Joke: How do you dramatically increase sales of a new or unpopular food product to the American public?
Answer: Call it a health food!
This joke, while funny, is also very sad as it illustrates with humor what common sense, logic, observation, and facts cannot for the vast majority of Westerners. Time and time again, Americans are completely duped by the clever marketing of a food product, falling all over themselves to buy it just because it has been touted in the media and by their (equally duped) doctors as a food that will improve their health.
Don’t believe it? How about margarine? Americans, in the span of just a few short years after World War II, all but completely shunned butter and this behavior pattern continued for decades because saturated fat was supposedly the demon of heart disease. See my blog which explains the truth about butter. Americans are finally waking up to the fact that butter is a wonderful, truly natural healthfood and it is margarine that ironically causes heart disease!
What about soy? This is another supposed “health food” that has been proven to do nothing but cause an epidemic of hypothyroidism is the Western world (you know the symptoms: overweight, losing your hair, depressed, tired all the time). Soy in Asia, as it has been consumed for thousands of years, is always fermented for long periods of time before it can be safely consumed – and even then – in very small quantities! The modern processing of soy which involves grinding up the leftover soy protein, the waste product in the production of soy oil, and putting it in all manner of food products which line our grocery store shelves makes for a dangerous and health robbing line of consumer goods.
I also blogged recently about the latest healthfood scam: agave nectar. Here again is an example of a new food that was marketed using the “health food” label. This approach to selling to the American people is obviously working as these products are readily available in most health food stores despite the fact that this product has a more deadly concentration of fructose than the high fructose corn syrup in soda!
Now, On to Skim Milk!
Hopefully, you are now convinced that labeling an item as a “health food” is a frequently used approach for selling something to the American public. Skim milk falls into this same category.
Prior to World War II, Americans didn’t ever drink skim or lowfat milk. Drinking such a product to stay “thin and healthy” would have been laughable. Americans would only drink whole milk. In fact, the larger the creamline on their milk, the higher quality the milk, and the more likely the consumer was to buy it. Milk wasn’t homogenized in those days, so a consumer could easily see the distinct creamline on the milk to determine quality.
Cream has been considered a true health food for centuries. In Ancient Greece, Olympic athletes drank a bowlful of cream to give them strength and endurance before competition. Why? Because cream steadies blood sugar for an extended period of time. No ups and downs in insulin when your diet has lots of wonderful saturated fat in it. It is only when you eat lowfat that blood sugar issues such as diabetes and hypoglycemia tend to arise.
So, how did skim milk come to be recognized as a healthfood in America? It all ties back to the demonization of saturated fats that began shortly after World War II. Americans started to abandon butter and cream in droves about this time because studies had apparently shown that saturated fat was linked to the growing number of heart disease cases in America. Never mind that atherosclerosis (clogged arteries) was virtually unknown prior to the mid 1920′s when Americans drowned everything in cream and butter. Logic and observation clearly indicated that saturated fat could not possibly be the cause of heart disease – it was obviously something new that had been introduced into the American diet. Of course, this “something” is partially hydrogenated fats which were introduced around 1921 (Enter Crisco. Bingo! First heart attack in 1927). These factory fats are primarily responsible for the epidemic of heart disease yet saturated fats took the fall anyway.
With Americans abandoning whole milk due to its high saturated fat content, skim milk was touted as the new heart healthy food. Americans bought the scam hook, line, and sinker. Skim milk was the new king of the dairy aisle. This behavior pattern has continued for decades despite the average American getting fatter and fatter and the cases of heart disease showing no signs of abating.
In the 1990′s with the beginnings of the childhood obesity epidemic, doctors even started to encourage parents to switch their children to skim or lowfat milk around age 2. This foolish recommendation has done nothing but make kids fatter.
How does drinking skim milk make kids (and adults) fatter? This apparent paradox occurs when you reduce the saturated fat in a person’s diet and he/she turns to carbs (grains and sugars primarily) to fill in the gap. It is the grains and sugars that truly make you fat, not saturated fat. I’ve said before on this blog that the more butter and cream I eat, the easier it is to maintain my weight. MUCH easier. The same goes for all of us. If you drink skim milk, you will be missing out on the satiating, blood sugar and insulin steadying affects of saturated fat, so your body will automatically give you sugar and carb (grains) cravings to make up for it. The body is able to MAKE saturated fat out of sugars, hence the sugar cravings that are impossible to control when you eat a lowfat diet that includes skim milk.
Try it! Increase your consumption of butter, whole milk yogurt and whole milk cheese for a few days and watch your sugar cravings rapidly diminish!
Another big secret is that Big Dairy adds skim milk powder to skim milk. Here’s an excerpt from “Dirty Secrets of the Food Processing Industry” from the Weston A. Price Website:
A note on the production of skim milk powder: liquid milk is forced through a tiny hole at high pressure, and then blown out into the air. This causes a lot of nitrates to form and the cholesterol in the milk is oxidized. Those of you who are familiar with my work know that cholesterol is your best friend; you don’t have to worry about natural cholesterol in your food; however, you do not want to eat oxidized cholesterol. Oxidized cholesterol contributes to the buildup of plaque in the arteries, to atherosclerosis. So when you drink reduced-fat milk thinking that it will help you avoid heart disease, you are actually consuming oxidized cholesterol, which initiates the process of heart disease.
One parting fact: pig farmers love feeding skim milk to their pigs. Why? It makes them REALLY fat! Still want to drink your skim milk? I hope not.
Still confused about fat? Please see my Resources page for where to buy healthy fats and oils.
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist.com
|
|
{ 152 comments… read them below or add one }
If you have had your gall bladder out and simply cannot drink whole milk due to an inability to digest fats, make sure you get raw skim milk from a local dairy farm which will not have any oxidized cholesterol added in the form of skim milk powder.
Sounds like you are swallowing what medical doctors are telling you to me. When you alter something from it’s original state you are bound to have problems. If you were unable to digest fats you would be dead there are fats in all animal products no matter how they have been altered. I would see what a real doctor, such as Dr. Mercola has to say about what you can and can not eat now.
For anyone reading this for the first time, be sure to see the latest group of studies proving again that low-fat and non-fat milk makes you fat but whole does not:
http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/new-study-lowfat-and-skim-milk-drinking-kids-are-fattest/
Hi Sarah, I had my gall bladder removed after pregnancy at age 25 because of a LACK of fats
Anyway, my question… I know it would take a lot of note taking, but is there anyway that you write up a week's worth (or several days) of your diet? I know that it would vary from week to week but I think it would provide a lot of insight and inspiration to your readers.
Hi Meagan, yes, the gallbladder can kind of shrivel away if it isn't used from years of lowfat eating. Folks who are waking up to the insanity of lowfat diet have to frequently go slow with increasing the saturated fat so as to give the gall bladder time to adjust.
I may be able to post my diet at some point, not sure if I can squeeze in writing a food journal in addition to my other duties at the moment. Will keep that in mind though, as it is really a great idea. In the meantime, I know that there is an article on the WAPF website that details what each of the WAPF Board Members ate individually for 3 straight days. I did a quick look and couldn't find it right away, but I know it is there somewhere (www.westonaprice.org)
Hi Sarah,
While I found your blog entry interesting, I did find an error that I want to correct so your readers are not misinformed.
You stated that "The body is able to MAKE saturated fat out of sugars, hence the sugar cravings that are impossible to control when you eat a lowfat diet that includes skim milk." This statement is not 100% correct. From a biochemical perspective, the body does not EVER make saturated fats from the foods we ingest, because if this were true we would all be at risk (or have) heart disease! The human body DOES create fats, in the form of TRIGLYCERIDES, when we overconsume foods in the form of carbohydrates.
Christine Watson, RD, LDN
Registered Dietitian/Owner
Compassionate Nutritionist, LLC
http://CompassionateNutritionist.com
“From a biochemical perspective, the body does not EVER make saturated fats from the foods we ingest, because if this were true we would all be at risk (or have) heart disease!”
What biochemical perspective would that be, Christine? What evidence do you have that saturated fat causes heart disease? Better make sure it’s really good evidence and that it’s actually pointing to the saturated fat and not possibly to other, confounding elements of the person’s diet such as an over-reliance on refined carbohydrates.
And yes, the body does make triglycerides. But if you’re making them from carbohydrates rather than simply breaking down fats you eat, that means your insulin is also elevated, which means those triglycerides are going to go straight to your fat cells. And, well, last I checked? The fat in my fat cells is pretty darned saturated.
I think it’s interesting, since putting more saturated fat into my diet, that fats and animal fats in particular almost taste sweet. It makes me wonder if we get sugar cravings when there’s not enough fat because our bodies are begging us to eat more fat and the sugar is the closest approximation to fat-flavor that we’d get. No idea, just a guess.
