
The case for drinking whole milk - prostoalex
http://qz.com/405498/the-case-for-drinking-whole-milk/
======
the_chef
The credibility of all nutrition recommendations/research has been shot to
hell by decades of flip-flopping. Trans-fats are safe! No wait, they really
aren't, so forget that they were in pervasive use for 25+ years. Don't eat
cholesterol! No, forget about that. Coffee is healthy! No it's unhealthy! No
healthy! Unhealthy!

There's no way to trust any of this. Whatever decisions are made now I expect
to read about the benefits of the opposite decision in ten years.

~~~
ra1n85
Agreed. The most glaring example of this was the low-fat guidance given during
the 80's and 90's in the US. Sugar and high glycemic index carbohydrates were
hardly discussed.

~~~
jp555
So true although a little ironic that you mention glycemic index, which is a
VERY minor issue. Beef spikes insulin more than white rice.

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will_brown
>Surprise! Dairy fat actually helps avoid obesity

I think the study over looks the most likely physiological reasoning for this,
primarily suggesting it is a matter of satiety (feeling fuller consuming
less). People like to hinge on the concept of calories in/calories out, then
highlight short term diets of ice cream and Twinkies where people still lose
weight because of the caloric intake management. Notwithstanding temporary
loses due to reduced calories, such diets do prime one for obesity. On the
other-hand diets high in protein and fat (good fats: like almonds, chicken
skin, red meats, ect...) do prime one to _avoid_ obesity.

Each body and metabolism is different. However, the rule of thumb is that
sugars (Twinkies and ice cream) release insulin which enlarges things in the
body including tumors and in this case fat cells which does prime a body for
obesity even if one is not currently obese. But healthy fats will trigger the
release of glucagon which has the opposite effect of insulin resulting in
smaller fat cells which does help in avoiding obesity.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
Satiety is everything. The reason overweight individuals have a tough time is
that they are not satieted by carb laden foods and thus crave more. Many have
broken that cycle with ketogenic diets which are higher in fat.

~~~
yest
Satiety is nothing. The reason overweight individuals have a tough time is
that they are VERY satieted by carb foods but because the brain produce
Dopamine they crave it and can't stop. Fat people = addicted to Dopamine. They
will eat cookies, sandwiches and other simple carbs every day and between
meals.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381335/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381335/)

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/processed-carbohydrates-are-
addi...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/processed-carbohydrates-are-addictive-
brain-study-suggests/)

~~~
jrs235
Satiety is more than nothing yet less than everything. Are you equating
satiety to feeling satisfied (as in happy)? Because satiety doesn't mean that.
It means feeling full. Most obese people I know rarely ever feel satiety. Most
feel hungry all the time (because they don't have satiety). When most people
feel full and continue eating food which leads to feeling engorged, they stop
eating because they soon feel miserable. Sugars and carbs usually don't lead
to satiety, fats tend to.

~~~
yest
craving != hunger

Addiction to carbs has the same mechanism as addiction to cocaine

~~~
jrs235
I agree craving != hunger.

"The reason overweight individuals have a tough time is that they are VERY
satieted by carb foods"

Satiety has little to with cravings. It has to do with hunger.

Regardless, I guess we are both in the "wrong" to assume whether particular
individuals are truly satieted by carb foods or not. And I think we can both
agree that it's best to avoid large amounts of simple carbs.

~~~
yest
it is best to avoid all simple carbs or may be even carbs at all. The reason
people eat carbs is to hack the brain and get high on dopamines. I salivate
when I think about a sandwich or a cookie or even a banana. I could eat them
any time of day before. How can a fatso be hungry couple of hours after a
meal? No way. The craving kicks in and he goes to a fridge and searches for a
snack, and it won't be a broccoli

------
kalleboo
I'm never really satisfied when people quote these studies that just observed
what people drank and concluded "skim milk makes you obese!" when it seems
obvious the causation makes just as much sense the other way around - people
who are overweight switch to skim milk as a way to cut calories from their
diet.

------
soggypopsicle
A case for not drinking any milk:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk#Criticism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk#Criticism)

~~~
jmnicolas
A doctor once told me : cow milk is for calf, look how quickly they add mass.

~~~
dorfsmay
Should we also stop eating green vegetables?

Passed six months, cows only consume grass, and look how quickly they add
mass.

~~~
njharman
I'm impressed by your ability to leap logical canyons.

As you point out. Milk is for baby animals. Cow milk is for cows. Adult humans
are neither babies nor cows.

Green vegetables are for all omni/herbivores.

~~~
dorfsmay
I wasn't trying to argue the pros and cons of milk and dairy consumption, I
was trying to ridicule the argument that fast growth of new born mamals is due
to milk consumption and your how the doctor arrived to that conclusion.

New borns are "programmed" to grow fast. They do need energy to allow this
growth, but consumption of milk is not the reason. There are a lot of baby
humans who are dairy intolerant, they are fed with non-dairy replacements, and
surprise, they grow at the same rate as other babies.

------
jqm
Strongest case point for drinking whole milk (in my opinion)? It tastes a lot
better.

