Skim Milk Makes You Fat & Other Things You Thought You Knew July 16, 2013 by Danielle 
Skim milk makes you fat, margarine will kill you but raw milk won’t. Head spinning yet?

When I first started learning about real food and eating a more traditional diet I was amazed at the stuff I thought I knew, or should I say the stuff that I was taught that wasn't right.
If you’re new to real food and the traditional methods of preparing and eating, here are a few things you need to know.

Skim Milk Makes You Fat:  In early 2010 I took this Real Food & Nutrition E-course and was amazed at what I learned.  One of the homework assignments was to interview a local farmer that followed traditional farming methods.  I found such a farmer, a dairy farmer to be exact, from the Eat Wild website who was about 45 minutes north of where I lived; local enough.

Mark Nolt of Nature’s Sunlight Farm in Newville graciously answered my laundry list of questions I had about traditional farming verses today’s methods. When we got to differences in cost between your average “store-bought” dairy and traditional dairy I was blown away.  His answer will probably shock you:

“Fifty or sixty years ago dairy farmers had pigs. When they made butter they fed the defatted milk to their pigs.  See that milk fattened up the pigs which is what ya want if you’re raising hogs…..fat pigs. Large commercial dairy farmers aren't interested in raising pigs. They turned to selling defatted milk or I guess they call it fat-free milk. So they make a profit off the whole milk, the fat, or cream and the defatted milk left over.

See I’m not making a big profit off defatted milk; not like the commercial farms.  My butter price has to cover my expense of making butter  - there’s no added benefit.”

Did you catch that - defatted (fat-free, skim) milk makes pigs fat!

What do we think it’s going to do to us?

For more information on why Skim is a no-go check out this article.

Margarine Can Kill You  Pardon the scare-tactic headline but that’s how I felt after reading and reading and reading.

Margarine is a man-made product that is proven to reduce the quality of breast milk (as can any trans fatty food source) and it decreases insulin response.  Since it is high in trans fats it actually increases insulin levels in the blood and increased insulin levels are known to lead to diabetes.

But God gave us wisdom to create things; or He wouldn’t have us create something bad.

God does give wisdom, understanding and knowledge. However man has free will and a self-gratifying tendency. We have the choice to take knowledge and giftings and use them for God’s glory or our own. While I do believe that God gives us wisdom to create and manufacture I find I must still be diligent in remembering that all He created He called good; not all man created.

Raw Milk Can’t Kill You:  Before I started researching raw milk I really thought raw milk was this uber dangerous substance.

Had I thought this through even without research I wouldn't have eaten lettuce or spinach or severed my husband watermelon.

And how ridiculous does that sound? Never eating lettuce? NOT!!

Unfortunately there’s similar risk of illness from pasteurized milk, but no one wants to talk about that.

Raw milk is a living, whole food like yogurt, kefir or sourdough. It’s full of beneficial nutrients and proteins that you can’t find in “cooked” or pasteurized milk.  When God called the Israelites into the land of milk and honey I doubt they drug a pasteurizer around with them so they could boil the milk (and the honey) before they partook.

Like Jill from The Prairie Homestead we use raw milk.  We even used raw goats milk for our son when I had breastfeeding issues.  I love Stacy’s take on the switch to raw milk too.

Feeling like everything  you knew about food was wrong?As Wyatt would say……

Don’t Fret NoneIf you are new to real food don’t be discouraged!  It can be so easy to get overwhelmed with the things you are learning (and unlearning.)  Take it one day; one step at a time.  Don’t free like you have to clear out your pantry tomorrow or our family will die by next Friday.

I encourage you to seek the Lord and ask Him what He wants you to work on first and take it from there.  I believe that food, like other areas is covered by God’s grace as we learn and heed His promptings to change.  For fun you can read this article about no-so real food we eat.

What other real food kinda stuff would you like to learn about?Shared:
Titus Tuesday           Wellness Wednesday

Related content:

1. Making Homemade Yogurt
2. 6 Uses for Raw Milk
3. What I Did When I Couldn’t Breastfeed
4. 5 Not So Real Things We Eat
5. 11 Uses for Strawberries