I had doubts about this article when i read it. Your giving people false information. First of all you said “No ups and downs in insulin when your diet has lots of wonderful saturated fat in it.” This is a big lie! Saturated fats make inslulin levels go down which causes diabetes. Skim milk still has sugar in it so you won’t gey low blood sugar from skim milk. You said ” Olympic athletes drank a bowlful of cream to give them strength and endurance before competition. Why? Because cream steadies blood sugar for an extended period of time.” Big lie again! Blood sugar has nothing to do with strength or endurance…Olypmpic athletes drank a bowlful of cream because of the all the carbs it has in it. Carbs are the bodys main source of energy: sugar on the other hand gives you a light burst of energy then a crush feeling. Its actually really simple the fat you eat gets stored in your fat cells THATS making you fat. Carbs dont make you fat. Carbs are used as energy and has many other very useful functions. Unused Carbs are turned in to FAT and stored in the body. This whole article is a big fat lie! Reducing the amount of fat in your diet (changing to skim milk) will help you lose weight. Simply FATS make you FAT! And pigs are not fat they are large animals. Farmers are paid for the leanness of the pork that is produced from their pigs, and therefore feed them an optimum diet to produce meat, not fat. High fat content pork can actually be rejected by the butcher or factory, and deducted from the income that the farmer receives. Thats why farmers feed pigs skim milk. If you believe this your as ignornant as the person who wrote this article.
lol! wow.. you are so so wrong dear.. and how many carbs are in milk fat??
Keisha it’s clear you are not well educated in this matter.
1. Insulin does not simply ‘drop’ when you consume fat. Insulin is released when blood glucose increases. Fat stabilises blood glucose and therefore insulin spikes do not occur. When you consume a meal high in sugar (including ‘carbs’- which break down to sugar), insulin is released. It is in fact this repeated biochemical pathway that can lead to insulin resistance ie Type 2 Diabetes, NOT consuming FAT. In fact having some good fat with your meal will actually prevent repeated insulin spikes.
2. Do you really think blood sugar has nothing to do with strength and endurance?! What happens if someone’s blood sugar is too low? Lethargy, weakness in arm and leg muscles are just two documented examples… As Sarah has explained cream has been beneficial to athletes because all the fat helps stabilise blood sugar, preventing the above symptoms..
Lastly Keisha, have you not seen bacon before…? I wouldn’t consider this as ‘lean meat’ as you have described it.
I don’t want to come off rude, but you’re wrong on so many levels.
Cream has no carbs in it…
Coffee cream has 1 carb for each 1.5 grams of fat.
Heavy cream has 1 carb per tbsp.
Cream certainly has carbs, its the presence of the FAT that prevents the carbs from spiking blood glucose. Even 3.25% full fat milk spikes blood sugar a far bit less than skim simply due to the presence of fat.
Ohhhhh Keisha… you need to do some serious investigating on your own, don’t just believe what your spoon fed by you mainstream education.
You need to get biochemistry lessons to know what you are talking about. Insulin is not needed to get your trigs to go into the cell! My biochem prof would freak out if she reads your post. Although, i do agree that as long as you eat within your alloted caloric requirement per day then a few sat fats will not matter. Balanced meal is the key. If you eat a fatty meal (fried) low fat milk can balance it out. Veggies, fruits, carbs, protein, fat. We need it all.
The fat that is accumulate in your body it is saturated fat, all mammals accumulate saturated fat in his body and we humans are mammals.
When you are overweigth and start a diet, with a caloric deficit and with low fat foods, you still are consuming a lot of saturated fat, since your body under a caloric deficit enter in starvation mode and start releasing saturated fat to feed your basic body funtions, this really make sense and logic and is very well explained by Richard Nicoley here http://freetheanimal.com/2008/12/all-diets-are-high-fat-diets.html
From a biochemical perspective? Go back and take biochemistry again. See lipogenesis. All forms of energy in the body are essentially interchangeable (fats/sugars/proteins) with a few exceptions (for example, we don’t synthesize some amino acids; we must obtain them through diet) and are regulated by supply and demand systems mitigated by enzyme kinetics and substrate concentrations.
Hi Christine, thanks so much for commenting. I appreciate your input very much. My statement was made for the lay reader to understand, not a biochemist …. The basic idea is that if you don't get enough saturated fat in your diet, you will crave sugar/refined carbs so that your body has the basic building materials to synthesize saturated fats. Obviously, there are a number of intervening steps, the first one being digestion.
I had doubts about this article when i read it. Your giving people false information. First of all you said “No ups and downs in insulin when your diet has lots of wonderful saturated fat in it.” This is a big lie! Saturated fats make inslulin levels go down which causes diabetes. Skim milk still has sugar in it so you won’t gey low blood sugar from skim milk. You said ” Olympic athletes drank a bowlful of cream to give them strength and endurance before competition. Why? Because cream steadies blood sugar for an extended period of time.” Big lie again! Blood sugar has nothing to do with strength or endurance…Olypmpic athletes drank a bowlful of cream because of the all the carbs it has in it. Carbs are the bodys main source of energy: sugar on the other hand gives you a light burst of energy then a crush feeling. Its actually really simple the fat you eat gets stored in your fat cells THATS making you fat. Carbs dont make you fat. Carbs are used as energy and has many other very useful functions. Unused Carbs are turned in to FAT and stored in the body. This whole article is a big fat lie! Reducing the amount of fat in your diet (changing to skim milk) will help you lose weight. Simply FATS make you FAT! And pigs are not fat they are large animals. Farmers are paid for the leanness of the pork that is produced from their pigs, and therefore feed them an optimum diet to produce meat, not fat. High fat content pork can actually be rejected by the butcher or factory, and deducted from the income that the farmer receives. Thats why farmers feed pigs skim milk. Your whole article is WRONG! Dont go around calling your self and Economist if you dont know this simple stuff!
Kiesha, please expand upon your thesis that skim milk is good for you? Please provide as others including the author documentation that your theory is correct. Are you a factory dairy garner perhaps? Please explain why it is that statistics of diseases and obesity have fine nothing but sky rocket since the end of WWII when such things add low fat diets, fake sugars, fake fats, vegetable fats, etc have become the norm. Why is it that people returning to REAL FOOD diets are experiencing better over all health, than those eating processed low fat, low car, low everything diets? I suppose you ieve that aspartame/Nutrisweet is “GOOD” for you as well? Pull your head from the dark place its currently in please!
Please… Pardon the typos. Darn small phone, big fingers.
Cream has almost no carbohydrates. Look on the back of the container sometime. It is mostly saturated fat. It is an emulsion, which is partly why it whips up soooooooo goooooood with sugar and vanilla. MMMMMmmmmmmmm. That being said, Keisha, you are off your rocker with almost all of your information (see my above post on lipogenesis, go read a biochemistry book). Fats can be good for you – there are a form of long-term high-density energy storage (in addition to composing lipid bilayer membranes), as opposed to carbohydrates, which are used for quick bursts of energy and short-term, low-density energy storage. However, I do believe that the “Healthy Home Economist” could us a health helping of [citation needed] in her articles.
Cream has no carbs. I am an overweight type ii diabetic. I lose weight when I cut carbs. I eat the Paleo way, with no cheese, no milk, no grains. I am losing weight and feeling good for the first time in years.
Do you a have a proof about the terrible effects of skim milk in humans ? I have several doubts about this theory Christine.
Hi Christine, just ask any pig farmer how he gets his pigs fat really quick. Skim milk does the trick everytime. The proof is in the fallacy of the lowfat diet. The Weston A. Price Foundation has oodles of info on how the lowfat diet will make you very unhealthy .. no traditional cultures anywhere in the world EVER ate this way.
Read the book called “The Untold Story of Milk” and it has numerous medical facts concerning whole milk and especially raw milk. Yes, skim milk has been used as a trash feed for animals for many years and it is not any new information. One just has to be in the farming industry and you would know all about it.
Pigs are not fat they are large animals no matter what you feed them they will grow big. Farmers are paid for the leanness of the pork that is produced from their pigs, and therefore feed them an optimum (Low-fat) diet to produce meat, not fat. High fat content pork can actually be rejected by the butcher or factory, and deducted from the income that the farmer receives. Thats why farmers feed pigs skim milk.
Keisha, please put some bacon on your fork, because you clearly don’t realise that pigs do in fact have a high fat composition. You are referring to special lean cuts of meat which have had fat removed so lean cuts of pork can be sold.
WOW you are a lost cause. Pork is 80% fat Keisha. I don’t want to pick on you too much in case you have a disability.
