A position statement on dairy
Posted by kathryn in A Balanced Diet
One of the most common topics during Q & A Thursday is dairy. Is it good for you? Do you have to drink milk to get enough calcium? Low fat vs full fat? What about healthy bones?
It’s a topic guaranteed to get people commenting.
Recent comments and discussion got me thinking – that it was time to write a longer post on my attitudes to dairy
Dairy as a natural food
People regularly comment to me that full fat dairy is more natural than low fat.
It’s something that makes me slightly uneasy. While it’s technically true, I think we run the risk of romanticising dairy. It’s important to remember that what we buy from the supermarket is quite different from what comes out the cow.
In the Western world milk undergoes two stages of processing, before it’s sold to consumers: pasteurisation and homogenisation.
In pasteurisation, milk is heated for a short period of time, to destroy bacteria and microbes. It’s a safety measure to prevent illness, but also has the benefit of prolonging milk’s shelf-life.
The second stage of processing is homogenisation, where milk is forced at high pressure through a tiny nozzle onto a hard surface. This process forces apart the globules of fat which are found in milk. This stops the fat from aggregating together, separating out and forming a layer of cream at the top of the container. It means the final product we buy is more even, more . . . homogenous.
Low fat versions are made by centrifuging the milk prior to homogenisation. This seperates out the fat, enabling it to be skimmed off the top.
Structural changes in dairy
During this processing, milk undergoes several structural changes. For example:
- Pasteurisation inactivates enzymes that naturally occur in milk
- Homogenisation changes the way fat exists in milk. It breaks the large globules into smaller units, which are held apart by proteins.
- Skimming milk removes the fat soluble nutrients – this includes Vitamin A and the carotenoid antioxidants.
Full fat vs skim milk
If you’re consuming reduced fat milk products you are missing out on some of the vitamins and antioxidants available in the full fat versions.
Despite this, I still support and recommend many clients use reduced fat milk products.
In nutrition, as with many areas of life, there are trade-offs. Compromises to be made. Between the best diet imaginable, and what is practical and do-able for individuals.
In my ideal world everyone would be eating a variety of different foods. People would balance out their vegetarian and meat proteins. Five serves would be considered a laughable minimum intake of vegetables. People would avoid KFC because they didn’t like the food.
And in my ideal world dairy would be just one of multitude of foods we ate during the week.
But that’s not the current situation here in Australia. Our diet is too high in fat, particularly saturated. Most people consume too many kilojoules for their activity level. The majority don’t get anywhere near the recommended intake of fruit and vegies.
And our diets are dominated by a small number of foods – wheat, dairy and red meat. These are what most people consume every day. These are the foundations of most peoples’ diet.
Given that, I think there is a place for reduced fat dairy in many people’s diets. Despite the reduced amounts of vitamins and antioxidants. Despite the extra processing. Changing the intake of this foundation food can change a person’s diet for the better.
Yes, it’s a compromise. It’s not my ideal. And yes I would ultimately prefer people to reduce their over-reliance on dairy. It’s why on this blog I talk about more unusual ingredients like tahini and barley. It’s also why I advocate variety as a fundamental dietary concept.
But while I’m plugging away at getting people to make these big changes to their diet, switching to reduced fat dairy is a practical, realistic change that most folks can do now. And I’m satisfied with that.
17 June, 2008
Comments
A well written post. I would be interested in your view on Soya milk as a milk replacement. I tend to use this on my cereal or porridge as I don’t like large amounts of milk (mainly because of the taste), and then figure I am getting enough diary product through eating youghurt and the odd bit of cottage or other cheese.
Interesting to find out about how dairy fits into the Australian diet! What’s your take on raw dairy? Do you get it there?
Fantastic piece. I had to sleep on it.
Although it is against the law to market unpasteurised milk for human consumption, it is possible to get non homogenised – i find this fascinating to buy as obviously the fat creeps to the top and so you can separate that off if you fancy a teaspoon of “cream” in your pasta. I like the idea of being able to chose which bit of the milk you get. Unfortunately I wasn’t getting enough consistent orders to keep this product going in the business.
It won’t change my dairy consumption, (I don’t think I have a huge amount these days anyhow). Again, full cream milk is 96% fat free – a claim rice crackers brandish about the place for us to believe they are healthy.
Your post however, left me thinking a lot more about variety in my diet and deciding it’s not good enough. stay tuned… (LOL!)
and, not that anyone probably cares, my thought on soya milk is that the only way to go is buy fresh soya milk. Have you read the ingredients labels on some of that stuff?
Thank you for this information… I pretty ignorantly consume my skim milk. I’ve grown up on low fat milk. I wasn’t aware that it contained less vitamins than full fat milk, but am over all still content with my choice to drink the fat-free version, and hope to get the missing nutrients from other foods.
Hi there Jacqueline, thanks for your comment and question. I’ve written quite a few posts on soy before: how much soy is too much, revisiting soy, can soy affect a woman’s fertility and so on.
Ricki – raw milk is kind of available. It’s illegal to sell raw milk for human consumption, but I know of at least one brand which sells it as a skin care product – and people do consume. As Grocer says unhomogenised is available.
Thanks Grocer, glad you got something from this. It’s really easy to become reliant on “regular” foods. But regularly mixing things up can make such a difference to your nutrient intake. Look forward to hearing about your forays into food variety!
Cookinpanda – I firmly believe the more knowledge you have about foods, the better equipped you are to make the right choices for your own health.
Great post as usual Kathryn! Very informative for a “lover” of full fat, but a “needer” of skimmed! We used to live in a tiny town on the Murray River (NSW side), where diary farms thrived, and being one of seven kids, my mum saved money by buying directly from the diary farmer. Often the bloke used to scoop up a 5L bucket out of the vat, so it was always still a bit warm. After having seen the blood and pus (from cracked nipples) enter the vat, I am a happy devotee of pasturisation! Yet the cream we skimmed off the bucket was to die for and filled a sponge like no other. Oh the memories… So my advice, go and live near a dairy farm!
I feel pretty much better for not eating diary, I am pretty much 90% a dietary vegan now and feel full of energy and far far healthier for it – I have now idea if this is due to no diary and animal products or for the fact I am eating loads of fruit, veg, beans and grains.
As far as soy milk goes, if you drink it on a regular basis buy a soy milk machine. Fresh soy milk within 20 mins with no additives and no packaging. I make lots and use it for baking and for homemade tofu.
Everything is bad for you in excess surely?
Getting dairy out of my diet was the best thing I ever did. But obviously everyone is different. The thing that stands out the most to me is how very defensive people are about their milk-drinking and cheese-eating. Even I was extremely resistant at first. Why are we so emotionally tied to our dairy consumption? Granted, cheese and ice cream are delicious. But living better is even more delicious, so I say it’s always worth a try to see how you’d feel off dairy! http://doesabodygood.blogspot.com/search/label/dairy
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