If some existing thread contains the information I seek, please point me to it?
Eggs
One school of thought says, if you want to keep your cholersterol down, avoid both high-fat foods (in particular, red meat) and high-cholerserol foods (in particular, eggs). Another school of thought is that it’s only high-fat foods you need to avoid. High-cholersterol foods are not what raises our cholersterol; it’s high-fat foods plus heridity. And of those who advise avoiding high-cholersterol foods, some say that eggs are now okay because they’ve reduced their amt of cholersterol by changing what they feed the chickens. Dopers, should I eat eggs or not?
Milk & Milk Products
One school of though says that milk and milk products are a healthy, high-protein food; just stick to non-fat or low-fat if you are concerned about fat in your diet. If these folks are right, my iced lattes are fine, so long as the milk in them is non-fat. But others say that milk is for immature cows, not adult humans; it’s bad for us, we should eliminate it from our diets. And I’ve also heard that milk used to be fine, but between what we feed the cattle and how we process the milk, we’re destroying the nutrition it would otherwise have. Who should I believe?
Yoghurt
I read somewhere that most yoghurts in the US have been heat-treated, totally destroying whatever is beneficial in them. Two brands were listed as not being heat-treated. One of the brands doesn’t seem to exist in my area. The other is available in very few stores. When I do see it, it’s never non-fat or low-fat. I’m wondering if I should stick to non-fat (but heat-treated) or go for non-heat-treated (but high fat). Or just give up and not eat it at all.
Well, I know that the part about yogurt can’t be true, as I’ve found plenty of brands (including the major companies like Dannon) offering yogurt with live, active cultures of acidophilus. Grab the plain yogurt, and look on the label for something like “contains live cultures.” I’ve used them just fine in my yogurt maker as a starter and turned out perfectly good yogurt.
I’m very interested in this topic particularly the milk portion.
Some say it’s wonderfully healthy and others say it’s pretty much poison.
Bovine growth hormone, puss filled, antibioticly toxic, genetically altered, unfit for human liquid OR vitamin rich, builds strong bones, 3 servings a day helps you loose weight, super food?
Horizon Organic Milk is produced without antibiotics, growth hormones, or pesticides. The cows are only fed organic feed and pasture. They also sell organic yogurt with live cultures and organic eggs. Stonyfield also sells organic milk and yogurt. I think they are both national brands. They usually have both at most grocery stores.
For nearly any food in existance, it is possible to find “scientific” studies showing that it is both a) a wonder food capable of performing miracles and b) pure distilled evil in a jar capable of killing you from 50 paces.
Personally, I think America has a huge obsession with being fearful of food and eating the “right” things. The human body is pretty adaptable and can take a lot of abuse. Eat a varied diet with moderate amounts of foods which you think taste good and partake in a moderate amount of exercise and you’ll be fine.
I think what was being alleged was that, while they start out with live cultures, said cultures are damaged or destroyed by the heat treatment most yogurts get.
Bzzt! Nope, if they say they have active cultures, then when you eat that yogurt, you are eating live yogurt cultures. Plus, if they were not alive when I bought the yogurt, then being able to make NEW yogurt from a small starter of store bought yogurt would not be possible. But it IS possible, so that means there are avtive bacteria in that there milk gone bad.
And eggs are fine. Here, and here both say an egg a day is fine. And if you are still worried, just eat the whites. Most of the protein, none of the fat or cholesterol. And certain things, like saturated fat, can increase cholesterol in the blood, awhile omega-3’s can reduce it. So just fry that egg in flax seed oil and maybe they’ll balance out.
Nice idea, but the omega-3s in flax seed oil is very sensitive to heat, and won’t survive the cooking process. The omega-3s in egg yolks, on the other hand…
This is IMHO only; I’m not a licenced MD or nutritionist. However, while milk is an excellent source of, for example, calcium and protein, one can do quite well without it. Gazillions of lactose-intolerant folks never consume it. When my children were very young and were resisting drinking milk, I asked their pediatrician’s opinion. He said they could get all the calcium they needed from the appropriate vegetables, and of course protein from meat and other sources.
That said, I think that those who rant about milk being harmful, even in small amounts, are over-reacting. It’s certainly a very easy way to get these vital nutrients.
I think the whole “milk is evil!” thing is a mixture of backlash about the long-standing mythology surrounding it, and just plain PeTA-style craziness. Milk may be filled with pus, hormones, and “toxins”, but nothing that comes from factory farms is pure or additive-free. On the other hand, compared to most of history, our food is fresher, cleaner, and far less likely to contain horrible pathogens.
Milk’s got calcium and protein. Don’t drink it if it makes you sick. Drink low-fat or fat-free milk. Eat a balanced diet. Every nutritional report I’ve read recently says that eggs are fine, so long as you’re not starting every morning with an omelet. All things in moderation. Total up the amounts of fat, calories, saturated fat, and so forth you eat in a day if you’re curious - simply banning foods here and there isn’t necessarily going to change your health for the better, if you’re consuming tons of other unhealthy things instead.