I have proof that skim milk makes you fat, I got SUPER fat when I was pregnant – gained like 70 lbs, and when I looked back at my food diary, I was drinking tons of skim milk.
I always had weight issues when I drank it, and now that I don't, I weigh 128 lbs without exercising – less than I did when I was in high school.
I drank lowfat milk with my last pregnancy, but only because whole milk made me feel sick to my stomach. On the other hand, it was CAFO industrial grocery-store milk. Since then I’ve gained access to milk from a local grass-fed dairy and I wish I’d had it back then, I’m curious to know whether their whole milk would have had the same effect. It’s low-temp pasteurized, but it is not homogenized and it’s sold very fresh.
Can I get that super sized? Cookies anyone.? What hormones??
Could that fact that you were drinking “TONS” of skim milk have anything to do with why you gained so much? Of course. You were taking in too many calories, and a calorie surplus is going to cause weight gain, no matter where the calories come from
Just a quick note. Go to WAPF and search for "How We Eat: Food Journals of the Weston A. Price Foundation Board of Directors"
I just found this article. I’ve been buying 2% milk because I can no longer buy raw milk, and figured that 2% is better than homogenized whole milk. Is that not true?
Whole milk is always better than lowfat milk. The less fat you eat, the more carbs you will eat typically and carbs make you fat, not good quality whole fats. People who are afraid of fat tend to BE fat or super skinny and hypoglycemic.
Not to mention on the way to a raging case of osteoporosis. Check this out:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FDE/is_1_20/ai_68913302/
If they’re skimping on dietary fat intake they’re not only in danger of bone breakage in their old age from not absorbing enough calcium from the diet, but being overly slender they also lack the muscle mass to stimulate calcium uptake that way. Ask any bodybuilder why resistance and weight training lead to greater bone density, you’ll get an earful.
“If you drink skim milk, you will be missing out on the satiating, blood sugar and insulin steadying affects of saturated fat, so your body will automatically give you sugar and carb (grains) cravings to make up for it.”
That’s a pretty broad statement to be making. I drink skim milk but I have plenty of other sources of fats, both saturated and not, in my diet. I have a family history of diabetes and heart disease and it is in my best interest to maintain a healthy weight, which is more of a challenge now that I am over 40. Considering I still eat red meat, bacon, real ice cream, and cheese, I don’t feel like I need the extra calories from full-fat milk. I do indulge with clotted cream every once in awhile, too.
Ultimately, it’s an individual’s bad eating habits that cause them to gain weight, regardless of the foods they choose.
So would you kindly explain to me how I could have bad eating habits as a teenager and yet not gain weight? I was fully within normal range BMI until I was 21.
I have had my weight increase dramatically three times in my life. The first time, I went on the Pill. The second and third times each followed a pregnancy.
People talk so blithely about how “easy” it is to gain or lose weight. What they tend not to realize is that even a fat person is usually at weight equilibrium–that is, they’re neither gaining nor losing. It’s all well and good to look at a fat person’s eating habits and say “see, that’s how you got fat” if they’ve been the same weight for ten years. How do you know they had the same eating habits ten years ago? Chances are fair they didn’t.
If the answer were so simple, none of us would be obese.
@Madame Defarge – if it is diabetes you are trying to avoid, you would be far better off drinking whole fat milk rather than skim. When you take the fat out of milk, there is nothing left to buffer the rather large amounts of lactose (sugar) from entering your body at a rapid pace, causing a surge in insulin, and laying the groundwork for type II diabetes. With whole-fat milk, the fat prevents all that sugar from entering your bloodstream at once – it serves to “pace” the sugar, and your body can deal with it better. Besides, if you are eating all those other fatty things, why would you bother with skim milk?
Well said!!
That’s a good point, Madame D. Generally speaking, though, the vast majority of folks who seek out and drink skim milk eat lowfat and most end up struggling with weight problems as a result of it. Choosing skim milk over whole milk simply for calorie reasons is not a good way to go either as calorie for calorie, fat does not go to your backside the same as grains/sugars do. If you are cutting calories, cut carb calories, not the nutritious, blood satiating fat calories from whole foods like fresh milk! All calories are not created equal by any means.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist\’s last post: Dual Chemical Threat Lurks in Store Beverages
I can only attest to the fact that my husband and i have both lost weight drinking whole raw milk. I had my gall bladder removed 4 months after having twins. I was trying to eat high fat foods to help keep enough calories to deal with nursing the twins. Since switching to the whole milk my husband and I have fixed his lactose intolerance and have both last weight. He has had to add 2 extra notches on his belt and I have gone down a pant size. I have also seen a lowered need for sugar and chocolate.
One thing is for sure the more you read the more confused u get. This is the first time I have read you. What makes you the expert we should believe? What are your credentials ?
Hi Arline, you can read about my background by clicking “Sarah” in the navigation bar at the top of the blog. Not that credentials mean squat, by the way. MDs get next to no nutrition training whatsoever but somehow people hold them up as nutrition experts when they are completely clueless in the vast majority of cases.
SO true Sarah!
Why don’t you do your own research, Arline? You’re sitting there staring at the best information resource since the invention of the public library. You’d be amazed how much information is out there, some in scientific journals. I already posted this link earlier in the conversation:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FDE/is_1_20/ai_68913302/
As far as I’m concerned, if you drink skim milk “for the calcium” you might as well be drinking chalk water for all the good it’s doing you. Ironically you will see nutritionists and dieticians tell their clients to drink skim because there is more calcium–but what good does it do if you can’t absorb it?
Hi Arline, Why don’t you try it yourself and experience the wonderful results personally? Most folks won’t be able to get their head around the paradox that saturated fat doesn’t make you fat and guess what? They will stay fat and diabetic/prediabetic or super thin and hypoglycemic.
As Dr. Phil is fond of saying, “Some people get it, some people don’t.”
Those who are able to think outside the box and beyond a person’s credentials will see the truth based on observing their own personal health and weight situation improve by incorporating healthy, whole, saturated fats back into the diet.
I have to chime in here! I have been drinking raw grassfed whole milk for the last 8 years and have lost several dress sizes in the process. Thank goodness for local farmers.
8 years ago, our m.d. suggested getting my then 3 year old daughter off organic commercial milk after she suffered multiple bouts of croup and congestion. After making the switch to first no milk, then raw goat milk, then raw cow milk, she quit having the congestion and croup symptoms. We all lost weight. I learned about this through WAPF much later and it confirmed what we had experienced as a result of a MD that was trained to recognize an “allergy” to commercial, pasteurized or “dead” milk.
Good show, Sarah. Homogenation (as well as the milk powder) makes the fat globules one-tenth their natural size causing them to pass through the gut into the blood easier and faster. Now, since they are much smaller, well they stick easier to the smooth and rough parts of the veins, IMO.
Excellent point, Augie. Thanks for chiming in to mention that important piece of info! I wish I had included that in the blog post.
Oh, and I forgot, besides the skim milk and grains, don’t these weight watchers drink diet pop/artificially sweetened foods, also shown to increase weight due to lowering seratonin, one function of which to control appetite and that it makes you likely reward yourself with more food/sugar, after all you are eating zero-cal stuff and can justify it.
Augie\’s last post: The Santa Clause and the Food & Farm Control Bill Snagged- Fishing to Control Small Family Farms and Real Food Producers
I appreciate your blog. It’s actually great to see some real information being openly discussed. There are so many misnomers being propagated in health and food issues today. There is some truth to your argument as far as blood sugar levels, which are, in our society, a limitless roller coaster. Milk is a wonderful resource, girls especially should be drinking a great deal of it up to age 25. Either 1%, 2%, or Whole milk only to maximize absorbtion of Vitamin D.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you should fully do your research before touting saturated fats as harmless. The nutritionist above was correct in her assumption that saturated fats are unhealthy, she just didn’t know why they are unhealthy. Reasonable. I can explain in simple terms. Chemically speaking, a saturated fat is a fatty acid chain with no double bonds, all of the hydrogen bonds are at their max bonded to the carbons, which in other words means “saturated.” So in other words, it would be correct to say that saturated fats = oxidized fats = trans fats… which are bad, as you are all aware. All of these are chemically similar, so much in fact, your body deems all of these as “foreign” and plasters it all over your arterial walls. Best to limit consumption of saturated fats, just like limiting trans-fats. Instead go for unsaturated fats. As for the argument about the heart attacks beginning in 1927. That logic is also faulty. Health care evolved in leaps and bounds in early times. In those days everyone died from consumption and fever, when today we know the specific cause. It certainly doesn’t mean heart attacks didn’t occur before 1927, it means no one knew enough to diagnose them. I really appreciate your blog and the attempt at spreading some knowledge. Your cause is worthy and great, you just need a chemist to chat with every once in a while…Everyone does.
