Why skim milk is making us all fat!

So, this is information that I passed on to my family several months ago after reading some research...I was baffled at!!  One of the most startling statements that I read about research related to skim milk was that farmers, for years, have fed pigs skim milk when they want to fatten them up...pigs they want to keep thin, they get fed whole milk!  Now...farmers don't tend to do things that cost them money and don't work in the end!

The name alone "skim milk" made me think that the watery grey milk that I had been drinking and using for cooking for several years was just milk that the fat had been skimmed off of...pretty sure that's what most people think....but we are all wrong!!!!  To start...I'll just go through how the beautiful, thick and wonderful milk cows give us becomes that watery, strange colored liquid that is "fat-free" and "healthy".  First, milk is put into a centrifuge and all the fat is removed...along with this fat is most of the nutrients that are found in the milk...so to replace the protein, skim milk is passed through small holes under great pressure and high heat and turned into powder.  What you are left with is damaged proteins and oxidized cholesterol (a PROVEN cause of heart disease!)...this powder is then added back into the watery substance that is taken from the centrifuge...bottled and sold to us as "healthy". 

So, what happens to that watery, powdered milk when it enters our body???  Well, without the saturated fats that are normally found in milk...the milk quickly passes through our intestines, we have a spike in blood sugar and and insulin response...you receive no lasting feeling of fullness, and most likely feel more hungry than you were before!!  Not to mention you are putting denatured proteins and oxidized cholesterol into your blood stream.  What happens when you drink milk that contains the saturated fats??   Absorption of the milk is slowed, you feel more full and satisfied...your body is given a good source of energy, an immunity boost and fat soluble vitamins.  It has been proven that fats actually curb your appetite by triggering the release of the hormone cholecystokinin, which causes fullness. Fats also slow the release of sugar into your bloodstream, reducing the amount that can be stored as fat.

You are probably wondering, like I was...why are we told skim milk is so healthy then???  Well, I hate to say it all comes back to money...but....

Before the 1950's...as a culture we graded our milk based on how much cream there was on top...the idea of a milk without cream would have been laughed at!  Around that time, Americans began eating more cheese and the dairy industry needed to figure out what to do with all that leftover product....so they created low fat milk.  Lucky for them, around the same time there was a bunch of people spending a bunch of money to promote low fat, over processed diet as a "healthy" diet...and one that all Americans should follow!  Big industry has big money...which has big influence in our government...hence, the government recommendation to eat all these foods. 

Now, technically...the best milk to drink would be raw, non-homogenized, non-pasteurized milk...however, our government has also made that almost impossible to obtain (unless you grow it yourself!).  So, in our house, we by non-homogenized when we can...and whole milk at all times!  We have found a farm locally that we hope to buy our milk from in the near future...and we also hope to get some of our milk from our goats! 


I think we can all say that the diet that we have been told to eat is not a healthy one.  We are all fatter and much less healthy thanks to all these interventions...and if we don't start changing the way we eat...we are going to get worse.  Read up on it...there's lots of information and lots of studies out there...but I'll go back to what I always say...doesn't it make the most sense to eat food in the most natural form you can find it in???  Same concept applies here!!