Should I swap to skimmed milk?

Many people who set out on a healthy eating or weight loss campaign start by swapping their normal cows’ milk for one with a lower fat content. Is that a good move?

In this section we hope to shed a little light on that healthy eating choice.

We can look in some detail about how milk is processed later. But let’s start with the basics:

• Whole standardised milk contains 68 calories and 4.0g fat per 100ml
• Semi-skimmed milk contains 47 calories and 1.8g fat per 100ml
• 1% milk contains 40 calories and 1.0g fat per 100ml
• Skimmed milk contains 35 calories and 0.3g fat per 100ml

Note: 100ml of water weighs 100 grams but, since milk is slightly more dense than water, 100ml of milk weighs 103grams

How many calories can I save by changing my milk?

Let’s make an assumption about what an average person consumes. Let’s assume this person has breakfast cereal every morning and adds milk to their tea of coffee.
156 calories per day would lead to weight loss of sixteen pounds in a year

Cereal packaging often suggest that we add 125ml of milk to our cereal. This matches their manufacturers’ recommended serving size of, say, 30g of cereal. In practice however, many people use more cereal and more milk than that.

We have seen anecdotally that around 60g of cereal are chosen and that about 250ml of milk is added per serving. If you are not convinced by that then please weigh out your typical breakfast.

Adding milk to tea and coffee in an averaged sized cup usually means around 55ml per cup. If our average person drinks 4 cups per day then they consume a further 220ml of milk.

So breakfast and hot drinks together mean a consumption of 470ml, which is roughly one pint of milk per adult per day.

A change from whole to semi-skimmed would save 100 calories and just over 10g of fat every day.

Changing from semi-skimmed to skimmed milk would save a further 56 calories and 7.1g of fat each day.

The full saving of 156 calories per day would lead, all other things being equal, to a weight loss of just over one pound per month, or sixteen pounds in a year. The reduction in daily fat intake, a lot of which is saturated fats, will also be beneficial to long term health.

Should I swap away from higher fat milk?

Yes, you should. One small down side is a reduction in retinol and carotene, which are dissolved in the fat, and are used to form vitamin A. But there are many other common sources of vitamin A and the positive health benefits of switching outweigh that easily.
1% milk is still relatively new to the market and is not widely available as an organic product

You may want to take time and stagger the change rather than jump from whole milk to skimmed milk straight away. Doing it in one step can make breakfast and hot drinks seem to become less enjoyable. You do not want any diet change to be a chore in case you reject it. Allowing yourself to make a gradual adjustment is more likely to lead to permanent change.

So you could try changing from full fat milk to semi-skimmed first. This change brings the greatest change in calories and reduced fat consumption - over 8 pounds of fat, much of it saturated fat, per year. Remember to pat yourself on the back when your taste buds have adjusted to the new norm and this improvement becomes second nature,

There is very little taste difference between semi-skimmed and 1% milk, so a further change should be a simple step. But 1% milk is still relatively new to the market and is not widely available as an organic product yet. You will have to decide for yourself whether this drawback is enough to stick with semi-skimmed or jump straight to the "hardcore" skimmed milk.

More information on milk

The UK’s milk consumption habits have changed a great deal over the last generation. It is not that long ago that almost all milk was processed locally and distributed to doorsteps and shops in bottles. Milk varied from region to region depending on which breeds of cattle were used, what time of year is was and what the animals were eating.

In 21st century Britain our milk is now mainly standardised and homogenised.

Standardised milk has had its fat largely removed, and then a predetermined amount put back in to make it skimmed, semi-skimmed or whole. This removes the variation whereby milk would be creamier at certain times of the year, for example, as the dairy herds chewed on lush summer grass.

Since we have moved in great numbers towards the lower fat varieties of milk our large dairies now have a surplus of cream. You can see this being used in the many varieties of desserts on offer in our supermarkets. The supply chain has simply moved the unwanted fat from one product to another and put it back into our diets for us!

Homogenised and pasteurised milk

Old fashioned milk used to separate out when left undisturbed. The cream would float to the top. Nowadays that is considered an undesirable feature so our milk is homogenised. This means the larger globules of fat which would previously have been bouyant enough to float upwards are now broken down into much smaller globules. These are too small to battle their way up to the surface and so stay suspended throughout the milk, giving the whole drink a consistent appearance and taste.

And, of course, the majority of our milk is now bought from supermarkets in plastic poly-bottles or cartons. Prior to packaging it will have been pasteurised. This involves heating the milk to a temperature of just over 70^oC for a short period of time. By doing this most of the bacteria, moulds and yeasts which can be found in raw milk are destroyed.

Sterilised and UHT milk

One stage further than pasteurisation is sterilisation. In this case the milk is raised to a much higher temperature, over 100^oC, and kept there for up to half an hour. Almost all pathogens are killed off meaning the milk can be sealed in sterile packaging and then kept without refrigeration for several months.

UHT or ultra heat treatment takes this to its logical end. Temperatures of over 130^oC wipe out the pathogens and allow a very long shelf life. But raised temperatures are damaging to many of the nutrients in milk. Several of the vitamins are destroyed along with the pathogens. The taste and feel of the milk are also altered. So while sterilised and UHT milk can offer storage convenience they may be a poor choice if used to replace fresh milk in the daily diet.