (along with E and K) are fat soluble. Basically, that means that they can dissolve in fat (verses water). Unless these vitamins are dissolved in a fatty liquid, they won't be absorbed properly by the intestines. What does that mean for you? Even though both 1% and nonfat milk contain 10% Vitamin A, you will absorb significantly less (or possibly none at all) by drinking the nonfat milk.

That is my plane and simple argument for drinking "milk with some fat". I buy 1% or 2%, whichever is convenient. The few extra calories aren't going to kill my daily calorie intake!

Some references (I know some are just websites but I tried to find ones that seemed reputable)
emoticon What kind of milk do you drink? Will you consider changing your choice now? emoticon

5 comments:

Debra said...

My daughter is going to be your biggest fan - she is only 14 - but she has been trying to convince me to buy 1% instead of Skim for quite some time now. I suppose now I have a reason to comply with her demands! :)

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, I'm going to stick without cow's milk. (It's not made for human consumption.) Have you looked into how they make milk into 1% or skim? :( You know me, I have to stick with vegan "mylk" which is almond milk or rice milk.

Cathleya said...

I've heard this argument many times over and I too believe it (even though we still drink nonfat in our household...ha! I'm such a hypocrite).

My question is: So clearly most of us get fat in our diets elsewhere, often when we're drinking milk. (Like, I eat eggs with my milk. Or a cookie. Or whatever.) Wouldn't that count towards aiding absorption of the vitamins? Are we just assuming that a person is drinking a straight glass of milk without eating something beside it that contains fat? Or do the vitamins actually have to be integrated into the liquid that you're drinking (in this case, milk) in order to be absorbed?

I don't expect you to have some sort of answer...it was just a question that popped up in my head. :)

Either way, many people have noted that nonfat milk has added thickeners and gross stuff like that to replace the fat that's missing, or sometimes simply added sugar to replace the fat, which isn't good at all. Not ALL nonfat milks, but some. I am definitely on board with the argument that 1% is better, though. Old habits are hard to break, especially when counting calories!

Unknown said...

Yes Cathleya! I agree with your points.
- Some people just like skim and that's fine! I just wanted to point it out to those people who think that skim is the only healthy choice that maybe it isn't!
- And that is a good question, I don't know if it has to be dissolve in the liquid prior or if you eat a fat with it, if it is able to bind in the stomach before absorption! I might have to research that!
- And I buy organic milk so no binders there! Just seemed liked cheating to compare ingredients for this FS blog! LOL

~Angela

Anonymous said...

I drink skim milk, but it defiantly made me think about tryin 1%

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