~~~
noisy_boy
Food habits during the growing years also contribute to the perception of
taste. I had whole milk while growing up and I still prefer that. One of my
friends grew up on the low-fat variety and likes it that way; he even tried
whole on my recommendation and went back to low-fat because, "it didn't taste
good".

~~~
pistle
I grew up with whole milk, weened myself to skim (and came to NOT like the
heft of whole or 2%), then essentially stopped milk altogether. With kids,
milk was brought back into the fridge (whole). Now, I prefer whole (certain
premium organic brands are just other-worldly), but it only goes into recipes
and the occasional bowl of cereal (like a dessert of fat and sugar).

Most things in moderation and you can focus on the pleasure aspect vs. the
health. Whole has more pleasure to it.

If you're going to drink from the bosom of a cow, might as well go fully
creepy.

------
brenfrow
Why do they have to knock bacon in this discussion to bring milk up? A big
part of all of this is just to consume less sugar and carbs. I eat bacon,
eggs, and vegetables all the time for breakfast and my blood work couldn't be
better from my bagel/cereal/oatmeal days. Go eat more bacon too:
[http://authoritynutrition.com/is-bacon-bad-or-
good/](http://authoritynutrition.com/is-bacon-bad-or-good/)

------
blfr
_All milk sold (legally) in the US is processed, because it must undergo
pasteurization, a heating process that kills pathogens. Outside of a small
group of raw milk activists, this is generally accepted as a positive._

I have been drinking raw milk (just cooled) for over two years now. It's sold
here (in Poland but also in Eastern Europe in general) from free-standing
machines[1].

It's ~4% fat, slightly more expensive but much tastier. Doesn't keep as well
as one sold in a box but you can still drink it with curd on top.

I haven't heard of any epidemics.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/7MhxOuZ.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/7MhxOuZ.jpg)

~~~
PhantomGremlin
You can't have an "epidemic" from drinking raw milk, since it's not a
contagious disease.

However, two of my daughter's classmates were hospitalized just a few years
ago from drinking raw milk. It was touch and go for a while, but they
recovered and didn't need kidney transplants.
[http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2012/04/raw_milk_...](http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2012/04/raw_milk_from_wilsonville_farm.html)

~~~
eurleif
>You can't have an "epidemic" from drinking raw milk, since it's not a
contagious disease.

Is that really a requirement? Wikipedia says "infectious disease", and, for
example, here's a study that refers to an "epidemic" of foodborne illness:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7727673](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7727673)

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Interesting. I didn't appreciate that the word "epidemic" has such a broad use
(from Wikipedia):

    
    
       An epidemic disease is not required to be
       contagious, and the term has been applied
       to West Nile fever and the obesity epidemic,
       among others.
    

The E. coli O157:H7 the girls acquired was foodborne. We don't routinely
practice cannibalism in this state, so there was no danger of the outbreak
continuing to spread once the farm in question stopped distributing raw milk.

------
arclyte
If you're drinking whole milk, you're getting a mix of fat and sugar. If
you're drinking skim milk, you've removed the fat and kept the sugar. Skim
milk's popularity is a result of the low-fat fad (perpetuated by the US
government and others) which made everyone scared to eat anything with fat in
it. But the fat is actually the good part of milk, so if you don't want the
milk fat you're better off picking another drink entirely - like almond milk.

~~~
bhayden
Some people want to drink milk but they don't want nearly twice the calories
of whole over skim. It's fine in moderation, like anything else.

------
DeBraid
65,000+ different animals on Earth weened on their mothers milk, only 1
continues to consumes milk outside of infancy (and from another animal
altogether!)...

Majority of adults should avoid dairy products, would be order of magnitude
more healthy if calories were replaced with green vegetables.

~~~
leonth
But among those 65000+ animals, only one has successfully increased its
average lifespan significantly in the past 1000+ years. Chief reasons being
advancements in sanitation, medicine, and overall diet quality. So "going back
to nature" cannot be naively taken as always good.

------
atul_wired
I find this article funny.

>Though it would seem to follow that consuming less fat would lead to being
less fat, that’s not quite what the science says, at least when it comes to
dairy—even if whole milk is more caloric than skim.

It mentions about some scientific reason for it but then talks about bunch of
high level case studies and that's all.

On a side note, I find most of these case studies a scam, where they
exaggerate and manipulate numbers to make it sound scary or utterly
interesting for reader's attention.

------
esolyt
> All milk sold (legally) in the US is processed, because it must undergo
> pasteurization

So it's a choice between "processed milk" and "slightly more processed milk".
I suggest making your decision based on calories instead of the amount of
processing. Whole milk has almost twice the amount calories compared to skim
milk.

------
leoc
One more little wrinkle: I don't think I can recall ever seeing semi-skimmed
milk priced at a discount to whole milk at retail. Someone's got themselves a
nice little earner selling off that removed dairy fat.

~~~
kps
Whole milk is usually 10% – 15% more expensive where I live, though the lower-
fat varieties are all priced the same.

People in the Natural Golden Age™ didn't generally drink whole milk, either —
they skimmed the cream off to use separately.

~~~
leoc
> Whole milk is usually 10% – 15% more expensive where I live, though the
> lower-fat varieties are all priced the same.

Interesting. That's not the case in the UK
[http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=254656543](http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=254656543)
[http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=254656399](http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=254656399)
or Ireland
[http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=250005508](http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=250005508)
[http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=250005606](http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=250005606)
.

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MindTooth
Would not really be surprised if new research leads us to rethink the last few
decades of "research". One might wonder what has really caused the obesity
epidemic.

I personally prefer milk straight from the tank. Cold and non-processed :-)

~~~
kaffeemitsahne
I drink milk straight from the cow, get on my level.

~~~
spacemanmatt
It's dirty (literally) down there.

------
thespace12
Calories in < calories burned == healthy hacker

~~~
rimantas
Or just thin hacker.

~~~
kaybe
Or even dead hacker if kept up long enough.

I also like me some moderate energy reserves; it improves almost keeling over
from low blood sugar when forgetting to eat or no food is available for a few
hours tremendously.

