The case for drinking whole milk
qz.com
qz.com
There's no way to trust any of this. Whatever decisions are made now I expect to read about the benefits of the opposite decision in ten years.
When put into the perspective of the entire volume of nutritional research, the concepts which are established as certain are a tiny fraction of the total (for the great majority, one finds every possible opinion/research, and the opposite of it), so being skeptical is perfectly reasonable.
Quoting the article:
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> suggests that high-fat dairy consumption within typical dietary patterns is inversely associated with obesity risk.
Obesity risk.
> While not conclusive, the results "may provide a rationale for future research"
Not conclusive.
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Sadly, under these conditions, it's perfectly reasonable not to exclude that in 10 years, the opposite of such conclusions will be reached.
There certainly is a way to trust it. http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html
I think the study over looks the most likely physiological reasoning for this, primarily suggesting it is a matter of satiety (feeling fuller consuming less). People like to hinge on the concept of calories in/calories out, then highlight short term diets of ice cream and Twinkies where people still lose weight because of the caloric intake management. Notwithstanding temporary loses due to reduced calories, such diets do prime one for obesity. On the other-hand diets high in protein and fat (good fats: like almonds, chicken skin, red meats, ect...) do prime one to avoid obesity.
Each body and metabolism is different. However, the rule of thumb is that sugars (Twinkies and ice cream) release insulin which enlarges things in the body including tumors and in this case fat cells which does prime a body for obesity even if one is not currently obese. But healthy fats will trigger the release of glucagon which has the opposite effect of insulin resulting in smaller fat cells which does help in avoiding obesity.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2381335/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/processed-carbohydrates-are-addi...
http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/9683329 http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v32/n11/abs/ijo2008166a.ht...
Addiction to carbs has the same mechanism as addiction to cocaine
"The reason overweight individuals have a tough time is that they are VERY satieted by carb foods"
Satiety has little to with cravings. It has to do with hunger.
Regardless, I guess we are both in the "wrong" to assume whether particular individuals are truly satieted by carb foods or not. And I think we can both agree that it's best to avoid large amounts of simple carbs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reward_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine#Animals
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...
I would also point out that fat people very rarely eat much above their natural metabolic burn rate. Instead, people who are presently gaining weight are doing so. Someone who eats an extra 500 calories per day over what their body demands (call it one, one and a half grilled cheese or PB&J sandwiches) gains 1 pound per week, and has gained 52 pounds after 1 year. A fat person who has a stable weight is not eating excess food. The reason you see them eating more food than you, is that when we gain weight, our body demands more energy to feed that body mass; Losing a pound at 130lbs weight requires a similar amount of discomfort & deprivation as losing a pound at 330lbs weight. For them to be feeding a body two and a half times as large on a similar diet as a stable-weight 130lbs person, would represent a very rapid, very uncomfortable weight loss, a starvation diet.
Usually, people gaining weight put on pounds slowly; Gaining 26 lbs per year is a 250 calories per day excess. They're only eating 10 or 15% more than they should be to maintain their weight. This is not the behavior of an out-of-control addict chasing the dragon, but a largely functional feedback loop responding to a slight artificial bias in favor of extra food, or less exercise, than it's naturally tuned for (or at least, than it was subjected to previous to the obesity epidemic).
If you sugar spikes from carbs, insulin stores it into fat.
No, that you need a calorie surplus to increase stored energy, whether in the form of fat or otherwise, isn't pseudo-science (the alternative is pseudo-science of the same sort as perpetual motion machines.)
And people trying to avoid a calorie surplus are not going to eat more sugar ("processed foods" perhaps -- I mean, lots of convenient high-protein, low-sugar, shelf-stable convenient foods are fairly highly processed from their raw forms. OTOH, I don't see a real problem with them, either. All "processed foods" are not created equal.)
> If you sugar spikes from carbs, insulin stores it into fat.
Right. But if you aren't maintaining a calorie surplus, you aren't going to gain stored energy whether in the form of fat or otherwise, because you're going to be using stored energy at least as fast as you are storing it.
OTOH, excess carb intake is often associated with a feeling of lethargy which discourages activity, so in addition to the calories coming in from that activity, that eating pattern can reduce calories going out. And lots of people have metabolic issues related to carbs which make excess carb intake a health problem for other reasons, so its definitely true that there are good reasons to be aware of carb intake for most people, and for people with particular health conditions related to carbs that's even more true.
But its not true that either weight or fat gain is unrelated to calorie balance.
http://www.webmd.com/diet/20120626/all-calories-not-created-...
That's what you just said. You're wrong, btw. Plent. Of morbidly obese and super obese people eat lots of fat.
For a non-obese person calories also don't matter because if you eat equal amount of calories using sugar, almonds or olive oil, the effect will be completely different
I've observed obese people. And, no, they don't all eat simple carbs.
> Why? They are addicted to dopamine,
You can't be "addicted to dopamine". Dopamine plays a role (or, more accurately, different roles) in various addictions, but isn't the thing to which you are addicted.
> they tremble and get depressed if they don't eat sugar and carbs.
That sounds a lot like hypoglycemia (possibly resulting from chronic hyperinsulinemia), which is a fairly well-established thing, unlike folk-psychology "carbohydrate addiction".