Your comment is misleading. Saturated fats and trans fats are similar in appearance, but they are mirror images, or isomers. It is quite common for the body to recognize one isomer and not the other — for instance, all amino acids in all living things are the same isomer and the opposite one appears only in inorganic things. The wrong isomer just won’t bond properly in the body.
Saying that the body does not recognize saturated fat is clearly false — the body creates saturated fat for food storage. Most of the body fat of humans (like other animals) is saturated. It is convenient for storage and what your body likes to burn when you’re losing weight. Perfect “starvation food.” The fat coating your nerves and brain is also largely saturated. Not to mention that human breastmilk is high in saturated fat. Why would we produce a food for our babies that their bodies didn’t recognize and “plastered it all over their arterial walls”? Why aren’t breastfed babies dying of heart attacks?
Are you a real chemist or did you just take high school chemistry? This stuff about isomers isn’t all that advanced. If you are a chemist, perhaps studying some of the biological applications of chemistry might be useful. Because saturated fat and trans fat may look the same in a lab, but they are accepted completely differently by the body — even conventional nutrition admits this.
Sheila\’s last post: Twelve months of blogging
The bit after “it would be correct to say” is incorrect. In fact, most comments here are just as false or misleading as the “spin” of the food producers you malign. Trans fats are bad for you, saturated fats are neither good or bad for you, polyunsaturated fats are good for you. Neither is skim milk bad; but if you substitute the missing milk fat for more carbohydrate then you’ll be worse off.
And you’re not going to lose more weight if you switch to an organic diet (although you may watch what you eat a little more closely).
Please read “Good Calories, Bad Calories” to be better enlightened on the subject of why saturated fat isn’t harmful.
Or we could use logic “Don’t blame new diseases on old time food”… If primitive cultures survived healthfully eating sat fat w/o disease then how can we say it’s bad?
Peronsally, I’ve done a very high fat diet 65% with a lot of it saturated and had blood work with an NMR panel and all came back phenomenal, sometimes you just gotta say F-what mainstream says and try something out, see how you look, feel, perform and get blood work. Proof is in the pudding, not some shady agencies idea of what is “bad” for us.
Hi Chemist, I HAVE done my research and all I have said is correct. Saturated fats ARE HEALTHY .. got my research is from one of the foremost fat researchers and chemists in the world, Dr. Mary Enig Phd of the Weston A. Price Foundation. As for the heart attacks did not occur before 1927 … of course there were OTHER types of heart attacks as you suggest, just not artherosclerosis. I have confirmed this as well – folks just choose not to believe it as heart disease is so common most such as yourself can’t fathom a time less than 100 years ago when it basically did not exist. My own Father started medical school in 1949 and was told not to go into cardiology as “there was no money in it”!! Even then, there weren’t many clogged artery type of heart attacks as partially hydrogenated fats had not gotten so endemic into the food supply yet.
Thanks for this – I am a 42 yo woman and I have struggled with my weight, and a variety of other hormone-related and other health problems since I have been an adult. In fact, in my entire life, I have never been able to lose a single ounce. I would gain weight, in large amounts during or after traumatic life events, such as having a baby, a severe illness, or a death in the family, but otherwise my weight would remain stable. When I gained weight, I would be a lot of weight, very quickly, such as after my third child was born, when I gained 25 lbs in 3 months while breastfeeding a 10.5 lb newborn a dozen times a day. I could not understand it, and no conventional methods of weight loss worked – I would only become physically ill, so fatigued I could not function, and not lose any weight, only to gain a whole bunch more weight once I got tired of feeling horrible.
Slowly, I have made dietary and attitude changes that have improved my health. We switched from margarine to butter, from lowfat milk to whole, I started eating more eggs, seeing my chiropractor regularly, exercising regularly (this was actually more a result of having improved health – when I was sick, I was too sick and fatigued to exercise – it would exhaust me, and I could not build muscle), and learning about my food allergies and avoiding those foods. About three months ago, I finally found a source for raw grass-fed milk in my area and started buying it. Besides being delicious, I have now, for the first time in my life begun losing weight. I have lost about 7 lbs so far, without trying or making any other changes. In addition, my cycle has regulated and I no longer need to nap every day. I wish I had known years ago. Maybe if I hadn’t been a product of the 80s low-fat movement, I wouldn’t have ever had these health problems. I find that the more fat I eat, the better I feel – the main problem is finding fat. I eat bacon, eggs and whole, raw milk every morning for breakfast and feel great all day!
Thanks so much for this post! I would like to share it on my blog, with your permission. I just switched us over to whole milk, and just yesterday I bought Organic whole milk. It is illegal to sell raw milk here, so that won’t be an option, but the Organic milk is from a local farm, so I think I’m doing pretty good that way
Stacey\’s last post: A favorite Christmas Song
How does this work? I have heard in many places it is illegal to sell raw milk. Does have a “share” in a cow constitute selling milk?
I am more and more intrigued, and am now wondering if my weight gain in college had as much to do with introducing skim milk regularly and the “low fat” options, as what most people call the freshman 15. I was working out and didn’t really eat any worse than I did as a teenager at home.
Thank you for this real information. I will continue to check back and keep reading.
I just bought raw, whole milk for the first tome this week and I actually had to fill out an “application” to do so. It was a waiver stating that the gov’t doesn’t think raw milk is a good idea and that I could hold no one responsible if it made me sick. The woman at the store said it was a gov’t requirement.
Jill C, what a moving testimonial! I hope those who read your story here will hopefully be encouraged to stop the dieting and calorie cutting and lowfat nonsense (which NEVER works long term as you have discovered) and embrace whole fat foods once again. Once the body is nourished with these life giving fats it can finally do as yours has done .. come off starvation mode and drop some weight.
Stacey, I would be honored if you shared this post on your blog. Thanks for asking!
Im glad I read this information, Im going to look into this further. Good to read everyones comments as well. I have stopped using artificial sweetners, and try to buy products with whole ingredients, less man made. But never really stopped to think about my milk products, including yogurts, cheese etc.. thanks for the insight.
I also would like to share this on my blog (http://rhauptman.posterous.com) if you wouldn’t mind. And I will be passing on this link to my Facebook fans!!
I LOVE raw milk, and am sad that I don’t have access to it anymore. From Guernsey cows, grassfed, no hormones or antibiotics. That was the most delicious food ever.
Hi Rebecca, feel free to share this article on your blog. I am happy for this information to get out to as many people as possible. People need to know this as too many folks are suffering and discouraged from following the lowfat way of eating promoted by the ridiculous USDA food pyramid and most conventional doctors and nutritionists. Its high time for a revolt against lowfat eating because it doesn’t work and just makes people fat.
http://dev.www.jsonline.com/features/food/106929473.html
An article for making your own butter and other kitchen staples – so simple!
To Stacey above…unfortunately organic milk is ultra-pasteurized. Just something to think about.
Great article in the LA Times about how excess carbs in the diet is the real culprit and NOT FAT:
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-carbs-20101220,0,5893431,full.story
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist\’s last post: Strong is the New Skinny
wow, is all I can really say. I weighed 330 lbs a little over a year ago drank whole milk, but made lots of bad choices. I now drink skim milk and weigh 230lbs. I still have a ways to go. I drink a lot of milk and I have eaten the same thing other than changed out the skim milk and whole milk from time to time and checked my blood sugar at the same time as well as eating at the same time… my blood sugar was higher after drinking the whole milk, explain that.
Your blood sugar was higher because you weighed 100 lbs more. Losing 100 lbs will dramatically lower your insulin resistance. While you have made great progress so far (congratulations, by the way, your achievement is awesome), it will be extremely difficult to get to a normal weight from 230 lbs maintain it long term drinking skim milk.
Sarah this is a very good point. I myself have been around a health weight my whole life, however could never loose those last 10 kilos following a low fat diet. In addition I was always hungry and did not enjoy the diet i was on..
A year ago after doing much research (I myself am a molecular biologist and realise this makes so much sense!), I am now longer afraid of good fats (coconut oil, whole milk, butter etc), and simply avoid anything processed. I have lost the 10 kilos finally..
I am 163 cm tall and now 55kg. Best of all I can finally just enjoy food
Honestly it’s the best thing I have ever done. You can’t susatin a low fat diet. If weight is an issue (and I know everyone is different!) I would highly recomment increasing your good fats and reducing your grains!
Good luck
Your blood sugar was higher because you weighed more. As you lost weight, your glucose levels went down, correspondingly.
As a chemist, this statement is untrue.
