Many people buy fat-free skim milk today thinking that it is a healthy choice. After all, most individuals have the idea that whole milk is the enemy, boasting too much cholesterol and fat, making it dangerous for your health.
Are you still listening to these silly lies? If you constantly buy skim milk thinking it’s a better choice for your health, then it’s time to learn a bit more about fat-free milk. Here are a few things you have to know about skim milk. It may make you change your mind.
1It’s Not About Your Health – It’s About the Money
First, you have to realize that skim milk is not about your health, it’s really all about the money. Today we seem to have the idea that fats are always unhealthy, but this wasn’t always the case.
Years ago, a scientist came up with the theory that cholesterol and saturated fat caused heart disease. Interestingly enough, people weren’t having so many heart attacks back in the days when people still ate tons of cream, butter, and other full-fat dairy products.
Once we got into the 1940s, everyone started to think that fat was really bad. Margarine, made with toxic industrial oils started to replace butter and skim milk took over the place of full-fat milk.
So, who really benefited from this trend? It was the dairy manufacturers. In the past, fat-free milk was practically a waste product after the cream had been skimmed off, but now dairy manufacturers had buyers for this waste product.
Consumers were suddenly convinced that skim milk was the healthy option, giving the dairy industry a huge money maker. Since dairy manufacturers are making money off skim and whole milk, they are happy to keep offering both.
2The Mystery Ingredient You Need to Know About
You probably don’t know it, but skim milk is actually watery, chalky and a bit bluish before it is processed. It does not look appetizing at all. To make it look better and to improve its taste, powdered milk solids usually get added to the skim milk.
You may be wondering, what’s wrong with that? Well, when powdered milk is made, the liquid milk has to go through small holes under a large amount of pressure. This causes the oxidation of cholesterol, forming toxic nitrates. Plaque buildup in the arteries can occur from oxidized cholesterol.
However, the normal cholesterol found in unprocessed foods is actually good for the body, helping to fight off inflammation. Another problem is that powdered milk has proteins that are denatured, making the body unable to recognize them. This can increase inflammation.
The powdered milk used in fat-free milk is not listed as a second ingredient since it’s real milk. So, you’ll never know whether it really is there or isn’t there when you purchase low-fat or no-fat dairy products today.
3It Contains GMOs, Bodily Fluids and Antibiotics – Not What You Want to Put Into Your Body!
When you purchase fat-free milk at the store, you’re probably getting milk from cows that are used in factory farms or animal feeding operations. These cows are usually confined and fed an unnatural diet, which leads to sickness.
Since these animals are often sick, antibiotics are often given to them to keep them living and producing. Sometimes they even have open sores due to infections, and the pus and blood could even end up in the milk. Legally, every liter of milk is allowed to contain 750 million pus cells – that’s just disgusting.
rBGH, also known as recombinant bovine growth hormones, can be given to milk producing cows. These hormones are known to be carcinogens, which most countries in the world have actually banned today.
The “recombinant” part of the growth hormone means that it was genetically modified from the cow’s natural growth hormones to stimulate increased milk production. These hormones are given to help increase the milk production of cows, and those GMOs are found in your milk.
4Skim Milk Offers Almost Zero Nutritional Value
Yes, it’s true that milk really “does a body good.” It is packed with great nutrients like vitamin K, calcium, vitamin A, vitamin D and vitamin E. However, skim milk may not offer all those great nutrients that your body needs.
When you drink skim milk, you’re not getting vitamin K, since vitamin K is found in the milk’s butterfat. The rest of the vitamins are fat-soluble, so if there were any vitamins left in your skim milk, your body couldn’t assimilate and absorb the vitamins without the fat.
Also, you have to remember that the vitamins like vitamin K, A and E come from eating grass and cows get their vitamin D from being out in the sun. However, since most dairy cows are kept inside and are fed unnatural diets, their milk doesn’t have as much of these vitamins. Dairy cows are also bred and given hormones to produce more milk, which dilutes the vitamin content found in their milk as well.
Since confined cows usually lack vitamin D, manufacturers actually add in some chemically synthesized vitamin D to the milk along the way. However, the D vitamins they put in your milk really isn’t assimilated by your body, so it’s essentially worthless to you.
5It Really Doesn’t Help You Lose Weight
Fat-free milk is often marketed as a way to drink milk and lose weight. However, this milk really doesn’t help you to lose weight at all. It actually could do the opposite. In the past, pigs have often been fed skim milk to bulk them up before they are slaughtered, while cream was kept back for humans.
After all, just take a look at our children in this country. They are told to drink skim milk instead of consuming whole milk, but they definitely aren’t getting any slimmer.
Even adults are noticing that skim milk isn’t helping them slim down. A reduced-fat diet has been shown to only help with temporary weight loss. The truth is that eating healthy fats will help to reduce your appetite, telling the brain when you are really full. If you don’t get enough fat in your diet, the brain will keep telling you that you’re hungry, which will ultimately lead to weight gain.
6No Heart Disease Protection
Since skim milk doesn’t have the cholesterol and saturated fat contained in whole milk, many label it as “heart healthy.” However, if we look to the past, our ancestors were not eating fat free and cholesterol foods and heart disease was not a big problem back them.
While the intake of foods high in cholesterol and saturated fats are decreasing today, problems with heart disease continue to rise, so it’s obviously a myth that cholesterol and fat is causing heart disease.
What Milk Should You Drink?
You really have no reason to purchase fat-free milk, especially with all the cons this kind of milk has. However, what milk should you be drinking? Well, the best milk is clean, fresh milk that comes from grows that get outside and eat real grass.
It should be unprocessed and whole, ensuring that you get all the nutrients milk has to offer. It’s possible to find whole milk at local farms if you take the time to do some research.
Credit: Butter Believer
Ur response to janny u said “full cream milk is good but make sure you buy the organic one”…..how do you by the organic one pls?
@Ify,
“Organic” milk is free from antibiotics and hormones that are normally present in cows. If you are in US, you can buy organic milk at Whole Foods, Trader’s Joe.
I’m not really sure where to buy outside the US
Thanks very much for the powerful tips. But is full cream powdered milk good for consumption?
@Janny,
Full cream milk is good but make sure to buy the organic one.
What about 1% milk? Whole and even 2% milk leave a film at the back of my throat that doesn’t seem to go away right away. I use 1% without any problems.
thnks for giving nice tips for beauty…
Yep..I drink farm fresh cow milk..
Never really lyked d concept of skim milk or decaf or fat free milk