milk?

Thank you for pointing out to the poster of this comment, this stuff about skim milk is pretty much common knowledge amongst those who actually study nutrition not just for the knowledge but also because they are passionate about what they do. This is just one of many pages I could link to cite this information on skim milk. There are many misconceptions that people get sold into believing and I don't like to argue the facts. Because frankly facts are facts. Saturated fat is not inherently bad for you, you become overweight from excess calorie consumption and thus often times unhealthy, combined with a high stress life style = no bueno. You only become over weight from eating excess calories, not excess fat in your foods... the low fat diet debate is coming to an end of an era, fat isn't bad, trans fats yes, but natural sources of fat in whole foods, NO.

That said I wish I could get raw whole milk again too. I really miss making my own cheese/yogurt.

While I agree that all saturated fat is not bad for you, what I have seen on every major medical site is that the saturated fat in dairy products (milk) is bad for you. I tend to believe hospitals and medical universities, whose sites provide reference, over random web sites that post medical information without any references whatsoever. I can't change what others choose to believe, but when the experts all say the same thing, I believe them. In this case, for me it is irrelevant, since I dislike full fat milk. But I still think it's wise to listen to the experts over random sites that might tell you what you'd like to hear.

Specifically, why is saturated fat in milk more harmful?

Thank you for pointing out to the poster of this comment, this stuff about skim milk is pretty much common knowledge amongst those who actually study nutrition not just for the knowledge but also because they are passionate about what they do. This is just one of many pages I could link to cite this information on skim milk. There are many misconceptions that people get sold into believing and I don't like to argue the facts. Because frankly facts are facts. Saturated fat is not inherently bad for you, you become overweight from excess calorie consumption and thus often times unhealthy, combined with a high stress life style = no bueno. You only become over weight from eating excess calories, not excess fat in your foods... the low fat diet debate is coming to an end of an era, fat isn't bad, trans fats yes, but natural sources of fat in whole foods, NO.

That said I wish I could get raw whole milk again too. I really miss making my own cheese/yogurt.

While I agree that all saturated fat is not bad for you, what I have seen on every major medical site is that the saturated fat in dairy products (milk) is bad for you. I tend to believe hospitals and medical universities, whose sites provide reference, over random web sites that post medical information without any references whatsoever. I can't change what others choose to believe, but when the experts all say the same thing, I believe them. In this case, for me it is irrelevant, since I dislike full fat milk. But I still think it's wise to listen to the experts over random sites that might tell you what you'd like to hear.

Specifically, why is saturated fat in milk more harmful?

it raises total cholesterol and LDL levels.

Thank you for pointing out to the poster of this comment, this stuff about skim milk is pretty much common knowledge amongst those who actually study nutrition not just for the knowledge but also because they are passionate about what they do. This is just one of many pages I could link to cite this information on skim milk. There are many misconceptions that people get sold into believing and I don't like to argue the facts. Because frankly facts are facts. Saturated fat is not inherently bad for you, you become overweight from excess calorie consumption and thus often times unhealthy, combined with a high stress life style = no bueno. You only become over weight from eating excess calories, not excess fat in your foods... the low fat diet debate is coming to an end of an era, fat isn't bad, trans fats yes, but natural sources of fat in whole foods, NO.

That said I wish I could get raw whole milk again too. I really miss making my own cheese/yogurt.

While I agree that all saturated fat is not bad for you, what I have seen on every major medical site is that the saturated fat in dairy products (milk) is bad for you. I tend to believe hospitals and medical universities, whose sites provide reference, over random web sites that post medical information without any references whatsoever. I can't change what others choose to believe, but when the experts all say the same thing, I believe them. In this case, for me it is irrelevant, since I dislike full fat milk. But I still think it's wise to listen to the experts over random sites that might tell you what you'd like to hear.

Specifically, why is saturated fat in milk more harmful?

it raises total cholesterol and LDL levels.

All animal saturated fat does that and it been been well documented for over 50 years. You said every major medical site says the saturated fat in milk is worse for us, tell us why.

I love almond milk! I buy it at TJ's in unsweetened vanilla.

Thank you for pointing out to the poster of this comment, this stuff about skim milk is pretty much common knowledge amongst those who actually study nutrition not just for the knowledge but also because they are passionate about what they do. This is just one of many pages I could link to cite this information on skim milk. There are many misconceptions that people get sold into believing and I don't like to argue the facts. Because frankly facts are facts. Saturated fat is not inherently bad for you, you become overweight from excess calorie consumption and thus often times unhealthy, combined with a high stress life style = no bueno. You only become over weight from eating excess calories, not excess fat in your foods... the low fat diet debate is coming to an end of an era, fat isn't bad, trans fats yes, but natural sources of fat in whole foods, NO.

