Hacker News Reader

Comment by colinbartlett | Hacker News Reader

If you've been drinking 2% milk since childhood because that's what your family drank, I suggest you try whole milk.

You might never go back because the taste difference is unbelievable.

I've tried it on and off but have trouble actually drinking a glass. Using it to make a rich hot chocolate works for me, but I can't drink a glass of plain, unflavored whole milk... just tastes gross, like I'm drinking some kind of butter-in-water mixture. Sort of how I like butter on toast, but not by itself on a spoon. (Warm whole milk, as is popular in some countries, is even worse.)

That's because milk _is_ tiny chunks of butter suspended in water. Agitating the milk causes the fat globules to collide and occasionally stick together.

Have you ever tried warm whole milk mixed with honey? That's my favorite drink for cold days.

Yes, this is good! Also try it with some cardamom and vanilla.

Hmm, this actually sounds promising. I do like hot chocolate made with whole milk, so other variations on the spiced-milk idea might work too.

Don't forget a little bit of salted butter in there, too!

Its about expectation. Pick up a glass of milk thinking its orange juice, drink it - it's gross! Then you look - oh, OJ, that's ok then.

And then try raw, unhomogenized, unpasteurized milk. :D It will feel like angels dancing on your tongue.

With the added benefit of being able to chew it all day.

Wish I could upvote this more. The health difference between pasteurized milk and raw milk is roughly equivalent to the flavor difference between the two - huge. If you must drink pasteurized milk, full fat is your only option.

That's illegal in most if not all of the US.

No, it isn't. It's illegal to sell it across state lines, or in some places to the general public. But in most states, you can buy it at a farm, or other licensed facility. It isn't like heroin, or even pot, and you won't get in trouble for possession.

http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/raw_milk_map.htm

Looks like I'm wrong, but it also looks like in most of the country where you can buy it you can only buy it from the farmer directly. So it's still not easy to get.

Not really. There are many states that allow farmers to sell raw milk; some only for pet consumption. The illegal part is generally about 'smuggling' raw milk across state borders.

I grew up on that stuff; I didn't like the unhomogenized part personally.

Been there, done that. I guess it must be an acquired taste :)

Possibly. But once you acquired it you can't go back. ;)

My 4 year old daughter was drinking a modest amount whole milk when the pediatrician recommended we switch to skim milk. We did, and her consumption of Milk more than doubled (skim milk is sweeter and lighter) and she got more irritable (more sugar?). We switched back.

Any pediatrician that recommends skim milk is a fucking idiot, plain and simple. Get a new doctor.

I'm not super impressed with the average doctor in the USA these days, but most decent pediatricians tell parents to give kids whole milk. If they are remotely educated on nutrition beyond decades old medical school knowledge, they are aware that current guidelines state that the additional fat soluble nutrients in whole milk are great for kids.

My son's pediatrician told us (when he was 2), "don't even waste your time with anything other than whole milk. Otherwise you get all of the sugar with little of the vitamins"

This is actually interesting. The American Association of Pediatrics recommends transitioning kids over to skim milk at age 2. This is because they are trying to fight the obesity epidemic. See recent publications on their HALF inititive: http://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-init...

As you can imagine, this has caused some controversy in the pediatrics world. The pediatrician we go to still recommends whole or 2% milk for our toddler. She actually makes a point to tell us any time her recommendations conflict with the official AAP recommendations and why, which I think is a really nice thing for a doctor to do.

Your doctor is awesome. "The AAP recommends this, but only because it's trying to fight childhood obesity. Your kid is nowhere near obese so let's give her the best diet for her as an individual."

Ha. Is that the same obesity and diabetes (and even potentially ADHD) epidemic that's been encouraged by low fat high carb hysteria for the last 30 years.

I just hope my kid can still get whole milk when he goes to kindergarten.

First of all he's talking about a 4 year old. Whole milk is highly recommended under 2 years of age. The doctor is not an idiot for suggesting a 4 year old that is drinking a modest amount of whole milk switch to skim milk. There are lots of good things in skim milk, vitamin D and calcium for one and if a kid drinks skim, 1%, or 2% milk he/she will be getting more of those things because he/she will drink more of it as it is less filling than whole milk. It could be there was some concern that the child was getting enough calcium. One way to increase calcium intake is to switch to a lower fat milk.

Also, some people may call 1% or 2% "skim milk". In Canada the labels on these milk products are called "partly skimmed milk".

That's pretty mean. The recommendations given to doctors (doctors are not normally nutritionists, they just pass on recommendations) changed three times while I was raising kids. So maybe the doc was just behind the times.

Pump your brakes, here. clarkevans didn't say why the pediatrician recommended the switch. Maybe his four year-old was struggling with a weight-related issue? Maybe it had to do with trying to encourage increased milk consumption (clarkevans says she "more than doubled" her consumption). Or maybe you're right, and the pediatrician just wasn't up on current information.

Regardless, I think you should be a little more careful when making that kind of claim without any other additional information.

It's even better if you grew up drinking skim or 1/2%.

Please pardon my ignorance but what exactly is the difference?

It's just different. From whole to 2% to skim you have big differences in how rich the milk tastes. Once you get used to one, it's hard to go back to the others.

I always drank whole milk, so skim tasted like water. Then I started only drinking skim milk, and whole tasted like ice cream.

I don't have any dairy issues but it's very, very rare that I drink milk anymore these days, but I still enjoy it.

It tastes completely different, much thicker, much rich. 2% tastes almost like water compared to whole milk.

The first time I had whole milk was at an after school program I went to in elementary school. They fed us a snack first thing when we got there. One day they gave us (whole) milk with our snack. Almost everyone (including me) took a sip and complained the milk was bad/tasted funky. The head person of the place came out and told us the milk was fine, we were all just not used to drinking whole milk.

I still don't like the taste of any cow's milk too much, I prefer unsweetened soy milk. Soy milk also lasts forever in the fridge which is a big plus for me.

and 1% or skim taste like dirty water

Reply on news.ycombinator.com