Woman's Hour: Joanna Blythman has converted Jane Garvey to whole milk.

Joanna Blythman has converted Jane Garvey to whole milk. Well done, Joanna! This Woman's Hour item today may have persuaded some listeners at home, not just Jane, to change from semi-skimmed to whole milk. Like Jane, they may have swallowed the Government's line that whole milk is high in fat and that that fat is not good for us. Joanna explained that whole milk is not at all high in fat, and that in any case, the fat in milk contains the fat-soluble vitamins, one of which is vitamin D, the vitamin that research increasingly finds most people to be short of, so whole milk is better for us than semi-skimmed or skimmed milk. Jane and her family are now luxuriating in whole milk, rather than the nutritionally inferior semi-skimmed. Maybe you would like to consider swapping too?

The cleverest guy I ever worked with was called Robin

It was when I worked in an engineering company. My boss always told us that Robin was the cleverest guy working for the company. He used to speak of Robin as a sort of genius. Robin was in R and D. That was not my department, but he and I were once sent to London together for a fortnight to do the same course. As we were staying in the same company building, attending all lectures together and eating together for pretty well all our meals, I briefly got to know Robin better than from just encountering him on his occasional visits to my department.

It was many years ago and all I remember in detail about him now is that he always ate eggs for his main course: every meal... A little strange. I don't remember if he ate vegetables; I expect he did, and probably had some fruit as well, I expect. I know if he had a starter it was always Cream of Tomato Soup. And he drank milk or water - usually milk - and no tea or coffee. And he didn't drink alcohol. He didn't make a big thing about what he ate. It sounds a bit boring, doesn't it? - But he was healthy and he was kind and friendly and happy, and he was very, very, very clever. Good at solving problems. He'd stick at a problem till he'd solved it.

We're all individual, and what suits one person may not suit another. Robin's food suited him, and he and his clever brain obviously thrived on it. It would not, I think, be varied enough to please many people. (Just a note: there were no battery hens in those days, and tinned soup was not as unhealthily high in salt as it is these days, and milk was much nicer and creamier than the homogenised liquid we have to buy these days, and produce wasn't laced with pesticides and antimicrobial contaminants as it is now.)

Cream or milk? - Which is the more fattening?

You may be surprised to learn that the answer is that CREAM is less fattening that MILK. - The reason is that cream contains less salt/sodium than milk, and also contains less sugar than milk. (The sugar in milk is called lactose.) So if you are sensitive to salt, taking cream or whole milk in your coffee will cause less water retention/weight gain/fluid retention than taking semi-skimmed milk or that ghastly thin skimmed milk (yuk!). And if you are sensitive to sugar, e.g. you have type 2 diabetes or you have metabolic syndrome, then cream in your coffee will be better for you too than semi-skimmed or skimmed milk.

I am talking about real fresh cream, of course, not dairy cream, which contains added sugar, and not artificial cream like Elmlea cream substitute. Artificial, pretend foods like Elmlea are bad for your health.

It's strange, isn't it, that lots of processed foodstuffs are described as 'light' or 'lite' when they contain less cream, when actually cream is less dense (weighs less for the same volume) than milk or water? It's the cream that actually is lighter than the less healthy, more fattening alternatives. In natural milk that has not been homogenised, the cream rises to the top, thus clearly showing that cream is the lightest part of the milk, and also making clear that the salt content is less concentrated in the cream part, because salt is one of the heavier constituents of a bottle of milk and has more of a tendency to sink further down in the liquid.

More nonsense from the experts, trying to worry you about fat deposits in the body

Fat risk even if you are healthy weight

Extract from the Telegraph:

"A study has found that half of those considered to be a healthy weight for their height were still obese because of the proportion of fat in their bodies. Experts say two thirds of the population are at risk because they weigh too much but the discovery of the new condition - dubbed "normal weight obesity" - suggests that eight in 10 face an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease."

Fat retention in the body can easily be reduced by increasing your intake of calcium (preferably dairy calcium from milk and yoghurt) and vitamin D. Read the detailed information here:

http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/2008/01/eating-extra-dairy-calcium-reduces-fat.html

Milk and yoghurt provide calcium that is important for children's health. These dairy products will NOT make them fat. It is salt that makes them fat.

See Children and Obesity

and FAT RETENTION

and Sodium in foods

Dairy yoghurt can help you to lose weight. - So can milk. - So can cutting out salt. - Here's how:

See

How to Lose weight!

and FAT RETENTION

Waitrose, one of Britain's supermarket is going to start selling milk in plastic pouches to cut down on the amount of plastic used in milk containers.

Milk moves from bottles to the bag - Observer

Extract:

"One of Britain's leading supermarket chains is to start selling milk in plastic bags after green campaigners said the sale of millions of plastic milk cartons was threatening the environment.

Waitrose will start selling pouches of milk, alongside special jugs to use them with, from tomorrow. Campaigners hope the scheme will be the first step to abolishing plastic milk bottles, thereby reducing landfill and saving the energy used in their manufacture.

Britons consumes around 180 million pints of milk a week, of which at least two-thirds is sold in plastic bottles, which began to replace 'Tetra Pak' cardboard containers in the Nineties. It has recently been estimated that only one in four plastic bottles is recycled."

Pros and cons of the scheme are examined here: Is the plastic pouch really so eco-friendly? - also in The Observer.

Me - I still get buy my milk in glass bottles, which I wash and return to the milk lady. (I also buy my eggs - free range - from her and return the egg-boxes to her to be re-used.)

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection
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