Skim Milk is good for you. Do you believe me?
I’ve seen it a couple of times now on social media where health bloggers and even a famous, healthy living personality have dissed skim milk, labelling it as highly processed, devoid of nutrients, not real food blah, blah, blah. And they took pride in saying they don’t drink milk anymore anyway!
Despite wanting to answer on those posts and give a different view explaining how skim milk is good for you, my response would be too long. So I’ll come over here and have a rant on my blog instead!
I’m taking a more sensible view, because the alarmist hating of certain foods is really stressing people out about what they can and can’t eat, and it’s time to just present facts and let people make up their own mind.
Having been critical of dairy in the past, and an avid low carber, back then I would have probably agreed with everything that was said, but not any more. My teeth, bones and general health suffered as a result of this bad advice, so time to set it straight.
First up though, I have to say that not all milk is created equal. Unless you have grass fed organic milk, you are not going to have the same nutritional benefits from a stressed out sick cow, fed PUFA laden grains. Also you have to watch any additives they put in there.
So for this exercise I’m talking about the grass fed highly nutritious kind.
So some of the points raised were as follows:-
The claim was – Skim Milk has more sugar in it
It’s time we stopped the demonisation of sugar. Eaten correctly with supporting nutrients, sugar it is a highly metabolic, stress reducing food. It’s just really, really powerful like an amplifier. So if the rest of your diet is crappy, it accelerates ill health. If your diet is awesome and you eat sugar according to your needs and support it with adequate nutrients – then it amplifies good health.
There is a reason all your cells use glucose for fuel when active. So those of us who understand this, are actually looking for great sugar sources with added nutrients and Skim Milk is a perfect one of those.
The claim was – Skim Milk is devoid of nutritional value
Seriously?
What about protein?
Aren’t you missing the carbs?
Missed the calcium too?
What about Vitamin D?
The claim was that the absence of fat breaks the absorption chain of Vitamin D and therefore Calcium. However Skim Milk still has some fat and other studies with no fat at all, say it may reduce Vitamin D absorption by 30% – so some is still getting through. So to say it has no nutritional value at all is false.
It is true that Vitamins A, E and K are lost because that is in the fat, however milk actually has very little Vitamin E anyway, and if you eat butter, then you have that covered. You just don’t need fat from everywhere!
So it really all depends why you are drinking milk, how much of it you are drinking and what you are hoping to get out of it.
Read on….
Claim – Skim Milk sugar content without fat to slow the absorption, may cause blood sugar issues like diabetes
Diabetes is an issue with sugar processing in the body. It is the result of a malfunctioning system. It’s likely cause is overabundance of PUFAs in the diet, which damage the cells ability to process sugar.
Sugar does not cause diabetes but compounds the issues once you have it.
And there’s still protein accompanying the sugar anyway. You don’t need lots of fat.
Claim – Skim Milk is a highly processed food
Skim Milk is made by a process of Centrifugal Separation – you know, spinning. Then the fat is removed from the top.
How is that highly processed?
If you want to draw attention to really unhealthy food practices, start with Poly Unsaturated Oils that are extracted chemically, then deodorised with more chemicals so you can’t smell the rancidity. That substance right there is unfit for human consumption.
Then how about using that oil to refry something 10 times over like they do in fast food places? Would you like fries with that?
Polyunsaturated oil is known to be a highly unstable substance especially when subjected to heat, light and air. Totally toxic right there and carcinogenic.
So spinning being labelled as ‘highly processed?’ Please!
Then one other general comment:
“Plus we all know by now that FAT doesn’t make you fat, an excess consumption of sugar makes you fat.”
I’m sorry, but that is plain wrong. If you eat an excess of fat, you will put on fat and weight.
Excess of anything is not good for you. Not protein, not water, not kale, not anything!
The combination of excess fat and excess sugar is particularly a dangerous combination but not because of the sugar necessarily, it’s because the fat damages cells and prevents the sugar from being processed in the body correctly.
There are plenty of people who eat tons of fruit and sugar and have no health or weight issues.
Anyway bottom line, there is nothing wrong with Skim Milk from grass fed sources.
I drink a litre* of Skim Milk a day for the protein and calcium benefits – if I drank that much in full cream milk, then my fat levels would be too high combined with the rest of my diet and I would put on weight. Simple as that. (*2021 Update: I still have dairy but not this much milk. Read this article as to why.)
I also don’t like the taste of full cream milk, as it tastes far too fatty for me and I feel nauseated. But everyone is different.
Kids for sure should be given full fat milk, as they need every bit of nutrition available to them, while they are growing and so active. But adults are different – usually not so active and not growing, so all that fat will be stored, if it is in excess in the diet.
It is actually far easier for the body to store excess fat as fat, than it is to convert sugar into fat then store it. (Read more on that here https://paleoleap.com/science-turning-carbs-to-fat-de-novo-lipogenesis/ )
So as you see, a little bit of over the top sensationalism and actually very wrong information thrown in, to basically say that removing the fat will remove some vitamins.
That doesn’t make it bad.
So with the correct information, make your food choices accordingly and drink whichever milk suits you! The one that I recommend is Organic Skim Milk Powder by Collagen X. These guys offer high quality collagen and gelatin but also offer a Certified Organic Skim Milk Powder on their ebay store here.
To your health.
Kristy x
For a full 7 day eating plan for a high metabolism and optimal health, grab a copy of the Zen Beach Diet.