Correct. I’ve used even major-brand (like Dannon) nonfat yogurt, labeled as “contains live cultures”, mixed it into a batch of pre-scalded then cooled to warm batch of milk (thus destroying anything live in the milk in the scalding process), and popped it into a clean, covered yogurt maker which merely keeps the mixture warm. Yogurt was the result, meaning that there were acidophilus alive to do the job.
The first time I heard this (from a “psychic” communist vegetarian nature-worshiping Gaia-believing “nutritionist”) I couldn’t stop laughing. What natural foods ARE made for adult humans? (hamdingers, maybe?) There are none, of course. Cow milk is just one food among all the other millions of foods not made for humans.
[QUOTE=HazelEggs
One school of thought says, if you want to keep your cholersterol down, avoid both high-fat foods (in particular, red meat) and high-cholerserol foods (in particular, eggs). Another school of thought is that it’s only high-fat foods you need to avoid. High-cholersterol foods are not what raises our cholersterol; it’s high-fat foods plus heridity. And of those who advise avoiding high-cholersterol foods, some say that eggs are now okay because they’ve reduced their amt of cholersterol by changing what they feed the chickens. Dopers, should I eat eggs or not?[/quote]
Certainly an occassional egg won’t harm anyone (unless they have an egg allergy, in which case they shouldn’t eat eggs at all)
If the question is how often you should eat eggs then you need to consider two things: Your weight, and your cholesterol. If you’re trying to lose weight then you may wish to reduce your egg consumption as part of a general reduction in high calorie foods, or, as someone else suggested, eat just the whites. If your cholesterol is high (and it can be high even if you’re not overweight) then, because eggs have cholesterol naturally, you might want to, again, reduce your egg consumption or use something like Egg Beaters which have a lot of stuff removed. There are some unfortunate people who, it is true, have high cholesterol no matter what they do - my mother is one. Put my mother on a no-fat, no cholesterol diet she’ll still have sky-high cholesterol due to a hereditary condition (which fortunately I did not inherit). Other people can consume lots and lots of cholesterol-laden food and never see their cholesterol rise. Which category you fall into depends to a large degree on your genes as well as your exercise habits. If you are in the “naturally low cholesterol” camp you might be able to eat eggs every day with no negative effects. Most people are somewhere in between. If your cholesterol numbers look good, you can continue with your current egg consumption without worry.
Believe the moderates.
Part of the complication about milk is that not all adult humans can digest it. This is due, again, largely to heredity. The flip side of this is that there are a lot of adult humans who CAN digest it. If you’re in the latter group milk is a good food for you. If you’re in the former, you might do better to avoid it. Low-fat or no-fat dairy is probably healthier for your average citizen of the western world who doesn’t get a whole lot of excercise and needs to keep an eye on the weight and cholesterol.
The “heat destroys nutrition” camp are the modern version of the anti-pasteurization camp. Prior to pastuerization, folks got ill and sometimes died from milk-borne illness. Post-pasteurization this is almost unheard of. We might have a lost a little bit of nutrition (and even that is very debatable) but overall the reduction in illness was a net gain. About the only thing pasteurization is going to do is reduce the vitamin C found in fresh milk (and I’m not even sure it would do that). The modern diet, with fresh fruit and vegetables available year round, more than makes up for it.
Try not to worry so much about your food - try eating and enjoying it, in moderate amounts.
The problem with Horizon milk is that it’s overcooked. They pasturize it at a whopping 190 degrees. That temperature destroys the milk and makes it taste nasty. On top of that, it’s OLD (typically more than a month) by the time it hits your grocery store shelf. Unfortunately, in most areas, Horizon is probably the best you can get. If you live in the Colorado Front Range (Denver to Pueblo), you can get really good milk delivered to your door from Royal Crest Dairy. It meets or exceeds all of the organic standards, is pasteurized at 165, and is only 24 to 48 hours between cow and your front door.
Best advice I’ve heard all day!
[QOUTE=]The problem with Horizon milk is that it’s overcooked. They pasturize it at a whopping 190 degrees. That temperature destroys the milk and makes it taste nasty.
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I didn’t know about the heat at which they pasturize it but I’ve always enjoyed the taste of Horizon milk. There’s another organic brand I get from my grocery but I can’t recall the name. The reason I buy it ( I switch back and forth between organic and the generic store brand due to price) is that I enjoy the taste. I get the 2% which seems to have a creamy taste similar to whole milk. I find that the organic lacks that weird “metallic” aftertaste that I find in non-organic milk. But to each his/her own.
Probably not quite true (although I see your point); most fruits are designed to be eaten; the plant actually wants you to eat the fruit and in doing so, distribute its seeds. Of course, the plant doesn’t know you’re going to destroy its seeds by cooking them, or grinding them all up, or dumping them in a landfill.