“Saturated fats and trans fats are similar in appearance, but they are mirror images, or isomers.”
A saturated fat has no double bonds, but is saturated with hydrogens. Trans fats contain at least one double bond with their substituents “trans” to each other. They are not mirror images, or isomers. Their chemical formula is not the same, so they cannot be chiral or an isomer.
-Trained Chemist
I am so confused.
First I was on a low-fat diet and gained weight.
Then I was on the Atkins Diet and it was so expensive that I shook with fear every time I paid a grocery bill. Yeah, I’ve heard all about how it doesn’t have to be expensive, chicken, fish, etc.,etc., but when you are POOR and not on Food Stamps the Atkins Diet IS expensive.
Now I’m taking Alli and back on low fat. I actually get dizzy when I’m in the store and look around — low fat? low carb? Lo – hi – lo – hi – lo – hi ….
And being unable to exercise vigorously makes this all the more confusing.
Sometimes I wish all the advice givers would just shut up until the real FACTS of the matter are agreed upon. Every source of advice says that it has the facts, but it’s all opinions with anectotal evidence and some facts.
I know this sounded rude, and I am not asserting that you don’t mean well. It’s just that when the main schools of advice contradict each other flatly, what is a lay person to do?
p.s. Then toss in taking medication that promotes weight gain, so you are fat, sick, unlovely, unhealthy, and the target of scorn by people such as our First Lady, who has made it her little trip to tell people how to eat!
Hi Exhausted, why don’t you try it and then decide? This info is based on Traditional Cultures not modern health propaganda such as what you describe.
Here’s the thing. Each body is different. What works for one person may not work for another. Personally, I have diabetes and thyroid disease, plus a whole bunch of pain issues that prevent me from exercising as much as I would like (yes, I do like it) and need.
Many people can lose weight on a high-fiber, low-fat diet. I couldn’t, plus my blood sugar levels were dangerously high.
Now I’ve switched to the Paleo Solution, at my Dr.’s recommendation, and I feel great. I’m losing weight and my blood sugar levels are going back down. My blood pressure is good, too. My grown sons and one daughter-in-law is on it and they love it.
Physiologically, anyone should be able to lose weight if they have a calorie deficit and are doing some vigorous exercise at least a few times a week. You have to try different eating plans and see what works for you.. After all, you know your body better than anyone right?
I agree totally about the importance of saturated fats, but we don’t want to buy whole milk and have the homogenized fat. We try and up our saturated fats in other ways…butter, avocados, nuts, seeds, etc. Wish we could get raw milk for the cream/fat.
Atkins isn’t any more expensive than any other way of eating (WOE). If you want to eat well and be healthy, you have to make most of your own dishes and condiments at home, and that can get expensive very quickly, especially you make too much and end up throwing it out. Best to make small amounts to begin with and decide what you do and don’t like and then the cost isn’t as great for most. Now that my house is an empty nest, I had to re-learn how to cook for just DH and me. Not easy to do but do-able.
To Exhausted: Throw the Alli away, because what you’re paying for that can buy you quite a bit of good healthy food. I had a friend who ridiculously decided to try Alli and she had to wear an adult diaper everywhere she went. Even after she stopped taking the Alli, she had to wear it until the stuff cleared her system — which amazingly enough took almost three weeks. Alli is expensive, real food isn’t when you think of it in terms of gaining health rather than losing it. Also, Exhausted, if you stick with WAPF type foods, you won’t be exhausted.
I dug out my old Atkins New Diet Revolution Book last night and it’s already 10 years old — good grief where does the time go? So is there a newly updated version? I never followed it too much because I don’t need to lose weight, but I did read it because a lot of people were “into it” a while back. He recommended (at the last writing) buying full-fat mayonnaise. I wonder if that has changed, since so much of the purchased condiment line (ketsup, mustard, mayo, etc.) is made with soybean oil and all kinds of other nasty junk nowadays. Anyone know??
I have an alternate theory why 1 in 3 Americans are obese.. They eat way too much fast food and they don’t exercise. Simple as that.
Amen!!
Then what should I give my daughter who just turned 1 to drink. I am not able to get whole organic milk here, but they do have a few health stores near me who has soy milk. And also, what type of milk should I give my other children. Organic dairy is very hard to come by around here.
Thank you!
Hi Amy, here’s a post I wrote about this. Whatever you do, don’t buy soy milk:
http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/2011/01/the-three-best-substitutes-for-a-child-allergic-to-milk/
Hi,
I’m a 14 year old teenager.
Recently I’ve got fatter, I thought back and wonder if eating weetabix with skim milk might be the cause.
What do you think? Will that be the cause? Should I use whole milk instead?
Hi Justin, I’m not familiar with weetabix .. it sounds like a boxed cereal? If so, definitely the weetabix plus skim milk would put on weight! Boxed cereals are refined carbs which really pack on the pounds as it is and then adding skim milk on top of it just adds to the problem. Best to skip the weetabix entirely and just drink whole milk with a bowl of old fashioned porridge like oatmeal .. preferably fresh from the farm milk as processed milk from the store is allergenic and constipating.
Sarah, weeatbix are a wheat biscuit style breakfast cereal. Most of them are 99/100% wholegrain wheat. Which I guess is not great for some of us who need to watch their grain in take, not to mention how processed they are..
And they don’t do you any good if you have a weight issue, I would know, I used to eat these almost everyday for breakfast.
Just found this blog and it’s nice to hear common sense. Throughout history the ability to obtain full fats, diary, and goods meats have been the difference between the healthy segments of the population and the have-nots who died in childhood and early adulthood. It’s beyond stupid that people believe things that our ancestors have struggled their whole lives to obtain to keep them healthy are suddenly ‘bad’ for us because we’re ‘civilized’.
A random milk-fact that I’m suprised someone hasn’t posted here yet, during the Great Depression unscrupilous companies were selling skimmed milk to the poor, it was called ‘blue milk’ for it’s blue tint (still readily apparent in today’s slightly-enhanced skim milk) and it did so much to damage the health of poor children whose parents thought they were managing to obtain real milk that the government outlawed it’s sale! My grandparents always drink skim milk and I always insisted on calling it blue milk, neither my brother or I would touch it when we were over visiting.
two major problems here:
1. “It’s beyond stupid that people believe things that our ancestors have struggled their whole lives to obtain to keep them healthy are suddenly ‘bad’ for us because we’re ‘civilized’.”
Oh really? Our civilization does not require us to hunt for food, which is why our ancestors could eat more fat. So actually its “beyond stupid” that you believe we can eat like our ancestors, and not exercise, and be in the same state of health.
2. “government outlawed it(skim milk)’s sale!”
Really? I have skim milk in my fridge. Good fight.
I have a question: what is the motivation of dairy/government/??whoever to market skim milk instead of whole? As I understand it, there is a lot more processing involved in skim vs. whole, so therefore I would assume that this would make skim milk more expensive…just curious. I am really moving toward whole foods in my diet, & am experimenting with whole milk in our diet as well. Also, what would you consider to be an adequate amount of milk per day? I would think the amount would be small, but am curious. Thanks!
Hi Angie, separating out the cream by the Dairy Industry for making ice cream is very very lucrative. This leaves a lot of skim milk left over which no one wants .. hence the push to market it as somehow a “healthy” choice which Americans always seem to fall for. Selling a food in pieces is always more lucrative than selling it whole.
So if you cant afford or find whole raw milk what should you by?
This blog is PRICELESS!
I started losing some weight when I experimented with increasing the fat in my dairy. I started with 2%, then decided to try whole, and my dad (who is a heart patient) is really against my attempts to do this in spite of the fact that I lost 5 pounds (I haven’t been able to literally lose this amount of weight in years) and my face has a different glow to it with the mere loss of 5 pounds. I start using less of it for a couple of days and I gained a pound back.
I am worried about the homogenized milk issue. Is it a GUARANTEE that people who use homogenized milk will get sick later in life? What about people who may live in states in which raw milk is not legal? I feel that no matter what I do – use low-fat or whole milk – I’m doomed.
Whole milk is great … just get nonhomogenized. I would not drink whole milk if it homogenized even if organic. In states where raw milk is illegal you can still get nonhomogenized low temp pasteurized milk. Just ask your healthfood store to order Natural by Nature milk in glass bottles.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist\’s last post: How I Healed My Child’s Cavity
Hey! I read this article in the paper about milk and I was wondering what you thought about it.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/sc-food-0513-kids-milks-20110518,0,3805595.story
Thanks!
