What is the best kind of milk?

The one you like to drink and that fits your calorie and macronutritional needs.

Also, wondering where I can get water with the nutritional profile of skim milk since apparently it's just water. Lol.

I use coconut milk, but I also use almond milk. 1 cup is only 40 calories!!

beautifulsparkles wrote: »

I'm not talking about brands, but where milk comes from.

I usually drink skim milk. I am wondering if it is not as good as regular, full fat milk, because it is a watered down version and our body needs calcium and stuff.

Skim milk is not "watered down," it just has the fat skimmed off. It has calcium and all the other "stuff" that full-fat milk, just not the fat. (And I guess maybe not any naturally occurring fat-soluble vitamins, but skim milk with added A and D is widely available.) I'm not saying whole milk is "bad," but skim milk isn't "bad" either.

I've read that you should drink full fat milk because your body needs the fat and the milk has really good stuff in it, while skim milk tends to have added sugars.

Yes, your body needs the fat. If milk is your only source of calories, you absolutely should be drinking full-fat milk. If, however, you are consuming other foods and liquids, you may be getting sufficient fat from other sources, and drinking full-fat milk may not be any advantage to you. As for added sugar, I don't know where you shop or what brands you are seeing, but I have never in my life seen skim milk with added sugar. Unless somebody was making chocolate milk.

Full fat milk is supposed to be more satisfying and I believe you would end up drinking a smaller amount. I am not used to the taste of full fat milk, it always tastes weird to me. It also used to give me a horrendous stomach ache when I was a child. I seem to have outgrown that, as I can have the milkshakes from McDonalds, and I obviously drink tea with milk when I go out or am at other peoples houses.

If full fat-milk is more satisfying to you, that's a good reason to drink it. If you're trying to stay under a particular calorie goal, however, your comparison should be whether 1 cup of full-fat milk (146 calories) is more filling than 1 and 3/4 cups of skim milk, which is the rough equivalent in calories to 1 cup of full-fat milk (with the added bonus of 6 extra grams of protein and more than an extra 20% of your RDA of calcium compared to the amount in 1 cup of full-fat milk.

If full-fat milk tastes weird to you because you're not used to it, I guess you have to decide whether there's any reason to drink it that's important enough to you to keep drinking it for however long it takes to get used to it and see if it stops tasting weird.

Then there are cow milk alternatives. Stuff like almond milk, soy milk or goats milk. To my knowledge I have never tasted these. I think they are more expensive. I am not sure whether they would get stored in the fridge or not, if they can be used in all the same ways cow milk can be (in tea, in baking etc) and what the expiration dates are like. Also do they have the same health benefits as regular milk, like calcium? I would need a milk alternative that meets my nutritional needs.

What is best when it comes to animals well being and the environment?

What kind of milk do you think is best? do you use more than one type of milk?

If packaged in aseptic (shelf-stable) packaging, you would store in the refrigerator after opening. If not packaged aseptically, you have to store in the refrigerator even before opening. I buy dairy and non-dairy milks in aseptic packaging so I can take them to work and store in my desk until I use up an opened one in the fridge, so I'm never stuck without milk for my coffee or cereal.

I don't see a problem with non-dairy milks in tea, if you like the taste. I'm honestly not sure about baking with non-dairy milks, although I don't see why goat's milk would be a problem (to be clear, I consider goat's milk a dairy product, but you don't seem to), although it won't match cow's milk exactly for protein and fat. I'm using goat's milk butter on my toast right now, and it's very yummy. For true non-dairy products, like soy and almond, it's going to depend on the recipe and the role that milk fat and protein are playing in it. You might try querying on a baking site (King Arthur's Flour has a very responsive, helpful set of baking experts that respond to online queries).

Most of the alternative milks are fortified with calcium, if it's not present naturally (as in almond milk). You should read the nutritional label on any product you buy. Soy milk is the only alternative that's going to come close to matching cow's milk for protein. Almond, coconut, and rice milk, especially if unsweetened, are significantly lower in calories than cow's milk, so you could potentially add other foods to meet any nutritional deficiencies in the non-dairy milk.

If you care about animal's well-being and you want to drink cow's or goat's milk, you should probably look for products from small herds, ideally local, where you can talk to the dairy farmers yourselves. Or you can be a little less diligent like me and choose to believe packaging label that refers to family farmers and grass-pastured animals that aren't given antibiotics. (I know that in beef cattle, antibiotics are routinely administered to try to keep animals from getting sick as they are raised and brought to market under conditions that are both less than optimal and difficult to view as humane. I'm not certain that that is how antibiotics are used in dairy herds, but it stands to reason that if the dairy farmers are committing to not using antibiotics, they have a stake in making sure the conditions the animals are kept in are conducive to good health.)

Or you could just opt for non-dairy milk and not have to worry about whether the soybeans were raised humanely.

