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For decades, government steered millions away from whole milk. Was that wrong?

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Re: For decades, government steered millions away from whole milk. Was that wrong?

#71

Post by seren »

ceejayoz wrote: post #47
357467 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree. The human body tells you when things are right or wrong. It is about the effects, not whether it is a new stimulus that caused those effects.

> The human body tells you when things are right or wrong. The human body won't tell you to avoid lifelong tanning to avoid cancer in your 60s, because living to your 60s isn't all that evolutionarily important (and hell, likely made you a drain on your hunter-gatherer tribe). There's no selection pressure.

> (and hell, likely made you a drain on your hunter-gatherer tribe)

Apparently there are some arguments that having elders around was a boon for prehistoric tribes. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/jul/24/prehistoric-m...

I don't know how much this is validated, but thought it was interesting nonetheless because it seems counter intuitive at first.

Re: For decades, government steered millions away from whole milk. Was that wrong?

#72

Post by JoeAltmaier »

niels_olson wrote: post #50
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that's taking it too far? Clump size may indeed affect absorption, change the time it takes to travel down the intestine, or even change the speed of chemical reaction with increased surface area.

I have examined enough human intestines, macroscopically, microscopically, and biochemically, to feel fairly confident this is not in fact something to worry about.

Not worry about which? Homogenized milk, or shaking it up? Either?

Re: For decades, government steered millions away from whole milk. Was that wrong?

#73

Post by dragonwriter »

ceejayoz wrote: post #25
clarkmoody wrote: post #3

For decades, government ______ only to find out later that it was really bad. The social engineering has got to stop. A free people should not be subject to the latest schemes of self-appointed masterminds. The most evident and dangerous venue for such engineering is the public schools, in which the government subjects our children to every sort of social experiment, and what have we to show for it?

> The most evident and dangerous venue for such engineering is the public schools, in which the government subjects our children to every sort of social experiment, and what have we to show for it? First two to spring to mind: A dramatic drop in violent crime since the 1970s because the "self-appointed masterminds" restricted lead. A dramatic drop in road deaths because the "self-appointed masterminds" required seatb…

> A dramatic drop in violent crime since the 1970s because the "self-appointed masterminds" restricted lead.

I'm somewhat skeptical about that; while lead may be a contributor, there's fairly strong indication over a long period of time of age demographics being a key driver in crime rates, and the curve of the crime wave is fairly consistent with that, making an additional explanatory factor unnecessary.

Re: For decades, government steered millions away from whole milk. Was that wrong?

#74

Post by reitanqild »

tomkinstinch wrote: post #51
vonmoltke wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creating an emulsion, which is exactly what homogenization is, does not do anything to the molecules. It reduces the size of the clumps of molecules, which simply allows it to exist in a consistent suspension. It has no effects whatsoever on how those compounds behave in the digestive tract.

Right. Homogenization should not impact fatty acid chain length. Dairy systems are complicated though, and there are protein interactions that help the emulsion by supporting the formation of micelles[1]. It's the same stuff after pasteurization, just distributed differently. Pasteurization is an entirely different matter though. Heat treatment will convert some fraction of lactose into smaller sugars, including its…

How did you learn?

I learned about lipase when I was a kid and followed my dad around at the farm. According to him it was the lipase in the homogenized whole milk that made the difference in taste that I recognized between milk from the storage tank on the farm and bought milk.

Reading up on it now it seems to be a bit more complicated but still.

Re: For decades, government steered millions away from whole milk. Was that wrong?

#75

Post by blt »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #70
blt wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gah, school lunches and nutritional recommendations make me so mad. Everyone thought eggs and butter were unhealthy too. 6-11 servings of grain though! The "food pyramid" was beaten into my head repeatedly as a child, with some suspicious board of agriculture sponsored exercises too. Turns out it was total bullshit. We feed our kids the worst garbage, at least we did from 1992-2005. A nation should want its kids to g…

Times changed. The Pentagon (who owns school lunch program) set their standards because they rejected too many recruits for malnutrition in WWII, usually insufficient calories/stunted growth. The 50's saw that change with widespread refrigeration and more varied diets. The standards should have changed but once instituted change comes hard. Now the Pentagon responds to obesity by restricting school lunch calories. Mi…

Yes that is absurd. So absurd. I would be furious if I were a parent.

The real reason? Good calories are expensive.

Re: For decades, government steered millions away from whole milk. Was that wrong?

#76

Post by Kristine1975 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #38
bradleyjg wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems a weird sort of naturalism fallacy to assume that mixing milk by hand is optimal. I'd be very skeptical about health benefits, but I'm open to the notion that it tastes different. Have you done a side by side comparison (do some brands offer both?)

this is only anecdotal but in Europe I never had trouble digesting milk. The milk they sell in the US makes me feel bloated. It also tastes differently. Obviously that's not a scientific study but for me it's good enough to conclude that something is different.

FWIW milk in Germany is also often (most of the time?) homogenized. And it tastes differently depending on the "manufacturer" (the company, not the cows).

*Also PSA: Europe is many different countries, not a single one like the US. So it doesn't make much sense to say "in Europe", because there are huge differences between countries ;-)

Re: For decades, government steered millions away from whole milk. Was that wrong?

#77

Post by ceejayoz »

seren wrote: post #71
ceejayoz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The human body tells you when things are right or wrong. The human body won't tell you to avoid lifelong tanning to avoid cancer in your 60s, because living to your 60s isn't all that evolutionarily important (and hell, likely made you a drain on your hunter-gatherer tribe). There's no selection pressure.

> (and hell, likely made you a drain on your hunter-gatherer tribe) Apparently there are some arguments that having elders around was a boon for prehistoric tribes. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/jul/24/prehistoric-m... I don't know how much this is validated, but thought it was interesting nonetheless because it seems counter intuitive at first.

Definitely interesting, but they're talking about "elder" being living past 30. I'm not sure that holds in the realm of cancer and knee replacements, though.

Re: For decades, government steered millions away from whole milk. Was that wrong?

#78

Post by JoeAltmaier »

codyb wrote: post #46

I love whole milk. Plain and simple. It's delicious. It's got a ton of good fat and protein in it. My entire family drinks it and always has. We're all of healthy weight (my brother and I are actually pretty skinny, although he has a bit of a gut now that he's 32, I'm still 25 and because of handstands and pull ups you can see my abs a bit). We also eat very healthy in general as a family. Lots of pasta with clam sau…

Sometimes genes are a good bit of it. In my family we have ~150lb people who eat endlessly, thousands of calories a day. 6 ft tall, thin as a rail. Many of them. So that's got to be genes.
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