A New Year’s Eve, whether visiting relatives or friends to give gifts, or drinking at home, always prepare some milk.
There are too many dairy products on the market. What kind of skim milk, high calcium milk, breakfast milk, Shuhua milk… Which one is better? There are five skills, Get is a master of milk selection.
Don’t Buy Fake Milk: Milk Drinks
Dairy beverages are beverage products prepared or fermented with milk or dairy products as raw materials, adding water, appropriate amount of auxiliary materials (such as white sugar, acidulant), and then preparing or fermenting them [1]. Essentially a drink, not milk anymore.
The content of milk-containing beverages is far less than that of real pure milk in terms of protein, calcium and other nutrients, and also adds a lot of sugar. It can be drunk as a beverage, but it is not recommended to drink it often.
There are three suggested ways to distinguish milk-containing beverages:
1. The packaging has names such as “drink” and “drink”
2. Look at food labels
Look at the protein content on the food label. If you find that the protein content is less than 2.3%, or even only 1%, then it is definitely not pure milk or yogurt.
3. Look at the ingredients list
Plain milk only has milk (and possibly a name like raw milk) on the ingredient list.
And milk-containing beverages are often ranked first for water, second for sugar, and third for milk or milk powder.
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
Watch out for condensed milk with extra sugar
Modified milk is milk, but not pure milk, because it only needs to contain more than 80% milk [4]. Typical representatives, such as breakfast milk, children’s milk…
Compared with pure milk, the protein content of modulated milk is lower, and the raw materials are more complex, not just simple raw milk, but also Other raw materials (such as water, white sugar), food additives (such as carrageenan), nutritional fortifiers (such as calcium, vitamin D3), etc.
Furthermore, most of the modulated milk can also make us consume extra sugar, except that the taste is better than that of pure milk, other comprehensive scores are not as good as pure milk.
How to buy the right milk for you?
(1) Choose skim milk or whole milk?
Skimmed milk, as the name suggests, is milk that has been de-fat, and is nutritionally different from whole milk in the following ways:
First, lower fat content, skim milk: ≤0.5%[5], whole milk: about 3.6%[6];
Second, fat-soluble vitamins (such as: vitamin A, vitamin E) are removed a lot;
Third, some beneficial ingredients (such as conjugated linoleic acid) will also be lost.
In terms of taste and flavor, skim milk is not as full and mellow as whole milk, and the milk flavor becomes weaker.
However, because of the reduction in fat, skim milk has about half less calories than whole milk [6], so it is more suitable for people who need to lose weight. Skim milk is also suitable for those who require control of fat intake, such as those with high blood lipids, cardiovascular disease and fatty diarrhea, and those who drink a lot of milk (such as more than 2 cups per day).
Of course, whole milk is not without benefits for weight loss. First, the conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) in milk fat has the effect of increasing the proportion of muscle in the body [7]. Second, Fat can increase satiety, and if you drink milk, you will eat less other foods [8]. Many studies have shown that drinking more whole milk can reduce childhood obesity [9].
So if you don’t have the aforementioned diseases, whether you are an adult or a child, you can generally choose whole milk.
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
(2) Choose room temperature milk or refrigerated milk?
Normal temperature milk mainly refers to ultra-high temperature (UHT) sterilized milk, while refrigerated milk, that is, pasteurized milk, has slightly different nutrition due to different sterilization methods.
Compared with refrigerated milk, normal temperature milk will cause relatively more loss of some heat-sensitive nutrients (such as vitamin B1, vitamin C and other water-soluble vitamins) due to the higher sterilization temperature, for example, vitamin B12 The loss rates in refrigerated milk and normal temperature milk were 5% and 18%, respectively [7]. However, this basically does not affect ourIntake of core nutrients protein and calcium.
In terms of taste, refrigerated milk is relatively better.
That is, refrigerated milk is better in terms of nutrition and taste.
Room temperature milk also has a good side, that is, it doesn’t need to be refrigerated and has a longer shelf life.
