By Leslie Shallcross
Celebrating Creamer’s Dairy Day on July 16 brought local foods and agriculture into focus just in time for our state fairs and Alaska’s harvest season. UAF’s Cooperative Extension Service and 4-H enthusiastically participated with a booth that included milk nutrition education, try-your-hand at milking (a very accommodating wooden cow) and pedal-powered blender milk and berry smoothies (aka Smoothie Bike). Preschool kids through seniors kept our wheels whirling and milk flowing until after closing time.
This event featured the history of Creamer’s Dairy, which operated from 1928–1966. Not only was milk a precious commodity to Alaska pioneers, in the United States and worldwide, cow, buffalo, goat and sheep milk are valuable, low-cost, high-nutrition food sources. To highlight this, the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has established June 1 as World Milk Day. We featured local milk from Delta Junction at our Dairy Day.
For most of us who were raised drinking three large glasses of milk each day (were those glasses really large, or was I just small?), drinking cow’s milk doesn’t seem very controversial. Current dietary guidelines encourage two to three glasses of milk per day. Research is pretty clear that milk consumption leads to better bone density in children. However, concerns about the environmental impact of dairy animals, animal welfare and consuming saturated fat have caused many to question the use of dairy milk. Even if you weren’t tuned in to those controversies, the placement of cartons of plant-based milk substitutes next to dairy milk may have made you question whether these might be healthier options.
For the 65% of individuals worldwide who don’t tolerate lactose, a carbohydrate in milk, or who have a dairy milk allergy, plant-based milks may offer the best option for having a white, creamy beverage on your cereal or in your coffee. If you are in this category, look carefully at the carton nutrition label to decide if it meets your nutrition needs.
Dairy milk provides ample protein (8 grams per cup), several essential B vitamins (B-12, riboflavin, thiamin), calcium and potassium and is usually fortified with vitamins D and A. Some but not all plant-based milk substitutes will deliver this kind of nutrition.
If your problem is not an allergy but lactose, you may be able to use a lactase-containing milk or take a lactase enzyme supplement to help you digest the lactose. Hard cheeses and Greek-style yogurt contain less lactose and may help you get the nutrients without the digestive difficulties caused by regular milk.
Recommendations to consume low-fat or skim milk after 2 years of age have been the norm and are still recommended because of a link between saturated fat and poorer health. Cutting out dairy fat could also cut some calories and lead to healthier body weight. However, research in this area is inconclusive. Some research shows just the opposite, with dairy fat providing protection from heart disease, some cancers, hypertension, healthy weight and osteoporosis.
The bottom line is that we still advise reducing saturated fat intake to only 10% of your calories. If you eat 2,000 calories per day, this means that you could eat and drink about 22 grams (about 4½ teaspoons) of saturated fat per day.
Three glasses of whole milk would give you 12 grams of saturated fat, so if you choose to take in your fat this way, you should be aware that you may have to cut the fat intake from other sources. To create more decision making-challenges, some of the fat in milk may have beneficial health effects that we’d like to keep.
Leslie Shallcross is a registered dietitian and the Tanana District health, home and family development agent for Cooperative Extension Service, a part of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, working in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She can be reached at 907-474-2426 or lashallcross@alaska.edu.
