The surprisingly complex world of milk.

I have a longtime love affair with milk, and like most people I'm pretty particular about the milk I drink. I grew up drinking 2%, and that's my preference. Whole is just too much for me, where as skim just tastes like someone poured water in my milk. When I grew up, I thought I was being all healthy because I was drinking 2%. Now, for some reason, I thought 2% meant is had only 2% of the initial fat in it, which is obviously a lie. Eventually I learned the truth. I attempted to make the switch to skim after hearing how "unhealthy" 2% is, but I just can't do it. Now I drink 1%, largely because it's a happy medium between the two, especially since some of my roommates prefer skim.

But then it occurred to me- how much do I REALLY know about milk? Most of what I know about milk I've learned from commercials and the media (like that one glass a 2% milk has the same amount of saturated fat as an order of french fries.) Is that true? I had no idea. Which I why I decided to do some research.

Let's start with whole milk, which has 3.25% fat. One cup contains 146 calories, and 71 of those calories come from fat. The quick run down says that a lot of the calories come from sugar- 13g to be exact. How very interesting. Milk is never something we see as a "sugary" food. It also provides a lot of important vitamins and minerals, which is something we probably all know and love milk for.

Next, 2% milk. 122 calories, 43 from fat. The run down claims that this still has a lot of saturated fat, but only 3g as compared to the whole milks 5g. It also contains similar amounts of vitamins and minerals as well. But here's good news, it scores higher in the "weight loss" section- almost three stars our of five instead of just over two.

Moving into my current milk selection, 1% milk. 102 calories a cup, and 21 of those coming from fat. However, it's work mentioning this food no longer claims to have a high amount of saturated fat in, with only 2g. The vitamin and mineral content is the same, but we're still sitting at 13g of sugar. I don't know why this surprises me, milk is made of lactose, a type of sugar like sucrose or fructose. This may require further research into lactose at a later date. Interestingly, the score on the weight loss section is pretty much the same, however the weight gain one has decreased slightly

And now finally, skim milk. Only 91 calories, 5 from fat make me really, really wish I liked this stuff. But alas. We've dipped down to 12g of sugar and it's not officially considered low in saturated fat (since is has 0g). Vitamins and minerals are the same, but we've not reached four out of five stars on "weight loss" and only one and a half stars on "weight gain." Oh skim milk, I wish I liked you.

Just for kicks and giggles (and because I love the stuff) I looked up soy milk as well. I've head about it being "healthy" for you, but I was curious about if that was the case. 131 calories, so just below whole milk. But here's the interesting part- only 38 fat calories, and there are 0g of saturated fat. Also, there's only 10g of sugar. The extra calories are coming from the added amount of carbs, 15g instead of 12g. It also offers some different vitamin and minerals than regular milk, like magnesium and copper, but is lacking in areas like calcium that milk is so well known for. However, a different soy milk (fortified this time) seems much healthier in all regards. There's no way to really tell the difference in them, so I'm not sure how to distinguish them.

So, I guess the moral of the story is this- skim milk really is the healthiest for you, but sticking with something like 1% isn't necessarily going to kill you. I guess it's just a matter of monitoring what you're consuming (like everything). I tend to only drink milk on my cereal and maybe with a cake or cookies if I have them, so I guess that's something. In any case, I'm glad I took the short amount of time necessary to actually inform myself, and I hope you got to glean some information too.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.