So, if you are convenient for shopping and have a refrigerator at home that is convenient for refrigeration, then buy refrigerated milk;
If you don’t have the conditions, it’s good to buy normal temperature milk (it’s good to buy it haha).
(3) How to choose Shuhua milk, high calcium milk and organic milk?
Don’t worry, we’ll do it one by one.
Shuhua Milk:
Shuhua Milk is specially designed for people with “lactose intolerance” (bowel noise, belching and diarrhea after drinking milk). The lactose in this milk is broken down into more Easily absorbed glucose and galactose.
Because lactose is not as sweet as glucose, this milk tastes sweeter than regular pure milk.
Other than that, Shuhua milk is basically the same as ordinary pure milk.
So, if you usually feel uncomfortable after drinking milk, you can choose Shuhua milk; if there is no reaction, you can choose ordinary milk.
High calcium milk:
The so-called high-calcium milk is milk with higher calcium content. According to national regulations, the minimum requirement is 120 mg/100 ml[5].
However, milk itself contains a lot of calcium. The ordinary pure milk on the market is basically about 100~120 mg/100 ml, and the absorption rate of calcium is also high.
Therefore, if you usually eat a comprehensive and balanced diet, eating enough milk, tofu, green leafy vegetables, etc., you can get enough calcium, in fact, you don’t need to drink high-calcium milk.
Of course, if you usually eat a simple diet and drink less milk, it is no problem to choose high calcium milk.
Organic Milk:
Compared to regular milk, organic milk has higher safety and quality requirements[9].
However, in terms of nutritional value, it has not been fully proved that organic milk is higher than ordinary milk[11].
Of course, the price of organic milk is not cheap, you should ask your wallet if you want to buy it.
To sum up, which milk is better?
1. Most recommended: ordinary pure milk (refrigerated milk, room temperature milk)
2. Not recommended: dairy beverages
3. Choose carefully: modulated milk
4, depending on the needs: skim milk, Shuhua milk, high calcium milk
5. Ask the wallet: organic milk
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
References
[1] National Standard of the People’s Republic of China. GB/T 21732-2008, Beverages containing milk[S].
[2] National Standard of the People’s Republic of China. GB 19645-2010, National Standard for Food Safety Pasteurized Milk[S].
[3] National Standard of the People’s Republic of China. GB 25190-2010, National Standard for Food Safety Sterilized Milk[S].
[4] National Standard of the People’s Republic of China. GB 25191-2010, National Standard for Food Safety Modified Milk[S].
[5] National Standard of the People’s Republic of China. GB 28050-2011, National Food Safety Standard General Rules for Nutrition Labeling of Prepackaged Foods [S].
[6] Yang Yuexin. “Chinese Food Composition Table Standard Edition” 6th Edition Volume 2 [M]. Beijing: Peking University Medical Press, 2019.
[7] Yang Yuexin, Ge Keyou. “Encyclopedia of Chinese Nutrition Science” 2nd Edition (Volume 1) [M]. Beijing: People’s Health Publishing House, 2019: 478.
[8] Vanderhout S M , Birken C S , Parkin P C , et al. Relation between milk-fat percentage, vitamin D, and BMI z score inearly childhood[J]. Am J Clin Nutr, 2016, 104(6): 1657-1664.
[9] Sun Changhao. “Nutrition and Food Hygiene” 8th Edition [M]. Beijing: People’s Health Publishing House, 2017: 424.
[10] Vanderhout Shelley M,Aglipay Mary,Torabi Nazi, et al.Whole milk compared with reduced-fat milk and childhood overweight: a systematic review and meta-analysis.[J]. The American journal of clinical,2019,12: 1-14.
[11] rednicka-Tober, Dominika , Baraski, et al. Higher PUFA and n-3 PUFA, conjugated linoleic acid, α-tocopherol and iron, but lower iodine and selenium concentrations in organic milk: a systematic literature review and meta- and redundancy analyses. British Journal of Nutrition, 2016, 116(1):1-2
*The content of this article is for the popularization of health knowledge and cannot be used as a specific diagnosis and treatment suggestion, nor can it replace the face-to-face consultation of a licensed physician, and is for reference only.
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