Did you know?

Haven't written in a few days. Seeing 'Carrots' on the list of 'starches' caused me to pause and question my awareness.   As you know I recently blogged about juicing.  And 'carrots' was one of the ingredients I used. I thought I was being a purist during this 'NO Sugar', 'NO Starch' phase of the protocol. Wrong.  So where else was I mistaken. So I started at the basics.

Milk.  I don't know about you, but when I approach the milk section in the supermarket, I feel overwhelmed. So many choices.  Then there is soy milk, almond milk and rice milk. ( Lets just stay with cow's milk for this post). I  just grab the familiar, regular 'whole' milk. Somehow I thought that lower fat, or skim milk, meant lower calcium.  Wasn't willing to trade.  Boy was I Wrong!

This is what I found:.

Nutritional Content of  Skim Milk versus Whole Milk

Contrary to popular belief, skim milk is not “watered-down” whole milk. It’s simply whole milk without the fat. This, of course, changes the texture, mouth-feel and flavor of the whole milk, making skim feel a bit thinner and less creamy than whole milk (it’s the fat that gives it that creaminess and texture.) Manufacturers do not add water to skim milk. If they did, not only would it have to be listed on the ingredients, but it would also make skim milk lower in protein and carbohydrates than whole milk. So while skim milk may taste “watered down” if you are used to drinking whole milk or even 2% milk, it’s not.

Ironically, while processing normally strips out nutrients in other foods like whole grains, in the case of skim milk, the skim or fat-free varieties of milk are actually more nutritionally-dense than the whole or full-fat versions. How could this be? After all, you’re removing something from the “whole” milk, right? Doesn’t that usually mean you lose something?

You do. You lose the stuff you don’t want — namely the artery-clogging fat — and you end up with more of the good stuff (protein) gram-for-gram than with the whole milk.  This is because when you remove the fat, you increase the amount of protein available in the same amount of liquid. And the protein is the stuff that really makes skim milk shine.

An 8 oz serving of whole milk contains:

• Protein: 7.9 g
• Carbs: 11  g
• Calcium: 276.1 mg
• Potassium: 349 mg
• Cholesterol: 24 mg
• Sodium: 98 mg

Versus the same volume of skim milk:

• Protein: 8.7 g
• Carbohydrates: 12.3 g
• Calcium: 349 mg
• Potassium: 419 mg
• Cholesterol: 5 mg
• Sodium: 130 mg

So contrary to what many people think, whole milk does not have more protein than skim milk .

Nor does skim milk have less calcium!