I'm not going to wade into the environmental argument, other than to say that large-scale growth of soybeans has some issues too. Unless we want to go back to a sustenance hunter-and-gatherer existence (and eliminate 90% of the human population), we're going to have to accept the fact that human life on this planet has some environmental impacts, and make the best, most sustainable choices we can.

Honestly, I absolutely don't care whether you or anyone else drinks skim milk or full-fat milk. I personally drink both, often influenced by which cartons in the store that week have the later expiration date. I drink non-dairy milk as well. I'm just trying to help you make a logical decision.

Oh and I use loads of milk in my tea too. Around 300ml all up

abigailtolin wrote: »

I use coconut milk, but I also use almond milk. 1 cup is only 40 calories!!

The coconut milk i use is this one-



It seriously makes things like cereal, protein powders, etc. taste awesome! Something about coconut tastes creamy, sweet, and delicious. *_*

lynn_glenmont wrote: »

Christine_72 wrote: »

beautifulsparkles wrote: »

@kimny72 What is a creamer? I don't think they sell those here

I'm still not 100% sure what creamer is. I'm in Australia.
For taste and macros I prefer cows milk, of which I used to drink a ton. I've recently switched to vanilla almond milk, (not the unsweetened one which tastes like water with teeny hint of almond flavour...) in my tea. It's $3.80 for 1 Litre. The only reason I switched from cow to Almond is because I constantly
had litlle pimple like bumps on my chin.. A few days of no cows milk and they have completely disappeared.

Just pick the one that fits into your taste and calorie/macro goal.

Creamer - I am not a fan, so this is not going to be objective.
It's a substitute for cream to use in your coffee, made from vegetable oil and often corn syrup. I believe it was originally developed as a cheap alternative to cream or half-and-half that could be set out in little individual half-ounce sealed plastic containers in diners and restaurants without refrigeration.
It leaves a nasty oily film on top of your coffee (see what I mean about lack of objectivity )
Even the plain kind often has some kind of sweetener in it, and I can't abide anything sweet in my coffee, so that's a no-go.
In recent decades, flavored creamer has become rampant in the U.S. ("french vanilla," "hazelnut," "Bailey's Irish cream," etc.). I can't really offer an opinion, since as I said, I can't stand anything sweet in my coffee. But I imagine they're all pretty vile

I'm going to have to object and say coffee creamer is amazing. Especially they flavored ones, my favorite being french vanilla and caramel.

For people with no access to coffee creamer you can made a REALLY good dupe by combining milk, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla extract/flavorings. It's cheap too.

Although, now that i'm not living in the US, i just skip this altogether. It's really common in the US to have drip coffee, and generally (especially in an office setting) it's bitter/burnt and crappy tasting. Now that i live in Europe most coffee is made from actual espresso, so it's not even comparable.


edit: also, also, you can make badass italian sodas with creamer. how could anyone hate this?

FunkyTobias wrote: »

Tofuli wrote: »

Cow's milk in general is not needed, and skimmed milk is one of the most ridiculous food products out there (I don't mean it in a rude way, most people buy into it because it is so heavily marketed).

We do not 'need' anything from cows, cows milk is the product of a cow that has just given birth to a baby and is producing milk to feed its young. It is (in my opinion) the most unethical animal product out there because it involves the artificial insemination (basically rape) of a cow, the slavery of that cow whilst it is milked, then the murder of its baby for veal and then the murder of the dairy cow after a couple of years when it no longer produces enough milk to be profitable.

As for the environment all animal products are worse for the planet by a huge extent because it involves inefficient use of energy because we grow plants to feed to animals but get less calories out of such because the animals waste a lot of energy through respiration. This means much larger quantities of plants need to be grown than if we ate the plants directly, and is fuelling huge deforestation to grow crops and to graze cattle (animal agriculture is the biggest cause of rainforest deforestation).

I say skim milk is even worse because to cause all this and then to just get rid of the vast majority of the product and just drink what is basically water filtered through a cow is insane.

Try some plant milks and see what you like. They don't taste like cows milk but you adjust to the taste and its great because it gives you a range of different flavours for different dishes. Soy is best for protein and richness, almond is best for its neutral flavour and low calories. I like soy for protein smoothies and creamy sauces, and I like almond for cereal and for drinking on its own as a refreshing drink. Oat, hemp and rice are all great too.

The rest of the vegan propaganda aside, do you seriously believe the bolded statement?

Where do you think butter and heavy cream come from?

^^This.
I'm also wondering whether, absent artificial insemination, the previous poster would like us to tie up the bull on a fairly short rope, set the heifer or cow out in the same field or paddock, and see if she chooses to wander over. Because, otherwise, you know, "rape."

Compared to the standard American diet, I eat very little meat and poultry, and probably less than the average amount of dairy and eggs, and I actually buy cage-free eggs, pasture-raised beef and pork when I can get it, etc., but screeds like the one you're responding to probably do more harm than good to the image of veganism and to either reducing the amount of animal products eaten overall or improving the conditions of those animals that are part of the human food chain.