That said I wish I could get raw whole milk again too. I really miss making my own cheese/yogurt.

While I agree that all saturated fat is not bad for you, what I have seen on every major medical site is that the saturated fat in dairy products (milk) is bad for you. I tend to believe hospitals and medical universities, whose sites provide reference, over random web sites that post medical information without any references whatsoever. I can't change what others choose to believe, but when the experts all say the same thing, I believe them. In this case, for me it is irrelevant, since I dislike full fat milk. But I still think it's wise to listen to the experts over random sites that might tell you what you'd like to hear.

Specifically, why is saturated fat in milk more harmful?

it raises total cholesterol and LDL levels.

All animal saturated fat does that and it been been well documented for over 50 years. You said every major medical site says the saturated fat in milk is worse for us, tell us why.

I just did. It increases it more than some others.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/Truth-about-fats.shtml

Saturated fats and trans fats share a physical trait: They are solid at room temperature. Think of butter, shortening, or the marbleized fat in a steak. But bad fats abound in some liquids, too, including whole milk, cream, and coconut oil. These fats drive up your total cholesterol, in particular tipping the balance toward LDL cholesterol, the destructive type that promotes the formation of blockages in the coronary arteries, the hallmark of heart disease.

Saturated fats. There are about 24 different saturated fats. Not all of them are equally bad for your health. The saturated fat found in butter, whole milk, cheese, and other dairy products increases LDL levels the most, followed by the saturated fat in beef. Curiously, the saturated fat called stearic acid, found in pure chocolate, is more like unsaturated fat in that it lowers LDL levels. Even some vegetable oils, such as palm oil and coconut oil, contain saturated fat.

Whole milk contains calcium does it not? It is what makes cheese? Yes. This is a recent study cited from PubMed. Interesting no?

Interesting? Yes it is. Most studies are. But as one study in a field of thousands it doesn't prove anything. It's just an interesting drop in the pool of knowledge and should be evaluated along with the body of evidence as a whole. Again, this is why it is important to listen to people who do study the entire body of knowledge.

The NIH (home of pubmed) also recommends limiting dairy fat BTW

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/chol/wyntk.htm#levels

Limit foods high in cholesterol such as liver and other organ meats, egg yolks, and full-fat dairy products.

Yeah hate to break your bubble there, but the link you cite with that information was originally written 11 years ago and "revised" in 2005 bcattoes. Hardly up to date, like the information I sent to your inbox. They also advise people to eat margarine... even if margarine is "trans fat" free on the label, does that honestly make it healthy? It's pretty much as natural as eating plastic.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/04/us-fat-heart-idUSTRE61341020100204

I just did. It increases it more than some others.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/Truth-about-fats.shtml

Saturated fats and trans fats share a physical trait: They are solid at room temperature. Think of butter, shortening, or the marbleized fat in a steak. But bad fats abound in some liquids, too, including whole milk, cream, and coconut oil. These fats drive up your total cholesterol, in particular tipping the balance toward LDL cholesterol, the destructive type that promotes the formation of blockages in the coronary arteries, the hallmark of heart disease.

Saturated fats. There are about 24 different saturated fats. Not all of them are equally bad for your health. The saturated fat found in butter, whole milk, cheese, and other dairy products increases LDL levels the most, followed by the saturated fat in beef. Curiously, the saturated fat called stearic acid, found in pure chocolate, is more like unsaturated fat in that it lowers LDL levels. Even some vegetable oils, such as palm oil and coconut oil, contain saturated fat.

This quote is dumbed down and is totally misleading and I'll tell you why.......don't know why I'm explaining this to you exactly considering most if not all of this won't make much sense I'm sure, but maybe it'll help other people.