> They overeat, that's the reason they are obese.
This is the one sane thing you say: yes, weight gain results from "overeating", that is, a calorie surplus.
> For a non-obese person calories also don't matter
"also"? As you correctly note previously overeating -- eating an excess of calories -- is where weight gain comes from. That's true whether the person is or is not obese at the time.
Calories absolutely matter. Both for obese people and non-obese people.
you should start with basics then. If you think there is no sugar and simple carbs addiction, wow
http://www.webmd.com/diet/ss/slideshow-sugar-addiction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_addiction
>Calories absolutely matter
OKOK I agree that calories make you fat of course, but if you are not addicted to cookies, sugar and other carbs you won't over consume calories. Why would you overeat broccoli with olive oil? So in this case, you can eat oil and lard.
I'd imagine a steak lover who just finished a porterhouse with bernaise is also high on dopamine.
I see two legitimate uses nowadays for "cow milk is for calves": raising awareness about the cruel aspects of our relation with other animals and promoting breast feeding.
That saying has been around for ages, but strikes me as one of those superficially smart sounding but actually kind of fundamentally misguided phrases that sometimes become popular. Unless someone is suggesting an all cows milk diet, I suppose.
Passed six months, cows only consume grass, and look how quickly they add mass.
As you point out. Milk is for baby animals. Cow milk is for cows. Adult humans are neither babies nor cows.
Green vegetables are for all omni/herbivores.
New borns are "programmed" to grow fast. They do need energy to allow this growth, but consumption of milk is not the reason. There are a lot of baby humans who are dairy intolerant, they are fed with non-dairy replacements, and surprise, they grow at the same rate as other babies.
Most things in moderation and you can focus on the pleasure aspect vs. the health. Whole has more pleasure to it.
If you're going to drink from the bosom of a cow, might as well go fully creepy.
I have been drinking raw milk (just cooled) for over two years now. It's sold here (in Poland but also in Eastern Europe in general) from free-standing machines[1].
It's ~4% fat, slightly more expensive but much tastier. Doesn't keep as well as one sold in a box but you can still drink it with curd on top.
I haven't heard of any epidemics.
People in the US have had kidney failure as a result of raw milk. That's pretty risky considering not many people drink it.
If I knew what the Polish is for "kidney failure" I could probably find the Polish children who were made very ill by parents imposing their fads.
However, two of my daughter's classmates were hospitalized just a few years ago from drinking raw milk. It was touch and go for a while, but they recovered and didn't need kidney transplants. http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2012/04/raw_milk_...
Is that really a requirement? Wikipedia says "infectious disease", and, for example, here's a study that refers to an "epidemic" of foodborne illness: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7727673
An epidemic disease is not required to be
contagious, and the term has been applied
to West Nile fever and the obesity epidemic,
among others.
Majority of adults should avoid dairy products, would be order of magnitude more healthy if calories were replaced with green vegetables.
>Though it would seem to follow that consuming less fat would lead to being less fat, that’s not quite what the science says, at least when it comes to dairy—even if whole milk is more caloric than skim.
It mentions about some scientific reason for it but then talks about bunch of high level case studies and that's all.
On a side note, I find most of these case studies a scam, where they exaggerate and manipulate numbers to make it sound scary or utterly interesting for reader's attention.
So it's a choice between "processed milk" and "slightly more processed milk". I suggest making your decision based on calories instead of the amount of processing. Whole milk has almost twice the amount calories compared to skim milk.
People in the Natural Golden Age™ didn't generally drink whole milk, either — they skimmed the cream off to use separately.
Interesting. That's not the case in the UK http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=254656543 http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=254656399 or Ireland http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=250005508 http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=250005606 .
But I think the price in the supermarket has little to do with the cost. It's a staple food that people remember the price of, and which can be used to tempt people to switch supermarket.
I personally prefer milk straight from the tank. Cold and non-processed :-)
So, it is cold in the tank. And taste really good!
I also like me some moderate energy reserves; it improves almost keeling over from low blood sugar when forgetting to eat or no food is available for a few hours tremendously.
First of all, quality matters. You could satisfy your entire calorie requirement with lard, but that would be extremely detrimental to your health.
Also, how our bodies process food is still not well-understood in detail (although there are tons of self-titled experts claiming otherwise). In other words, excess calories == weight gain and insufficient calories == weight loss don't work out just as nicely as you'd think (I think there was an article on HN recently that even pointed out different people have different "default weights" they would find very difficult to stray from in either direction).
Additionally simply not eating that much can be very difficult. Not everyone has the time, energy and money to ensure they eat healthy (and the right things eat the right times of the day) -- although of course for energy this can be somewhat of a catch-22 (bad eating habits lead to lack of energy leading to bad eating habits). And there's also the problem of satiation and rabbit starvation: it's hard to stick with a diet if your body signals you that you're starving and must eat.
As a rule of thumbs, sure, just eat less calories if you're overweight. But good luck sticking with that if you don't have the time, energy and money to experiment with how you can make that sustainable. Otherwise the "yo-yo effect" wouldn't be such a widespread and widely-known problem.