Rethinking Skim Milk

I went to college when “fat free” was all the rage.  Snackwells, skim milk and fro-yo were in. Avocado was out. As absurd as it sounds to recount this now, it’s even funnier to think that I was in New Orleans, land of beignets and muffaletas. Little did I know that my eating regime was as off-kilter as the city’s cuisine.  Aside from improved nutrition knowledge and time to “mature” what strikes me about this type of eating is how poorly it must’ve tasted. How many cups of greyish coffee did it take to prove this point?  A few too many.  I write this to show you how easy it is to get swept up in an eating trend or prevailing nutrition advice.

You will not find skim milk in my refrigerator today and I’m proud to say my day starts with coffee and a splash (or 2 splashes) of  delicious half and half. (currently Sky Top farms grass-fed, non-homogenized, adore it). I also didn’t switch my kids to  1%  at 2 years old as the current advice from the AAP suggests. After my brief “blue period” I went back to how I was raised. A little bit of the real thing is best.

I’ve posted before about organic milk and ultra pasteurization but it wasn’t until a couple of years ago  that I realized the potential problems with skim milk. My interest was first piqued reading Walter Willet’s Fertility Foods. We have many clients trying to conceive and the research about skim dairy and infertility floored me. Low-fat dairy contributed to infertility (when issues are based on anovulatory failure) and full-fat dairy increased fertility.  What really turned me off was the proposed reasoning. When the fat is removed from milk, the portion that’s not fat contains more androgens and other hormones that may not be conducive to fertility.  The androgen argument may explain why another Harvard study found that teenage boys drinking skim milk had a higher incidence of acne.  Again, what’s in the fat or skimmed out seemed to help.

Last week, I read an article posted by my colleague Julie Negrin entitled “Is Skim Milk Making You Fat”. The article challenges the traditional “low fat dairy for health and wellness” dogma.   They write:

It’s becoming widely accepted that fats actually curb your appetite, by triggering the release of the hormone cholecystokinin, which causes fullness. Fats also slow the release of sugar into your bloodstream, reducing the amount that can be stored as fat.

I find this so interesting as we have a country that's watching dietary fat and getting fatter.  It always seems to me that children have the best innate sense of calorie regulation. An Australian study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that children’s calorie intake did not change when they were switched to low-fat milk. Children replaced the calories with other energy sources and did not lose weight.  Another large study tracked the habits of 19,252 Swedish women for 9 years. Women increasing their whole milk consumption the most lost 9% of their body weight, on average. Women who increased their low-fat dairy the most gained 10%.

Anecdotally, I am also concerned about skim milk and bone health. Fat in milk can help us assimilate vitamin D. I have not found a tremendous about of research on this but have seen many 30-something clients who grew up on low-fat milk now with osteopenia and fractures. I’d be curious to see if the very thing we think is helping us may not be.  This whole debate reminds me of the whole butter versus margarine debate. On that subject, the great Joan Gussow said “I trust cows more than chemists.” The more I read about the processing involved in making skim milk palatable, I think this applies here too.  If you eat dairy, I would suggest a little bit of the real thing.

Do you purchase milk? What type do you buy? Are you skeptical of skim milk?

10 Allegedly Healthy Foods

( A far prettier version of this post appeared on Blisstree)

I’ll bet my nutrition credentials that broccoli will remain in the good--for-you food group for eternity. Similarly, SPAM and Velveeta will always be unhealthy. Still, many foods aren’t solidly at either end of the health spectrum. And lots of foods that people assume are healthy really aren’t. So, in the hopes of helping you to make smarter eating choices, here are ten foods you may think are healthy and nutritious, but the reality? Not so much           

Pretzels

Most pretzels boast no fat and so have a beloved place in many snack drawers. But aside from taste, exactly what do pretzels have to brag about? One ounce of pretzels contains 100 calories and 580 mg of sodium (and little else). Which is almost the same as eating 1 oz. of white hamburger bun: 77 calories and 149 mg sodium. For healthier alternatives, we suggest Happy Herbert’s Gluten Gone Pretzels or our favorite, Food Should Taste Good Chips.

Couscous

Couscous is cute, with its small bead-like shape. And my clients often put it on the “good carb” list with bulgur and other whole grains. I hate to break it to you, but couscous is pasta. The nutritionals are exactly the same. Bulgur and quinoa contain more nutrients.

Veggie Burgers

“Veggie” doesn’t automatically mean healthy. Many veggie burgers are made with TVP (processed soy), grains, and at times, scant amounts of actually vegetables. Scan ingredient labels for TVP and look at the sodium. (Our favorites are Sunshine Burgers.)

 Tuna Salad

And now for many people’s treasured tuna salad. Fish contains omega-3’s and we’re told we should consume more of those. However, these particularly omega-3’s have globs of mayo added to them. Four ounces of tuna salad contains 212 calories and 10 grams of fat – double the calories and five times the fat of sliced turkey. We suggest those delicious jarred tunas with chopped peppers, onion and celery, like the Zoe or Tonnino brands.

Brown Sugar

Brown sugar should be healthier than white sugar, right? Unfortunately, it’s not fiber that gives brown sugar its color; it’s molasses. When it comes to calories, brown and white are equals.