I have asked myself many times how America has come to the place where Truth is ridiculed and thought to be a danger! WHY have we just believed everything the mainstream has “told” us!? Once you start looking deeper into almost any subject, you will be AMAZED at what is out there, just waiting for you! If there is one thing that I am very unhappy with concerning public education, it is that they have STOLEN the fun of learning for MOST kids! (NOT ALL!) We have the world at our fingertips, and we don’t LOOK! I hope that every parent out there starts to take the time to teach their children that learning and knowledge are FUN! I haven’t changed the subject here. I am a 52 year old healthcare professional and homeschool mom; I have been watching for years to see what makes kids tick. It is always the children of parents who take time to make it fun (public, private or home) that grab my attention. They have a special spark, from being allowed to question! Their experience is validated by wise parents who NEVER tell them not to ask, just do it, when they have a genuine desire to know! They welcome the debate and tell them all they can find about a subject. We would NEVER be in the position we are in now in America, if everyone was doing this. Please take time to explain to your kids WHY you believe something and show them how to find the TRUTH! Dig hard for it! Don’t give up! God bless Sarah! Keep it coming! We have some great discussions about your stuff!!!
Excellent post. A lifelong sugar and refined carb addict with an extremely strong family history of Type 2 diabetes, i was diagnosed as a diabetic last year. After doing some research and rejecting the ADA low-fat “diabetic diet”, I cut out refined sugar and carbs from my diet and switched to whole milk organic yogurt as my main source of dairy. I have lost 40 pounds to date relatively painlessly and my fasting blood sugar is down 130 points. Total cholesterol is 150. Our bodies were not designed or did not evolve to eat so many refined carbs.
Our bodies are not designed to drink milk After a toddler ….. Oh and I’m diabetic and lost weight by making a decision to balance what I eat and I hate milk and is almost non exesistant in my diet.
Why Skim Milk Will Make You Fat and Give You Heart Disease The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/x6H7PJe a reason to have whole milk…yumm
My hypoglycemia has all but went away since I switched to butter and whole creamline milk. It is fantastic! And whole fats in meat is not bad either, bacon can actually lower your cholesterol if eaten in moderate amounts. Most of my problems came from eating fake sugars and trans-fats in processed foods.
Why Skim Milk Will Make You Fat and Give You Heart Disease — The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/PaC60cc
@PDXLinds omg YES! Totally forgot about CwC… lol! But, but… everyone needs fat! Skim milk is the devil. Read this! http://t.co/lARgKCZ
The ECONOMIC reason for pushing skim milk – the dairy industry gets to make TWO products from the same amount of WHOLE milk – SKIM milk and BUTTER! Before, when people drank whole milk there was less cream to make butter out of, so remove the cream, brainwash the public into believing Whole milk is unhealthy, and then the dairy industry can make a lot more butter more cheaply.
This is what a Vermont family farm selling raw “for pets only” milk and butter claims. It makes perfect sense.
Think about it – it is the Dairy Industry pushing Skim Milk, but NOT pushing butter “substitutes.” The butter “substitutes” are pushed by chemical companies. If whole milk was REALLY bad for you, then butter would be even worse, afterall butter is nothing more than churned cream!
It’s funny – I always thought Skim Milk and margarine were invented in the 1970′s – 1980′s. When I was a kid (in the 1980′s) is when Skim Milk REALLY started being marketed – my mother bought it once – I SPIT IT OUT – it was DISGUSTING! She NEVER bought skim milk again; although she did always buy lowfat (I made the switch to Whole Milk myself, later). As for butter vs. margarine, again, back in the 1980′s the media convinced my mother that we were being “poisoned” by real butter, so she switched to using margarine for cooking, but she still always bought butter for actual eating – NO ONE in my house would ever EAT margarine (on bread, for example) because it was (is) DISGUSTING! Then, finally, a few years ago when it was discovered that it was not BUTTER that was the problem, but the TRANS FATS in MARGARINE, she got SO MAD and has never bought margarine or any butter “substitutes” since. It was hard for me to transition – I’d never fried an egg in butter before! But, add a little Olive Oil to the pan first and then butter and it’s fine. But, I plan to switch to Palm or Coconut oil, because I’m wary of cooking with Olive Oil now.
One of my funniest memories was waking up really early one morning and finding my baby brother (~ age 2) sitting on the floor with the refrigerator door wide open eating an entire stick of butter! It was real butter – that was before my mother fell for the “butter is bad” propaganda.
Wow, and if you drink water it will kill you and that is a statistical fact… This is a joke let’s look at the variables of the western life style…hum
what if you can’t afford whole raw milk can using whole milk from the grocery store be better than skim milk?
Here’s the research that showed whole milk, not skim milk, contributed to weight loss
http://www.docroberts.com/bg-106-whole-milk-for-weight-loss-.aspx
I should add that Gary Taubes, in his book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, carefully examined the research about fat and weight control and found that it is most definitely not true that “fat makes you fat” – It’s carbohydrates that are the main culprit, along with the modern processed vegetable oils with unhealthy trans fats and excessive omega-6 polyunsaturated fats. Although fat is more concentrated calories, and limiting fat is one way to cut calories, it’s not really how many calories you consume that counts, but what your body does with those calories. In this excellent lecture Gary notes how hard it is for obesity experts to move into a new paradigm!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4362041487661765149
If one’s choices are limited (by funds,transportation, availability) which is the least harmful? If one sticks to no rBST, there is whole or skim or 1 or 2% homo past, or organic skim dry powder( presumably not homogenized)? I have been using the skim, thinking there are less damaged fats from homogenization. Recently I came across some information indicating that homogenization also damages the proteins as well as fats. I make kefir with the milk. How would you rate the “choices”? Thank you.
Your article doesn’t seem based on any scientific papers and there are no referrals, just your assumptions, and therefore it doesn’t present credibility. There are tons of papers showing that saturated fat is bad for you, and from my personal experience, cutting on saturated fat did make me lose weight without increasing the craving for carbs or sugar. As an additional remark, if you cut on sugars products and you start craving for it, just eat lots of fruits. They are really healthy and will satisfy your need for sugar. But most Americans don’t eat fruits more than maybe a cherry on top of a big fat ice cream.
Michael, there are at least 2 major studies firmly disproving the link between saturated fat and heart disease. Google and you will find them. Don’t be one of the last to know on this one as you will pay for it with your health.
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist\’s last post: Sulphur: The Forgotten Nutrient
Here’s a great summary of the 2 major studies:
http://www.drbriffa.com/2010/01/15/two-major-studies-conclude-that-saturated-fat-does-not-cause-heart-disease/
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist\’s last post: Sulphur: The Forgotten Nutrient
Oh i get it now! His credible source is google!!! No wonder this article is such junk!
Hey i found this really cool article, on google, about how Elvis is still alive…and how 9/11 was staged by the government to gain popularity…and how the world is going to end tomorrow.
Someone needs to delete this article.
Google has scholar.google.com which is a very commonly used search engine for scholarly articles. It also links you to the home sites of the articles. The whole purpose is to make these things more accessible to the public. You can talk about stuff online about how Elvis is still alive, but you can’t show me tangible evidence of that. Google scholar can, in the case of whole milk vs. skim milk.
Because one should always believe articles gathered on the internet over what their doctor’s says. Tam, are you also telling me that if google scholar can give you evidence that Elvis is still alive you will take it hook line and sinker?
Please be open to the idea that you may be wrong….
http://www.ajcn.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009.27725.abstract?papetoc
This is a very poor article. ]It is entirely composed of baseless statements and “logical” assumptions. The author commonly uses phrases like, “What about soy? This is another supposed “health food” THAT HAS BEEN PROVEN TO DO NOTHING but cause an epidemic of hypothyroidism is the Western world.” He/she does not specify any sources for this information, and to me seems to have been fabricated for his/her own persuasive advantage. Since most of the article is based off of these incorrect statements, we can logically assume that anything that follows/is based off of those facts are completely incorrect. In order to really understand which foods are really good for you, it is necessary to do further research and obtain information from a more credible source than a columnist trying to get views by posting about a topic he knows most of America is thinking about. You know that he knows that we want to learn about healthy foods because his joke is funny. Americans obey what the hear first. You heard it here first.
People should always do their own research. It’s not hard to go to Google Scholar and search for these things the author is claiming.
BTW, the author is a woman.
I think this article has alot of good points however I think there are much healthier ways to get fat into your diet such as healthy oils, avocado, etc in lieu of heavy cream and butter. The concept doesn’t make sense to some ppl. Eat fat to stay skinny? Yup, healthy fats at least
. I’m a little biased about the dairy because I’m lactose intolerant though. So I need to get my fat from other sources.
OMG! I had to read 11 or 12 paragraphs of CRAP to get to your point! This is the sign of a poor writer. You finally made you point in the last paragraph. Your point (eating less fat will make you crave and consume more sugar) could have been said in one sentence.
