Recently, the milk industry, announced that it was dropping the “Got Milk?” campaign. The new marketing approach will emphasize the protein in milk in relationship to health. While the marketing approach is new, the nutritional value of milk hasn’t changed.
Milk is
a powerhouse when it comes to nutrition. Dairy foods are important in
our daily diet. They are naturally nutrient-rich foods that provide
us with calcium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, riboflavin,
magnesium, as well as other vitamins and minerals. All of these
nutrients are essential for human growth and development. Current USDA recommendations for everyone 9 years old and older is three 8-ounce servings of milk every day. This recommendation provides individuals with 90 percent of their daily calcium needs.
The health benefits of milk and dairy products are linked to improved bone health and the reduced risk of osteoporosis. The intake of dairy products is especially important to bone health during childhood and adolescence, when bone mass is being built. Intake of dairy products is also associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, and with lower blood pressure.
Most of us think of calcium when we think of the importance of consuming milk or other dairy products. Calcium is used by the body to build bones and teeth and maintain bone mass. Dairy products are the primary source of calcium in American diets. Diets that provide 3 cups or the equivalent of dairy products each day can improve our bone mass.
The heart, nerves and muscles need calcium to work well. Calcium plays an important role in muscle contraction, smooths the conduction of nerve impulses and assists with clotting of blood to initiate wound healing.
Calcium from dairy products is better absorbed by the body than plant based sources.
Milk also has other nutrients that contribute to good health. Potassium is one of the many nutrients in dairy products. Diets rich in potassium may help to maintain healthy blood pressure. Dairy products, especially yogurt, milk and soy milk, provide potassium. A cup of milk has as much potassium as one small banana.
Milk is
fortified with Vitamin D. Vitamin D functions in the body to maintain
proper levels of calcium and phosphorous, thereby helping to build
and maintain bones. Milk is also a good source of protein. One 8-ounce serving of milk provides 8 grams of protein. The recommended amount of protein for a woman older than age 19 is 46 grams daily. The rule of thumb is that 10 percent to 35 percent of your total daily calories should be protein. Three servings of milk can easily help you reach the desired amount of protein.
We need protein to help build and repair tissues in the body. Protein is an important part of all body cells. Protein helps repair muscles after exercising. Protein also provides energy in the same manner that carbohydrates do. Protein is a more expensive source of energy for our bodies than carbohydrates, so the preferable source of energy is carbohydrates.
Milk provides both protein and carbohydrates, making it an excellent food to include in your daily diet for many reasons.
When choosing milk and dairy products, choose the low-fat or no-fat versions. A cup of no-fat milk has the same nutrients that a cup of whole milk does; you are only missing the extra calories. A cup of whole milk has 150 calories compared to 90 calories for a cup of low-fat milk.
By choosing the low-fat versions of dairy products, you also are reducing the amount of unhealthy saturated fat in your diet.
If you or your children prefer flavored milk, that’s OK. Flavored milk has all the same nutrients as white milk. Just choose low- or no-fat flavored milk. Research shows that children who drink flavored milk meet more nutrient needs, do not consume more added sugar, fat or calories and are less likely to be heavier than non-milk drinkers.
Milk is the new power drink for athletes. The protein, nutrients and carbohydrates in milk make it the perfect power drink after participating in active sports.
Despite claims sometimes made about the health benefits of drinking raw milk, evidence does not suggest that drinking raw milk will relieve or lessen the symptoms of lactose intolerance, according to a study conducted by nutritionists at Stanford University and published this week in Annals of Family Medicine.
But, according to the dairy owner who supplied the raw milk and aided in the study, the design had several limitations that were not obvious until after the data had been collected. As a result, he says, the study raises more questions than answers and should be seen as paving the way for a more complete analysis.
The relatively small study required 16 individuals with the clinical definition of lactose intolerance to drink raw milk, pasteurized milk and soy milk exclusively over the eight-day periods, separated by a week of zero milk consumption each time. As each phase progressed, the test participants reported on their level of physical discomfort as they went through bouts of diarrhea, cramping, flatulence and audible intestinal sounds.
The results found no noticeable difference between the severity of lactose-intolerance symptoms faced when participants drank raw milk compared to pasteurized milk, said Christopher Gardner, Ph.D., professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center and senior author of the study.
Gardner
said, however, that the test did not account for whether or not the
eight-day phase of drinking raw milk was a long enough time for
bodies to adjust to the bacteria in raw milk, as theorized by Mark
McAfee, the owner of Organic Pastures, a prominent raw milk dairy and
the supplier of raw milk to the study. Gardner said that he became personally interested in the subject of raw milk and lactose intolerance when a student in one of his nutrition classes said that drinking raw milk did not cause him to suffer from symptoms of lactose intolerance such as diarrhea and abdominalcramping, but he did suffer those symptoms when he drank pasteurized milk. In fact, the student has said he had developed severe intestinal problems from drinking pasteurized milk since moving to the U.S. From Africa, but was able to nurse him back to health with raw milk, which he was accustomed to drinking back home.
At first, that claim didn’t make sense to Gardner. Raw milk and pasteurized milk contain the same amount of lactose and should therefore both require a person to produce the lactase enzyme in order for them to digest it.
Raw
milk has just as much lactose in it, but it also has probiotics,”
Gardner said, explaining his thought process. “Does that make a
difference? It sounded like something I could test.”
Gardner told Food Safety News that he is personally a big proponent of whole foods and studying how whole foods influence nutrition, as opposed to studying isolated nutrients.
He said that he understands the attraction to whole foods as a response to the abundance of refined and highly processed foods found in grocery stores, and that’s why his nutrition studies focus on whole foods.
How the study worked
Participants were asked to rate the severity of their symptoms on a scale of 0 to 10 for each of the eight days they drank progressively larger servings of each type of milk. A rating of 10 indicated “unbearably severe” symptoms.
The ratings of symptom severity for raw milk and pasteurized milk matched up almost identically on day seven of each phase – the day when participants consumed the largest serving of milk.
On average, participants rated the severity of their flatulence at a little more than 4 out of 10 after drinking both raw and pasteurized milk. For diarrhea, severity averaged around 3 for both, while it also averaged around 3 for intestinal sounds and 2.5 for abdominal cramping.
0 comments:
Post a Comment