Canned Foods/Canned Fruit

My mother was a great cook, but we admittedly ate fruit cocktail growing up. I have two issues with canned fruit: one is the corn syrup pool the fruit swims in, and the other are the BPAs present in the can itself. Fresh fruits are always best, but dried (no sulfites) is my second choice. A medium peach has 8 grams of sugar; while one serving of canned peaches has more than 24 grams (or three times as much).

Olive Oil

Now it's time to address a food we all know, use, and love: olive oil. We’re actually fine with EVOO (thanks Rachel), but we’re not fine with using it like it’s “free”. It does contain calories, and if you use it to scramble eggs in the morning, in your salad dressing at lunch, and for dunking your bread before dinner (and more to cook your entrée), you’ve racked up almost 1,000 calories – not so healthy. It’s also not recommended to heat olive oil at high temperatures.

Biscotti

We love Italian names, but these are still just cookies. For you cookie monsters, we like healthier options including GlowCookies and Kookie Karma.

 UHT (Ultra-Pasteurized) Organic Milk

As we mentioned in an earlier post, organic is a good choice when it comes to dairy, but you need to look carefully at the labels. UHT (ultra pasteurized) milk is not as healthy as regularly pasteurized because the high heat process kills good bacteria and other nutrients. Companies like Organic Valley offer both options, and many including Natural By Nature, Milk Thistle, and our #1,  NY Milk always pasteurize at a lower temperature.

Sugar-Free Pudding or Sugar Free Anything.

Sugar-free Pudding (or sugar-free anything) with Splenda or NutraSweet can make brown sugar actually look healthy. We’ll take a little bit of real sugar over the faux version any day.

What were the surprises on this list for you? Any allegedly healthy foods we missed?

Milk Matters

Last Friday we had a meeting with the head of my boys’ school. No, it’s not what you think; the Slayton silliness isn’t that out of hand. All is well in 1^st and 3^rd grades; we were meeting about nutrition. There are 4 of us, 3 RD’s and an MD, all moms’s at this UWS nameless-for-now private school. Earlier this year, we met with the head of the lower school and outlined some suggestions to improve the food situation. The meeting went well and we left encouraged.  Certain changes were implemented and Friday’s meeting was to follow up on a few matters.  First on our list was organic milk.  As soon as we asked we were told, rather bluntly “there isn’t going to be organic milk.” It turns out the head of the entire school feels organic milk is ultra pasteurized and that therefore conventional milk that is “free of synthetic hormones” is just as good.  My head was spinning. Here we are in NYC, I would guess that less that 5% of the parent body uses conventional milk at home.  I silently reminded myself I had 2 children at this school and needed to keep my passion under wraps. We agreed I would “gather all pertinent information” and circle back.

So what is ultra pasteurization and is it bad?

Ultra pasteurization (or UHT pasteurization) means that milk is heated at a higher temperature that pasteurized milk (280 degrees for 2 seconds versus 167 degrees for 15 seconds). The drawback of this process is that ultra-pasteurization kills nonpathogenic bacteria in addition to pathogenic. Many discussions of ultra-pasteurized milk also mention the burnt or cooked taste but I am not enough of a milk drinker to verify this. There is some concern that ultra-pasteurization destroys vitamins. UHT extends the shelf life of milk and is attractive to retailers for this reason. Dean Sparks of NY Milk states, “This is all about THEM and nothing about YOU and your family.” With “them” in this example being retailers. While ultra pasteurization may not be dangerous, it doesn’t appear necessary or desirable.

Some fantastic companies who offer non-UHT milk are:

Natural by Nature  

NY Milk 

Milk Thistle Farm 

Organic Valley – offers both UHT and not UHT

Evans Farmhouse Creamery

Clover Stornetta 

*We eliminated certain producers based on Cornucopia’s dairy farm ratings.

 Is “no synthetic hormones” conventional milk “just as good”?

Cows naturally produce hormones so no milk is technically hormone free. As for contains no “synthetic hormones” in my opinion I am not OK with this. Alexandra Zissu, Foodtrainers’ favorite green expert and author confirmed my suspicions saying, “There isn't a government organization or third party agency verifying the hormone and antibiotic claims.”  The USDA organic standards are government regulated. Plus, hormones added or otherwise aren’t the only issue here.

Why does it make sense to buy organic milk?

Organic milk has fewer pesticide residues as no pesticides or non-organic fertilizers are used for the cows’ feed. No BGH is used to increase milk production and no genetically modified ingredients are fed to the cows.  Under the organic standards if a cow receives antibiotics it will be a year before they are used for milk as a washout period. And finally, the cows used for organic milk live in better conditions and have access to grazing and grass. Organic milk has higher levels of vitamins, antioxidants and omega 3’s.

 Advice from Dean Sparks: “If the date on the top of the seal is more than 3 weeks out, you’ve got UHT milk. Also, it will say “ultra pasteurized” right on the carton. You want none of that…put it back and find some good, wholesome, local fresh organic milk to drink. Doing so almost ensures you are supporting small family farms that are doing things right.”

To summarize:

• Choose non-UHT milk whenever you can.
• Conventional “no synthetic hormones added” is questionable at best and without a doubt inferior to organic.
• I was pro-organic before this post but even more so after delving further into dairy.

What type or brand of milk do you buy? Did you know about ultra pasteurization before? How do I tell the school they don’t “pass” the dairy test?