I followed a low calorie, low saturated fat, high fiber, high protein, whole grain diet. It’s okay to crave carbs if they are from whole grains. The group of people who you are referring to (those who would get fat from eating carbs) usually eat a lot of refined, processed simple carbs. YOU SHOULD HAVE POINTED THIS OUT. I eat tons of 100% whole grain bread, whole grain pasta, brown rice, beef (90% lean), lean steak ect ect. The key is low fat and low refined processed carbs. Getting your carbs from whole grains is good for your heart, cholesterol levels and provides much more satiety. My cholesterol dropped 90 points on my diet with out drugs! I ate tons of lean meat, non-fat milk and whole grains.
I followed the reccomended low fat diet for decades going from impossibly thin and not able to gain weight to obese (BMI 30.4). Gained T2 and medicated. Told by MD to cut out the carbs. Researched his “ludicrious” advice and found the LCHF movement. Within weeks I lost weight and the reflux tablets I had taken for a decade. Then I cut out the BP, Metformin and statins within 5 months. Still losing weight and all markers of ill-health improving. Three and a haf years later I am 20 kgs lighter, unmedicated, cholesterol figures are a dream and maintain an HbA1c of 5.2. I purposely increased the fats- pork rind, coconut oil, butter, cream, cheese and now we also eat more eggs than ever so keep chooks in our back yard. In my thin days my grandparents ran an egg farm and made butter from cream and were never fat.
I cut the carbs from processed food and aim for around 30 gr a day from green veggies mostly. Still cannot use whole grains as they lift my BG above my self imposed limit of 6.0 mmol/L . I did have my gall-bladder removed at the end of my low fat decades but have no problem eating fats now. My doctor says that she no longer treats me as a diabetic because of my figures but I gently remind her that I could show her diabetic blood figures one hour after eating a slice of whole grain bread! I AM a diabetic but I choose to avoid the carbs which keeps me one happy, healthy 60 year old leading a very active lifestyle.
I give thanks for my health to Atkins and Bernstein and the lowcarb- high fat movement.
I did not see any links in this post to any research proving any of the claims being made. Despite any supporting evidence to the claims made in this post, when those who have commented on this post question the conclusions they are asked to provide research proving their point. I believe it is extremely important when making ANY claim about any food that you provide links to peer reviewed research to back up the claims you are making. There are a lot of nutrition myths circulating on the internet, none of which have any research to back up these claims.
If you are going to make claims make sure you provide references to the research that backs up those claims, provide links to research showing skim milk causes weight gain, research that shows saturated fat is not linked to heart disease and all of the other claims being made in this article. Do not merely provide a link to a special interest group that promotes a certain diet, provide legitimate links to actual peer reviewed research.
Ok…two things:
First; humans are the only mammal that still drinks milk into adulthood. All other lacating mammals teach their young what to eat, then wean them. In short, we don’t need milk.
Secondly; when is the last time you saw a fat person eating health food? People get fat from eating refined sugars and too much saturated fat. Even before high fructose corn syrup, there were fat people. Being plump was a sign of affluence because only the wealthy could afford cream, pastries, and frequent servings of red meat.
The “secret” to staying healthy is eating a variety of real foods that are as unprocessed as possible, and burning as many calories as you consume.
I was wondering if Organic Agave is the same as Agave Nectar?
Yep.
Oh yes, saturated fats are great!! Go out and eat big macs people; see how much weight you lose. smdh at this whole article..
Not talking about big macs Frank which are loaded with rancid vegetable oils (in the bread) and GMOS and soy which will indeed put on weight. Try BUTTER my friend and you will get it very quickly.
Sarah, TheHealthyHomeEconomist\’s last post: Soda Pushed in Hospital Recovery Room
Yeah, because Bic Mac’s and grass-fed steak are the same. You know what else is on a Big Mac? about 40g of processed flour.
Hi Sarah,
I agree with you that saturated fats sometimes get a bad rap. Together with the right ratios of monounsaturated fats, Omega 3s, and Omegas they can be perfectly healthy.
I don’t agree with your assumption that skim milk will vastly raise blood sugar over whole milk. I’ve checked the glycemic indexes of both and they’re both extremely low: skim @ 32 and whole @ 27; compare with a potato @ 85. Yes, fat does slow absorption of nutrients– and hence in theory absorption of lactase– but it doesn’t really seem like enough to make a difference. Here’s the GI listings from the University of Wisconsin: http://www.amsa.org/healingthehealer/GlycemicIndex.pdf
As for saturated fat contributing to elevated cholesterol that’s another story. I feel cholesterol is a little over exaggerated as a risk factor; it’s the more underlying inflammation that oxidizes LDL, hence damage to arterial walls and artheriosclerosis.
As for your claims about sugar cravings, there are many different kinds of fat you can consume that will provide necessary calories and energy– anything from omega 3 fish oil to coconut oil– that aren’t known to elevate serum cholesterol or contribute, even if’s only obliquely, to atherogenesis.
What about Raw Skim milk? My daughters hate cream in their milk but we wanted to try Raw milk to help with one’s lactose intolerance. Organic Pastures makes a Raw skim milk, but is it also oxidized in the same manner you discuss?
Also, in your aggressive publicity against vegetarians, you don’t address those who are absolutely disgusted by meat and eating blood (cooked or not). The thought of eating animal carcass turns my stomach, yet you claim one cannot be healthy without eating things like stock made from animal bones–that’s so disgusting to me! Even if the animals were grass fed and sustainably raised, which I do, in fact, believe is the only ethical way to eat meat, I could never cook such things let alone eat them. Do you have no suggestions for those who cannot stomach meat? If so, I fear you’ll never convert a good many of us vegetarians.
What about skim raw milk? Is that also not good if a person is ingesting other healthy fats?
I drink raw whole milk, now. I grew up believing only in pasteurized homogenized milk would be safe. I just never drank milk, hated it. Now that I’ve been reintroduced to milk, and actually love it I’m being told that in order to be healthy I should still get skim milk.
Is there any data on that?
everyone should remember that beverages do not have the same satiating effects that solid food has. drinking your calories is drinking your calories, whether its coca-cola or skim milk. there are so many great non-dairy milks that are fortified with the necessary vitamins and minerals, without all of the animal fats and proteins. (i said proteins, not protein in general). Also, a lot of you seem to believe n-of-one, first person accounts are proof of something. n-of-100 studies don’t prove anything. you need an enormous study size with well controlled parameters before scientific claims about ANYTHING can be made.
Allyson\’s last post: It’s going down.
Definitely switching to whole milk as soon as I can…however, we’ve been using lactose-free milk for some time (never diagnosed with anything but must have suspected at sometime it was a problem for us)…so, I’m now wondering if there’s a problem with drinking the lactose-free kind but in the whole milk instead of skim….or, are there reasons why we should try switching back to regular whole milk again?
This seems very logical, but I fit into a loophole which throws all of this logic to hell. Whatever the causes, I had some rather severe health problems in the past which included severe acute pancreatitis. I have had 2/3 of my pancrease removed, as well as my gall bladder, and my spleen.
I need to reduce my fat intake to less than 50 grams a day or I get very ill. But the lack of a full pancreas also means I have to dramatically reduce my sugar intake since I am a surgically induced diabetic who has to take insulin. I want my lattes, but if I have them with whole milk it’s actually likely to make me feel ill.
How do I take the facts presented to find a diet which will work well for me?
I think the overarching theme is avoiding processed foods. Want a latte? Buy your own latte maker and use raw milk. I’ve heard that there is raw skim milk, but I don’t know if it’s oxidized. And, I mean…skim has more sugar than whole, generally speaking, so you’re making a trade-off here. What you’ll have to do is treat things like lattes as a special thing. Days you have lattes, you keep an extra eye on your fat and sugar intake. You gotta make room for it in your diet. But it can be done.
I don’t think you’ll FIND a diet that will work perfectly for you…no one really does. You just have to find one that will work alright, and tailor it. I’d start with avoiding over-processed foods.
I highly doubt the first heart attack was in the 1900s. I would venture to guess there was no way of detecting it prior to then. Also. Dairy in general isn’t good for you. Read The China Study. Don’t you know it’s illegal to make health claims on a blog? Sounds like you have much more research to do.
The heart attack thing has been covered. There are different kinds of heart attacks. The author claims that the kind of heart attack resulting from clogged arteries is what didn’t show up until the 1900s.
Additionally, she isn’t making health claims on a blog. She’s commenting on research. This stuff HAS been researched, she just didn’t link to it. It’s not difficult to go to Google Scholar and search, so perhaps you should do your research before claiming that someone else needs to do their’s?
