Milk fats

martinh78

There are too many threads from folk about cows milk and I really don't want this thread to turn into another one of those. I don't really care what your thoughts are about cows milk, I've made my decision and am sticking with it.

Great, got that out of the way!

This is not so much about weight loss as I am at a healthy weight and eating well/exercising regularly. I'm close to maintenance and consider myself to be healthy and living a healthy lifestyle.

I drink skimmed milk, have done most of my life and like the taste of it. I have become more aware of the "fact" that the body can't process the calcium in milk without fats, and too much dairy can actually be detrimental to bone strength and density.

I am going to continue drinking milk but I am wondering if I should be drinking full fat milk instead of skimmed. I could half my my daily consumption of milk and stay within my calories if the fats in milk could be consiidered worth the benefit? Or is it a case of if you have a decent supply of healthy fats in your system would that have the same effect.

For example, eating a portion of nuts whilst drinking skimmed milk would give similar macros and I don't see how the body know the difference between the fat in nuts and the fat in milk so in theory it should be the same?

I do have a diet low in saturated fats and intend to stick to that so full fat milk wouldn't fit in with my macros for sats, but my sats are half or less than the rda each day so I could afford to up this a little if the benefits are there from drinking full fat milk over skimmed milk.

I'm not scared of eating good fats, I am concerned about the saturated fats in full fat milk though, and wonder if I am getting the full benefits from skimmed milk because of the zero fat.