Coca-Cola is selling a new line of "designer milk" and everyone's been asking about it - even Doctor Oz wants to know what Nutrition Diva thinks of this new product. Read on for the Diva's take. See the transcript here: http://bit.ly/1xyX4sP
Coca-Cola is selling a new line of "designer milk" and everyone's been asking about it - even Doctor Oz wants to know what Nutrition Diva thinks of this new product. Read on for the Diva's take. See the transcript here: http://bit.ly/1xyX4sP
I have a rule of thumb: When I get 3 emails in a row from listeners with the same question, I know that the topic deserves a podcast episode. In this particular case, the third email I got was from Dr. Oz, asking me if I would come on his show to explain what this new designer milk from Coca-Cola is all about.
That show will air in a few weeks but Nutrition Diva fans will get the scoop today.
Fairlife is the brand name for a new product that many are calling "designer milk." It looks and tastes (more or less) like regular milk but if you look at the nutrition facts panel, you'll see a very different picture: Compared with regular milk, Fairlife ultra-filtered milk is 50% higher in protein, 30% higher in calcium, and 50% lower in sugar.
That last bit about the sugar will surely resonate with consumers who have been hammered about eating too much sugar - but I think it's a bit of a red herring. When we talk about reducing your sugar intake, we're usually talking about added sugars and not the naturally occuring sugars in fruit and dairy products.
Nonetheless, milk that's higher in protein and lower in sugar certainly seems to be in step with the times.
How is this nutritionally-enhanced milk created? The process is a little different than the one used to make Skim Plus milk," another enhanced milk product you might have seen in stores. Skim Plus is made by adding dried milk powder to skim milk.
Fairlife doesn't add anything extra to their milk. Rather, they pass milk through a series of specialized filters, which separate the fat, minerals, protein, sugars, and water from one another. These elements are then recombined in different proportions. And, as with normal milk, they skim off various amounts of fat to create whole, reduced fat, and fat free varieties.
Finally, they add an enzyme (lactase) which breaks the remaining lactose down into other smaller sugars (namely, glucose and galactose). So this milk is also lactose free.
The fact that this new milk is manufactured by the makers of Coca-Cola makes a lot of people suspicious. After all, sugar-sweetened sodas have been singled out as a leading cause of obesity in the U.S. - and the companies that sell them to us (by the boatload) are often compared to cigarette manufacturers. Should we really be buying milk from these people?
You could actually see this as a good sign. Soda sales have been steadily declining for the last 10 years and Coca-cola is looking for new products to take up the slack. Designer milk is certainly a lot better for us than soda. Isn't it great to think that we consumers are actually leading companies to develop healthier products by voting with our dollars?
On the other hand, all that processing costs money, making this nutritionally enhanced milk a lot more expensive than natural milk - and I'm not sure the added nutrition is really worth the added cost. We'll see how consumers "vote" on this new product.
For what it's worth, I buy non-organic, pasteurized whole milk in glass bottles from a local farm. It does cost more than milk from the grocery store - I pay $4.25 for a half gallon. Personally, I'd rather pay a premium for local milk than designer milk. I like the idea of supporting a small farm where the cows are treated humanely. I also think the milk tastes better than the ultra-pasteurized stuff in cardboard cartons.
Why do I buy whole milk instead of reduced fat? I think whole milk tastes better and is more satiating. And for the amount of milk I consume (less than 1/2 gallon a week - and most of it fermented into kefir), the difference in calories and saturated fat just doesn't add up to much.
In fact, some studies have found that people who drink whole milk have a lower risk of obesity and heart disease than people who choose fat-free products.
Finally, I know that a lot of you don't drink cow's milk for various reasons. I've talked about the pros and cons of dairy in lots of previous episodes, as well as the arguments for and against raw milk, homogenization, and all kinds of other controversies. As I've said before, milk is not necessary to a healthy diet. You can easily get your calcium and protein from other sources, if you prefer.