Whole Milk: Adding Flavor and Health to Your Life
The 90s were wrong. I don’t say that just because it wasn’t always the most flattering fashion nor because the music isn’t to my taste. (Don’t come at me fellow Millennials! It’s not that I think that current music is better by any means!) Rather, it’s because of the huge anti fat propaganda.
Unless you were an anomaly, you probably grew up with fat free everything in your house. We were there for a time too! Fat was the enemy. The thought was that fat made you fat. When heroin chic was the ideal look for women, you needed to be a little malnourished to achieve that ghastly state.
While there could be a whole article written on the benefits of fat in general, we’re going to highlight the benefit of fat in our milk or whole milk.
Whole milk is milk just as it comes out of the cow! Unless it’s pasteurized and homogenized. If it’s thus processed, it’s then it’s heated and cooled to kill bacteria (pasteurization) and pushed through a tiny hole at high force to break down the fat so it suspends in the milk (homogenization). We’re not fully dealing either with the processing or lack there of in milk today, but rather highlighting just the wonderful fat in milk.
The first thing to point out is that fat gives FLAVOR to the milk! If you ever felt that store milk is watery compared to our milk, that’s because it is! Milk is complex and full of wonderful nutrients, but it primarily made of water. Store whole milk is 3.5% fat, 2% is, well, 2%, and skim has almost all the fat removed. Whereas our milk averages 4.5-5% fat. Sometimes we even reach about 6%! As my dad always told me, fat adds flavor! The cream in the milk makes it creamy and sweet and flavorful. Watery milk? No thanks!
But more than the taste, there’s health benefits to whole milk!
First, it is nutrient rich. We’ve looked at this in past articles like Nature’s Supplement. It is a rich source of essential nutrients like protein, calcium, vitamin D, potassium, and more. In particular, vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin. This means that you need fat to absorb vitamin D well. You know what has fat in it? Whole milk. Vitamin D along with calcium contributes to bone health. Whole milk gives you the best of both worlds making for strong bones and healthy bodies.
Rejoice oh cheese lovers! Did you know that dairy fats contain conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) which may prevent heart disease and obesity? Everything in moderation, of course, as probably 4 pound of cheese a day won’t ward off the extra pounds sliding on. But in moderation as part of a well balanced diet, the CLA in dairy fat whether it be whole milk, cheese, yogurt or the like may help reduce inflammation and contribute to overall wellbeing. (As evidenced by the extreme joy of people eating cheese.)
Whole milk helps with satiety and feeling fuller longer. Our bodies burn up carbs quickly but take longer to break down protein and fat. The protein and fat can help you not get hungry as quickly! If, again, added to a well balanced diet, it then can contribute to good metabolic function and weight management. I also did a deep dive on how milk can ward of type two diabetes! You can check out my article on Milk and Diabetes for more details on it, but this is one of the points that help with it!
A few points that only apply to RAW whole milk are the gut health benefits to it, anti allergy effects, immune boosts, and potentially anti cancer properties. The probiotics in the raw milk help the gut. Also, there are great studies on raw milk aiding in children recovering from allergies and avoiding them all together. I also wrote an article on IgG (A Glass of Immunity) in milk. This is concentrated in colostrum, but can be present in raw milk. It is heat sensitive so there is no IgG in pasteurized milk. IgG is great for immune and gut support. They are studies starting to show a potential connection to colostrum and anti cancer properties. It also is wonderful to take during cancer treatment to aid in healing. More studies need to be done on colostrum helping fight cancer, but the current research is promising. For cancer aid, a whole colostrum (fat included) colostrum supplement would be best.
Is whole milk the be all end all? No. But is it better than 90s skim milk? The two can’t even be compared. Whole milk adds not just flavor but health to your world. So raise a glass to not being malnourished!
Resources:
Cheese: Are There Health Benefits? WebMD Article
Exploring the Therapeutic Potential of Bovine Colostrum for Cancer Therapies
See my published works
