Joke: How do you dramatically increase sales of a new or unpopular food product to the American public?
Answer: Call it a health food!
This joke, while funny, is also very sad as it illustrates with humor what common sense, logic, observation, and facts cannot for the vast majority of Westerners. Time and time again, Americans are completely duped by the clever marketing of a food product, falling all over themselves to buy it just because it has been touted in the media and by their (equally duped) doctors as a food that will improve their health.
Don’t believe it? How about margarine? Americans, in the span of just a few short years after World War II, all but completely shunned butter and this behavior pattern continued for decades because saturated fat was supposedly the demon of heart disease. See my blog which explains the truth about butter. Americans are finally waking up to the fact that butter is a wonderful, truly natural health food. Margarine and fake butter spreads like Smart Balance are ironically the culprits that contribute to heart disease!
What about soy and soy milk? This is another supposed “health food” that has been proven to do nothing but cause an epidemic of hypothyroidism in the Western world (you know the symptoms: overweight, losing your hair, depressed, tired all the time). Soy in Asia, as it has been consumed for thousands of years, is always fermented for long periods of time before it can be safely consumed – and even then – in very small quantities! The modern processing of soy which involves grinding up the leftover soy protein, the waste product in the production of soy oil, and putting it in all manner of food products which line our grocery store shelves makes for a dangerous and health robbing line of consumer goods.
I also blogged recently about the latest healthfood scam:Â agave nectar. Here again, is an example of a new food that was marketed using the “health food” label. This approach to selling to the American people is obviously working as these products are readily available in most health food stores despite the fact that this product has a more deadly concentration of fructose than the high fructose corn syrup in soda!
Now, On to Skim Milk!
Hopefully, you are now convinced that labeling an item as a “health food” is a frequently used approach for selling something to the American public. Skim milk falls into this same category.
Prior to World War II, Americans didn’t ever drink skim or low-fat milk. Drinking such a product to stay “thin and healthy” would have been laughable. Americans would only drink whole milk. In fact, the larger the cream line on their milk, the higher the quality of the milk and the more likely the consumer was to buy it. Milk wasn’t homogenized in those days, so a consumer could easily see the distinct cream line on the milk to determine quality.
Cream has been considered a true health food for centuries. In Ancient Greece, Olympic athletes drank a bowlful of cream to give them strength and endurance before a competition. Why? Because cream steadies blood sugar for an extended period of time. No ups and downs in insulin when your diet has lots of wonderful saturated fat in it. It is only when you eat low-fat that blood sugar issues such as diabetes and hypoglycemia tend to arise.
So, how did skim milk come to be recognized as a health food in America? It all ties back to the demonization of saturated fats that began shortly after World War II. Americans started to abandon butter and cream in droves about this time because studies had apparently shown that saturated fat was linked to the growing number of heart disease cases in America. Never mind that atherosclerosis (clogged arteries) was virtually unknown prior to the mid-1920s when Americans drowned everything in cream and butter. Logic and observation clearly indicated that saturated fat could not possibly be the cause of heart disease – it was obviously something new that had been introduced into the American diet. Of course, this “something” is partially hydrogenated fats which were introduced around 1921 (Enter the first transfat … Crisco. Bingo! First documented heart attack from atherosclerosis in 1927, and it rapidly got worse from there). These factory fats are primarily responsible for the epidemic of heart disease yet saturated fats took the fall anyway.
With Americans abandoning whole milk due to its high saturated fat content, skim milk was touted as the new heart-healthy food. Americans bought the scam hook, line, and sinker. Skim milk was the new king of the dairy aisle. This behavior pattern has continued for decades despite the average American getting fatter and fatter and the cases of heart disease showing no signs of abating.
In the 1990s with the beginnings of the childhood obesity epidemic, doctors even started to encourage parents to switch their children to skim or low-fat milk around age 2. This foolish recommendation has done nothing but make kids fatter (source).
How does drinking skim milk make kids (and adults) fatter? This apparent paradox occurs when you reduce the saturated fat in a person’s diet and he/she turns to carbs (grains and sugars primarily) to fill in the gap. It is the grains and sugars that truly make you fat, not saturated fat. I’ve said before on this blog that the more butter and cream I eat, the easier it is to maintain my weight. MUCH easier. The same goes for all of us. If you drink skim milk, you will be missing out on the satiating, blood sugar and insulin steadying effects of saturated fat, so your body will automatically give you sugar and carb (grains) cravings to make up for it. The body is able to MAKE saturated fat out of sugars, hence the sugar cravings that are impossible to control when you eat a low-fat diet that includes skim milk.
