Is Whole Milk Better than Fat Free Milk?

Seems like a no-brainer right?

Whole milk = Fat
Fat Free = Well, fat free!

But there’s actually much more to it than you think! When your parents drag you to Walmart, Safeway or any grocery store, you would think that reaching for low-fat or fat-free milk would be the best option. You would never check the labels beyond “whole” and “fat-free”. Pushing the ‘Vitamin D‘ tag on the whole milk can out of your brain, you would chuck the blue-rimmed jugs into your cart.

So is it the Vitamin D part that you missed out? Yeah, but that’s not actually the main point. Here’s what you are missing out:

Whole milk = 160 calories
2 % fat milk (you can’t stand the taste of fat-free!) = 140 calories.

Okay, the difference isn’t so big. Low fat is still better.

Whole milk = 12 g sugar
2 % fat milk = 13 g sugar

Wait, what? How did that happen? Shouldn’t whole milk have more sugar than the low fat ones?

The Meaning Behind it All:
People making this stuff are smart. They advertise “diet-foods” and emphasize the good parts. Low calorie, low calorie, low calorie. Low fat, low fat, low fat. That’s what the media feeds us all the time, right? But to make up for the worse taste of low fat milk (or no one’s going to buy it!), they add extra sugars.

What You Should Watch Out For:
If you find a low-fat food item, look beyond the obvious. Look for extra sugars. Extra sugars means a sharper insulin response and rise in blood sugar, which means that you’re going to store more fat than you would otherwise (so much for low-fat). Always go natural when you can. Instead of compensating quality, reduce the quantity of what you’re having. Have nine-tenths of a cup of whole milk rather than an entire cup of low-fat or fat-free milk.

Remember. Quality is the key.