Saturated fat and transfats are not the same at all but they've definitely been linked together in most studies. First of all Saturated fats are first and formost natural fats, which is an important distinction. Trans fats on the other hand aren't actually natural saturated fats but man made, first distinction. Trans fats are also always made from polyunsaturated fat from refined grain products that go through a chemical process that changes their molecular structure and makes them solid at room temperature, but it exposes electrons and creates free radicals. Polyunsaturated fats are also very fragile and delicate fats that go rancid quite easily when their exposed to light, oxygen or heat and are referred to as omega 6's. The refining process makes these oils rancid and of course are deodorized and bleached so they do smell or look bad but nevertheless are further partially hydrogenated which exposes electrons within the modecular structure unlike natural saturated fat. which causes free radical damage to cell structure. Another distinction is that SFA's increase total C and that's because it increases both HDL and LDL, and contrary to what that quote said it always increase HDL more than LDL, always have, but it was the LDL that got the press.

There's another aspect of saturated fat that is never mentioned, that being the relationship SFA has with the particle size of the lipoproteins of HDL and LDL and the reason it increases total Cholesterol. SFA's increase the particle size, in other words their bigger, so when someone consumes natural saturated fat, it will influence the liver to deliver larger particles of both HDL and LDL. Cholesterol in the blood is measured in volume.... mg/dl so it goes with saying that volume increases. A little research will shows that if someone has predominantly large particle cholesterol, thier in the lowest percentile for heart disease. Heart disease is about oxidized cholesterol, free radical damage, inflammation and the predominance of small particle LDL lipoproteins at the lesion sites, and low and behold, the actual fat that is also predominant within that oxidized LDL cholesterol at lesion sites is polyunsaturated fat about 75% of the time. Transfats on the other hand increase LDL and decrease HDL while creating a smaller particle, so basically a lot more LDL and a lot less HDL. So in order to prove saturated fat causes heart disease (which has never actual been proved) we would need to see studies where the diet showed no refined carbs that are also loaded with transfats like most deep fried fast food, donuts, cookies, cakes, crackers, icing, pies, margerine, breads, pasta's etc. Basically we would need to see studies that showed only natural saturated fats were consumed without other cholesterol influencing foods like any of the refined carbs I mentioned, including refined sugar, which has a big if not the biggest effect on our HDL and LDL. And of course if Saturated fat did cause heart disease it would certainly show up in cocnut oil which is 92% saturated fat, but it doesn't at all. The theory that increased LDL cholesterol causes heart disease is mostly dogma based on outdated data but still shouted from the rooftops like you do and believe to be true.

The conclusion of the this study emphasized that the current cholesterol guidlines set by the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) wasn't low enough, and want to initiate cholesterol lowering drugs to a broader audience, which will bring our kids into it with statins been administered to try and lower LDL further, 70 being the new and all improved number and soon to be 40-60. Probably not important, but the majority of the Dr's that write the guidlines for NCEP have financial ties with Pfizer's Lipitor, Bristol-Myers Squibb's Pravachol, Merck's Lovastatin, and AstraZeneca's Crestor, but hey it's not about money, it's for the kids.



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19081406?dopt=Abstract

RESULTS: Of 231,986 hospitalizations from 541 hospitals, admission lipid levels were documented in 136,905 (59.0%). Mean lipid levels were LDL 104.9 +/- 39.8, HDL 39.7 +/- 13.2, and triglyceride 161 +/- 128 mg/dL. Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol <70 mg/dL was observed in 17.6% and ideal levels (LDL <70 with HDL > or =60 mg/dL) in only 1.4%. High-density lipoprotein cholesterol was <40 mg/dL in 54.6% of patients. Before admission, only 28,944 (21.1%) patients were receiving lipid-lowering medications. Predictors for higher LDL included female gender, no diabetes, history of hyperlipidemia, no prior lipid-lowering medications, and presenting with acute coronary syndrome. Both LDL and HDL levels declined over time (P < .0001).

CONCLUSIONS: In a large cohort of patients hospitalized with CAD, almost half have admission LDL levels <100 mg/dL. More than half the patients have admission HDL levels <40 mg/dL, whereas <10% have HDL > or =60 mg/dL. These findings may provide further support for recent guideline revisions with even lower LDL goals and for developing effective treatments to raise HDL.

In case you missed it. 75% of those patients had LDL-cholesterol levels below the current guidelines of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) of 130 milligrams.50% had LDL-cholesterol levels below 100 milligrams and 17% had LDL-cholesterol levels below 70 milligrams, which is the new, more stringent guidelines. Of course this could also be interprited to show that elevated cholesterol levels were not associated with heart disease, considering the people that didn't fall into that 75% category would all have had higher levels of LDL and apparently higher levels of HDL as well. It also shows that only 1.4% had HDL above 60 and over 50% of the patients had HDL less than 40. Interesting to say the least, well for some it might. Later.