To end, she’s also not saying that dairy is the best thing since sliced bread. Dairy in general might not be the greatest thing for you, BUT if you’re gonna drink it, drink it whole and raw, not skim and overprocessed. People think that skim is better for you because it’s lower in fat and it’s touted as a health food. All the author is saying is that that isn’t true and that raw whole is better for you than skim.
I will not pretend to be familiar with the biochemistry and science involved in this issue, so my views will be expressed primarily from my background in the social sciences. Even if the science behind your blog is correct (though I certainly hope not, as I am a big fan of skim milk), I think your assertion is far too simplistic. Much has changed in the diet and lives of Americans since WW2, not just the introduction of low fat products. And, any of these things, on their own, could be the reason heart disease is so much more prevalent today, and certainly any combination of these factors would just compound the increase in clogged arteries, heart attacks, etc. Some things just off the top of my head…the mass consumption of fast food (virtually unheard of pre WW2), soft drinks, television usage and video games making us much more sedentary, the shift from manual labor, agricultural and manufacturing jobs to most people now sitting at a desk and pushing paper all day. Even the fact that life expectancy is so much longer now. It is quite possible that because people died at a much younger age (probably an average of 20 years younger than now), we just didn’t live long enough for arteries to get clogged; something else would kill us first.
Even if the science behind what you say is correct, there are so many additional factors that probably have a far greater impact on the health of Americans than low fat dairy products. overly processed fast food and sedentary lifestyles seem far more likely culprits.
At least put somewhere in the title that it’s psychological what causes heart disease and fatness. You’re giving people the wrong idea.
This is without a doubt the biggest bunch of crap I have ever read. Who do you work for, Satan? You must be a complete idiot if you actually believe this garbage! I sincerely hope people will do their due diligence and research, research, research before they take one single word of your advice. God save us from liars like you!!!
Very insightful post, please keep doing so.
Thank goodness someone else has some sense on here! Thank you Tennicia!!. Ken, perhaps you should try reading some books, heck just read the article. She even states that the skim milk causes cravings for carbs and sugars that are the cause for weight gain….. so skim milk fine…. sugar and carbs bad…. weird…. but the title sounded so promising.
So in the end, it is not really the skim milk what makes people fat. It all boils down to the principle of following a balance diet. Some kids get fat from milk because in many cases, that is their main meal. Some kids do not get milk and juice as a snack, those are sometimes a replacement because mom does not have *time* to cook.
Change your diet and eat a lot of fruit and vegetables and the sugar cravings will be satisfied with a piece of fruit.
Milk is bad for the majority of people anyway. Just don’t drink it at all.
It is amazing how many here are brain washed into thinking that natural fats in milk is not good for you. The Article is dead on and if you are as smart as you think you are you will follow it .
There’s only a small portion of the population with the genetic make up to drink milk without some form of allergic reaction. They range from phlegm in the back of your throat or inner ear infections requiring holes poked into your ear drums, to mild gas to being doubled over in extreme pain. If you want the protein eat the cow, if you want the calcium eat dark leafy greens, & if you want the Vitamin D go play in the sun. Stay away from cheese while you’re at it, the only healthy dairy is eggs.
That’s not true Ken, I’m sorry to have to sound disagreeable but I have to inform you that you are mistaken. Everyone can properly digest milk if it is raw. When it’s raw milk contains the enzymes necessary to properly digest it. Doctors would have us believe some of us are “lactose intolerant” when the truth is milk is not digestible in the altered, dead state in which it’s sold to us in stores. If you want healthy gut bacteria Ken, drink raw milk or eat raw dairy products. 80% of the function of the healthy human immune system is the ecosystem of bacteria found in the gut.
Sarah, I wrote about your article here …
http://dotalanecdotes.blogspot.com/2012/09/skim-milk-makes-you-fat-what.html
I see in the comments that many good folks are debating the health pros and cons; I have no doubt about where I stand on the matter, but what if we just skip the health facts and go for taste? Or skip taste and go for natural state? It’s more fun than bickering over everything!
So really what your saying is that apparently skim milk makes you crave sugars and carbs and those make you fat- not the skim milk (aka skim milk DOESN’T make you fat its the sugar and carbs…..). Wow what an article. Talk about using information and twisting things (including your title) to create fear mongering. There is no way that by eating regular yogourt, whole milk, and regular cheese will help you lose weight or eat healthier. This article should be labelled “how I trick people into getting fat without properly explaining the facts to actually eat healthy”. Skim milk IS good for you. If you plan to eat healthy, then you have to learn to CONTROL the cravings- no matter what form. And I don’t know where you got the idea that skim makes you crave sugar and carbs. Seriously, this article was so painful to read. You clearly don’t know what it means to eat to have a healthy lifestyle. The things that make you fat are partially food choices but mainly the way to eat healthy (and lose weight) is the will and desire for the person to resist cravings, to eat proper portions, drink more water, and to fit good activity into their daily lives. It’s people like you who burn the advances being made in teaching people how to live and eat better. Stop writing articles and get educated!
Thank you so much for that comment. I was honestly starting to worry that everyone on here had no brain at all.
This is beyond ridiculous. Skim milk doesn’t make you any more fat than whole milk does. You say k: “It is only when you eat lowfat that blood sugar issues such as diabetes and hypoglycemia tend to arise.”. Are you saying that low fat milk or other low fat products don’t have the sugars the body needs? Because I am pretty sure skim milk it has between 9-12 grams of carbs, coming from a certain sugar called LACTOSE made from glucose + galactose (a.k.a milk sugar). In many cases skim milk has even more carbs than regular milk. So if I’m right you are implying that skim milk for having less fat makes you crave more carbs? Nonesense since, as I already explained, milk in any form has plenty of carbs.
Even if what you said was right, and skim milk did make you crave more carbs, what would be making you fat then WOULDN´T BE THE MILK, it would be the extra carbs YOU are eating because YOU get controled by your cravings and can’t help but eating too many carbs. NOT THE MILK’S FAULT!
Honestly this article is so sad and full of lies, I wonder how fit or healthy you are considering what a poor poor food education you have. People PLEASE don’t listen to this woman who doesn’t have the slightest clue about anything.
*English is not my first language so I’m sorry if I make any mistakes.
that comment was directed at the blogger, not “thisisbullshit” user. my apologies for any confusion.
I read this with a scowled look of puzzlement. Where is your evidence. Usually an argument is evidence based is it not? Instead you rant on as if fatty foods are a beloved member of your family slated by the world and must be protected at all costs. The last time I checked pigs are ideally full of meat not full of fat. We are not talking foie gras here. Olympic athletes of old did not enter the event of sitting in an arm chair in front of a TV for 13 hours after downing a bowl full of cream. Americans are fat not because of butter and milk, but because they are lazy and eat too much without exercise. So therefore an inactive person will. E better off eating fat free than a block of lard. The whole blog is just pathetic. It’s the same bull as those who say man didn’t land on the moon and Lincoln was a racist. Your next blog should be about bloggers who just blog any old bollocks
You make a good point that the examples given do not apply to the diet and lifestyle of humans today. We are in a food surplus and obesity is a serious issue that leads to other chronic diseases. Excess calorie intake and physical inactivity are the issues we should pursue, not the theory that skim milk leads to obesity, which has not been proven in a randomized controlled trial.
An interesting article to be sure. Admittedly, I am a bit skeptical, mostly because diabetes and heart issues run in my family and I certainly don’t want to contribute any health issues I may already be prone to. At any rate, I kind of did my own unscientific study. I normally eat a rather high carb breakfast, either whole grain homemade toast and an egg scrambled in a vegetable based spread. Usually, I’m feeling pretty run down and tired not long after eating. I recently began using real butter and after cooking some of eggs from my own hens in it, could not believe the taste difference. WOW. So for about a week I ate three small(bantam size) eggs scrambled in about a tbsp of butter and either a few slices of pork bacon or a bit of smoked sausage, sometimes a little wheat toast too. Sounds like a huge meal, and maybe it was, but I figured it was fuel for the day. Honestly, I really didn’t feel the need to snack all day, I did not crave the sugary things I normally do like cookies and a bite of candy every now and then, and I was pretty satiated until supper time. Now that I’ve gone back to my previous morning routine, I can tell a HUGE difference- tiredness, craving the sweets, no energy that lasts long at all, and overall just a very unsatisfied feeling. Now I have no idea what my blood glucose levels were before/after, or cholesterol, or blood pressure, or any of that. Perhaps I will do the experiment again and at record that data. Anyway, just wanted to thank you for the interesting read!
{ 16 trackbacks }