Milk can do a body good... at least the right kind of milk

I used to drink a lot of milk... I mean a LOT of milk.
I'd easily take out 2 to 3 gallons a week.  That's by myself before I was married.  I'd drink it cereal, by itself, chocolate milk... any excuse I could find to use it, I was in.

It started with the 2% milk.  And, when i was more interested in strength training and running every now and again and was 24 and no worries about metabolism, it was no big deal.

Then, as I got more into endurance sports and realized that less weight equals easier time racing, I started switching to 1% and then skim.  Like everyone else, I was sold on "fat free" must be better and it's still milk, right?

So, there we were happily going along even after getting married and producing some rug rats, skim milk.  I had scaled back some, but the kids were big on chocolate milk so we still shot-gunned through 2 to 3 gallons a week.  We switched our son to whole milk as he had issues with solids and preferred to get nutrition through drinks only, but that's a separate deal.

But now things have changed...
For the past month and a half or so, my wife and I have been eating a lot better.  It's kind of one of those duh moments, but it's hard to change the direction of a big ship and devote that energy to eating healthy.  It takes time and money to eat better, sadly.  Society and big food chains have made it so easy to grab a crap burger and fries in 5 minutes rather than spending 45 minutes (give or take) to prepare a real meal with real food at home is out of the question.

No, we don't buy all natural or go to whole foods for everything.  We have spend more on food, produced more dirty dishes by eating at home and produced more trash by buying more food to prep at home, but our waistlines and mental well being thank us.

That all goes into the milk equation.  I LOVE milk.  But, now I really don't drink much at all.  We try and get vitamins and what we need from our daily meals and supplement some vitamins, but every now and again I'll use some milk to make a recovery shake or recovery chocolate milk.  We also use unsweetened almond milk for a splash for shakes and other items we want a little more substance to than just water.  It's got most of the good side of milk, minus protein.  We use protein powders and a lot more chicken and tuna in our lives to make up for the difference.

Actually, come to think of it, we have been without milk for a few weeks now and never the wiser for the loss.  My wife actually found THIS ARTICLE touting the dark side of skim milk.  Now, it make or may all not be true, but if even some of these are facts, that's just nasty.

1. It was designed to profit off of you, not make you healthy.
2. It’s got a mystery ingredient they’re not telling you about.
3. It contains antibiotics, nasty bodily fluids, and GMOs
4. It provides almost no nutritional value.
5. It won’t make or keep you skinny.
6. It won’t help you avoid heart disease

Its just sad...
That with all of the every day foods that are mass produced, more and more keeps coming out about how the need for profit and speed outweigh the need for health.
Pink slime
Hot dog filler
Frosty filler
Just to name a few...

How are we suppose to turn the tide of obesity in America?  When big food producers are just as bad as tobacco producers in their apparent greed and interest in the bottom line, then it's up to each individual to make the decision.  Unfortunately not everyone has the option or will power to eat the right things.

Moral of the story, "fat free" isn't always a good thing.