Should I pour a glass of skim, 1 %, 2 %, or whole milk?
We can all agree that the low-fat diet craze has come and gone, but for many people who are trying to live a healthy lifestyle, milk and other dairy products have to be low-fat. Many weight-conscious individuals have developed a preference for lower-fat milk and other dairy products such as yogurt or cottage cheese. But new research indicates that full-fat dairy products such as whole milk might actually help us to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight. Who would have thought that whole milk or full-fat dairy products could actually be good for us?
In 2003, the National Dairy Council promoted the benefits of three daily servings of low-fat dairy products to help lose weight. The message was emphasized through a popular ad campaign of celebrities such as supermodel Kate Moss sporting a milk “mustache”. The idea gained momentum, but the campaign was halted in 2007 after the Federal Trade Commission found the ads misleading and that the National Dairy Council had no substantial studies that proved a direct correlation between low-fat dairy products and weight loss.
Some Interesting Research
Some recent studies have shown that people who consume full-fat dairy products are actually leaner than their counterparts who consume low-fat dairy products. One study reported by NPR.org in March, 2013, reported that children who consumed fattier milk were thinner than kids who drank skim milk. Another study from the European Journal of Nutrition published in February, 2013 by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, found no direct evidence from the majority of the 16 studies conducted that full-fat dairy products directly contributed to cardiovascular disease or obesity. On the contrary, the study indicated that high-fat dairy was linked to a lower risk of obesity. Some researchers point to the greater satiety factor of high-fat dairy, and believe that lower-fat dairy products take longer to make us feel satisfied and might result in actually drinking more to feel full.
