DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Why full fat milk is the best thing you drink... and the reason the skinny stuff makes you fat

[GazG]

This article may be of interest to some here..

dailymail.co.uk/health/arti...

[NWA6]

I read a long time ago that full fat milk contains lots of calcium but that actually it isn’t as absorbable for us humans and so fish and veg was the way to go to increase absorption.

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to NWA6]

When I looked into this I found two slightly differing opinions.

1) All types of milk have the same calcium content at 250mg per 200ml milk (from an NHS hospital leaflet)

2) The lower the fat content, the higher the calcium content - but there was very little difference -

1% fat - 305mg calcium per cup

2% fat - 295mg

3.7% fat - 290mg

whole milk 3.25% fat - 275mg

[NWA6 in reply to SeasideSusie]

Yes I’d read that too - years ago when I was looking into it when my kids were young(so at least 10yrs ago, trying to move to semi skimmed all round) it was then that I started to read how not so good our farming methods were and so the quality of milk and meat was not so good.

[humanbean]

A couple of comments :

From the article :

quote

I witched from full-fat milk to skimmed in the 1980s, amid fears that saturated fat could impact my heart health and my waistline.

end quote

And from a different source : twitter.com/zoeharcombe/sta...

quote

I will forever be baffled by people who think that saturated fat is trying to kill you while unsaturated fat is trying to save you when every food that contains one contains the other.

end quote

A point to ponder for anyone who wants to lose weight and is terrified of saturated fat...

The fat you lose on a diet is your own saturated fat. You sometimes hear of people losing 50lb or 100lb or more on a diet. Their bodies use up the fat as an energy source. If saturated fat was so bad for people as an energy source then going on a diet and losing weight would be like slowly committing suicide. But instead, people who successfully lose weight are generally much healthier than they were.

[Marz]

I think it's important to know how the cows live and are they grass fed ? If so lots of K2 having converted from K1 in their stomachs ...

[Jazzw]

Is it still true that milk provides iodine? It used to because farmers disinfected the cows’ udders with iodine. But do they still? I’m sure I remember reading somewhere that the iodine content of milk has dropped considerably in recent years.

[humanbean in reply to Jazzw]

I've read the same, but can't find anything which back's it up.

bda.uk.com/foodfacts/Iodine...

bbc.co.uk/programmes/articl...

ukiodine.org/iodine-in-the-uk/

Perhaps the changes in iodine use for disinfecting milking equipment or the cow's udders didn't apply to the UK but some other country?

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to humanbean]

As far as I am aware, there has been a movement away from iodine teat disinfectant. But if I have understood properly, there has over many years been an increase in iodine content of prepared feed. Do they balance out? Or has iodine content gone down? Or up?

The paper below identifies UHT and organic milk in the UK as being lower iodine than standard milk - published 2018.

sciencedirect.com/science/a...

[humanbean in reply to helvella]

Wow! I used UHT skimmed milk for about 25 - 30 years. I hadn't realised it would have caused me to be lower in iodine than ordinary whole milk would have done. I gave up UHT skimmed milk and started using ordinary whole milk about two or three years ago.

[serenfach]

Whole milk is digested lower down in the intestines, and by drinking skimmed we may be missing out on fat-soluble nutrients like vitamins A and E.

Most teat dips contain iodine to prevent mastitis in the cow. The teats are usually dipped after the milk has been taken, so around 12 hours will pass before the teats are milked again, when the teats are washed in warm water and then dried. The technology in milking has come a long way in the last 20 years, with some of the price paid to the farmer based on cell count, so every farmer is very careful to keep everything as clean as possible.

As far as I know, every herd in Britain is grass fed. Through the winter, most herds are fed silage, which is pickled grass, or hay, which is dried grass. Grass in the fields does not grow in the winter, so farmers preserve the summer grass to last through the winter.

I seem to remember Dr Mosley did a test on the best drink to have after exercise and whole milk came top.

Anyone remember when he made a black pudding of his own blood? I worked with him to produce the recipe as I was making a lot of black puddings at the time.

[Hidden]

i do not believe everything that Dr Mosley states but I do agree with this. I always use full fat milk for breakfast cereal and in coffee, and always have done. I just like the semi in tea. I am 72 years old and have never been overweight either. My mother lived to be 99 years old and she always did the same.

[Hidden]

I forgot to say say that all of our dairy is organic anyway. I have been organic now for around 11 years.