If you were to visit a milk processing plant, you would see it is filled with all types of shiny steel equipment and machinery.
Inside that machinery, the milk shipped from farms around the processing plant is completely re-made, so that there is so much protein, so much butterfat, etc.
This is done so that the milk products produced are both uniform and meet the standards for milk products set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
First the milk is separated with special machinery into fat, protein and various other solids and liquids. Once separated, these are remixed to set levels for whole, low-fat and no-fat milks.
The butterfat left over goes into butter, cream, cheese, toppings and ice cream.
When the fat is taken out to make reduced fat milks, they replace the fat with powdered milk concentrate. All reduced-fat milks have dried skim milk added to give them body, although this ingredient is not usually on the labels.
The powdered skim milk concentrate is created by high temperature spray drying. The result is a very high-protein, low-fat product.
The milk is forced through a tiny hole at high pressure, and then blown out into the air. This causes the cholesterol in the milk to oxidize (chemically changed).
NOTE: The normal cholesterol found in food contributes to health and is a vital part of every cell membrane in your body.
However, you do not want to eat oxidized cholesterol. Oxidized cholesterol contributes to atherosclerosis (the buildup of plaque inside the arteries), which causes high blood pressure that eventually leads to heart attacks and strokes.
So when you drink any kind of reduced-fat milk thinking that it will help you avoid heart disease, you are actually consuming oxidized cholesterol, which contributes to the process of heart disease as it builds up on the inside walls of your arteries.
The moral to this story is stay away from any kind of reduced fat milk. If you are going to use milk use only whole milk! For those that are diabetic it is best to use whipping cream or heavy whipping cream which also contains no lactose (sugar).
If you are lucky enough to live where it is available get raw, unpasteurized milk, one of nature’s finest foods.