Try it! Increase your consumption of butter, whole milk yogurt, and whole milk cheese for a few days and watch your sugar cravings rapidly diminish!
Another big secret is that Big Dairy adds skim milk powder to skim milk. Here’s an excerpt from “Dirty Secrets of the Food Processing Industry” from the Weston A. Price Website:
A note on the production of skim milk powder: liquid milk is forced through a tiny hole at high pressure, and then blown out into the air. This causes a lot of nitrates to form and the cholesterol in the milk is oxidized. Those of you who are familiar with my work know that cholesterol is your best friend; you don’t have to worry about natural cholesterol in your food; however, you do not want to eat oxidized cholesterol. Oxidized cholesterol contributes to the buildup of plaque in the arteries, to atherosclerosis. So when you drink reduced-fat milk thinking that it will help you avoid heart disease, you are actually consuming oxidized cholesterol, which initiates the process of heart disease.
One parting fact: pig farmers love feeding skim milk to their pigs. Why? It makes them REALLY fat! Still want to drink your skim milk? I hope not.
Still confused about fat? Please see my healthy shopping list for where to buy healthy fats and oils.
More Information
Why Milk Matters and Why it isn’t Just for Baby Cows
101 Uses for Raw Milk that has Soured
A1 and A2 Milk: Do Cow Genetics Even Matter?
A1 and A2 Factor in Raw Milk
Hello, I’ve seen these “facts” on the net several times about the onset of heart disease in the 1920’s and how this is proof” that we need to go back to what/how our ancestors were eating. However, as part of my husband’s new obsession with genealogy research, he has found SEVERAL deceased relatives (most originally from Poland)–before the 1920’s–who have “coronary heart disease” listed on their death certificate. What would you say to this? I think what you are presenting here is factually totally wrong and misleading. Also, you mentioned earlier in your article that it is the lack of satiating qualities about lower fat milks that make people eat more to make up for it (thus it is THAT that makes them fat–i.e., not the skim milk itself)… so why is it exactly that pigs get fatter drinking skim milk? Again, misleading. (Please note, we actually are whole-food advocates and drink/eat full fat milk & dairy products only, so it is not that I necessarily disagree… it’s just that the reasons listed in your article present things as “facts” that actually aren’t, other important reasons are not mentioned… and this only brings discredit to you and what you’re trying to do, IMHO). Thanks.
First documented Heart Attack from “artherosclerosis”.
Not sure why they linked child obesity in the 1990’s to whole milk when people have been drinking whole milk from the get-go… I think it’s silly that they’re making a big deal out of this and taking the freedom to choose away from people. What’s just as important is the food you eat with it… if you don’t get enough sleep or are stressed out from worrying about it you’ll get just as fat. I personally don’t like the taste of whole milk, but if you like it drink it. Alcohol will make you fat but why stop drinking alcohol when you can stop drinking fatty/skim milk? Haha
I loved reading your blog! Yes, I totally agree to what you have to say. Skim milk is one of the biggest health food scam! I wrote a little about why you should use non-homogenized milk in my blog too: familyhealthsos.org/2015/04/12/doyouusenonhomogenizedmilk/
Thank you for spreading awareness!
Before WW II people milked their own cows, skimmed the cream off to make butter , and drank the remaining SKIM milk. That’s where the term SKIM came from. So skim milk is mothing new. In fact, milk suppliers had to start calling it fat free milk because clearly no one knows what skimmed milk is.
Cow gives full fat milk, that’s what we drink.
In most cases, the only reason people”start” drinking skim milk is because of “existing” weight issues. No one can convince me that if a healthy, in shape person would start drinking skim milk, they would suddenly become overweight.
Milk is not a drink, it is a food. and should be consumed as a food- when hungry and for nutrients, not for when thirsty
Raw milk regulates weight, helps raise or lower depending on what is needed. Same with blood pressure and blood sugar, raw milk regulates it.
You can get raw milk in most places, check out http://www.realmilk.com/where.html to see where.
It’s not the whole milk or eggs killing Americans! Even my nutritionist would agree with this report. Food that’s so empty leaves you hungry and craving empty carbs.