April 21, 2025 • 28 mins
In this week's episode, host Phoebe Parsons chats with accredited sports dietitian Aidan Muir from Ideal Nutrition to unpack a very controversial question: could your beloved oat milk actually be worse for you than a can of Coke?They dive into the sugar content in plant-based milks, how different milk alternatives stack up nutritionally, and what to look for on the label if you’re trying to make healthier choices. Whether you're team oat, almond, soy—or still on the full-cream train—this episode will have you double-checking your morning coffee order.
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To find out more about Aidan Muir or Ideal Nutrition, visit his website here: https://www.idealnutrition.com.au/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Apodjay production. Before we get into the episode, it has
come to my attention that majority of you listening right
now I'm not actually subscribed to the show. So if
that is you jump on give me a follow or
a subscribe on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen
to your podcasts, because the more subscribers I have, the
(00:27):
more free content I can give you. Guys, enjoy the episode.
Welcome to Fit Fish. I'm Phoebe Parsons, and this is
the podcast that proves that you don't have to choose
between staying fit and having fun.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Have you heard that.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Oat milk has more sugar in it than a can
of coke? Or maybe at some point you've heard that
soy milk will mess with your hormones. When it comes
to milk, there is so much conflicting information out there.
It's no wonderful rule, so damn confused. So this week
I'm turning to the experts to help get to the
bottom of it.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Soy milk, cow's milk, for those options could help you
get your protein. Whatever taste of good is obviously factor
because our optich is largely based on food volume, how
much we eat total and also calorie intech. The reason
is the lowest calorie options because they pretty much water.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Welcome to the podcast, A supports dietitian and the founder
of Ideal Nutrition, Aidan Newer. Welcome to the podcast, Aidan
Mewer from Ideal Nutrition. I am so excited to be
turned into you today about millennials and our milk choices,
which I think is a very hot topic, and we
have so much to unpack here.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Yeah, I'm so keen to go through this. It's so
much to unpack.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Hey, I'm so excited. I'm such a nerd. I love
talking about this stuff. But like, if I try and
bring this up with my group of friends, They're like,
I don't care. So I always tet my podcast the
exact same way, and that is to ask my guest,
what makes you fit ish?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
So I am pretty into fitness. I am pretty into
how a lot of the decisions I make are based
on that. The only thing, not the only thing, The
biggest thing that's probably not a line of that is
probably just alcohol intake. So like I drink probably like
alcohol less than average person, but I still drink, and
it's one of the things that's like not a line
with everything I do. There are times I drink more
than I should, et cetera. Not a huge part of
(02:08):
my personality or anything like that, but the one thing
that's not aligned with everything else, If that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I think it's really refreshing to actually hear that dietitians
do drink alcohol and each sugar because I feel like
so often people put up this front, and I suppose
if you're in social situations to people sometimes are they
shocked when they find it?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
O the time? Every food I eat, everything, like, everything
I eat like, if it's a new person who's never
met me, there will always be some point of comment.
If it's healthy, it's like of course reading your dietician.
If it's unhealthy, there will always be something they like,
aren't you a dietician's.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I hate that with people, like I hate when people
feel like they've got to justify their choices in front
of you just because you work in this industry. Yeah,
guy's balance. So I'm so excited to chat to you,
as I mentioned before, about something that majority of us
consume every single day, and that is milk. So I
firstly wanted to start by asking you what is your
coffee order?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I have two, I just have I slatta on lactose
three milk or just a capucina or on laftose three.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Okay, So you're not into the funny milks, you're not
into the plant based milk, so that.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
But that's just what I like.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, interesting, Okay. Controversially, I only buy coffee on the weekends.
I'm an instant coffee my day to Friday, and then
I'm a soy cap or an almond cap on the weekends.
So I'm glad we got that sorted. So firstly, as
a millennial, I have lived through all of the milk eras.
I grew up on trim milk and I still remember
the red label on that big bottle of milk that
(03:31):
my mum had growing up. And then I was put
on fodmap when I was about six, and I was
kind of on.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
And off fod map.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
That's crazy for XMA.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I had really bad x MATH. So I was like
on and off dairy kind of through my whole childhood.
And then when clean eating became a thing, almond milk
burst onto the scene and I was all team almond milk.
And then I remembered how delicious soy milk was, so
I went back to soy milk, and then oat milk
came out and kind of crashed into the world and
took over everything. And then as quick as oat milk
(04:00):
took over, all of a sudden, it's being demonized again,
people saying it's worse than coke. So we just had
so much to unpack. You and I've got so many questions,
and I think that you are the men who can
answer them for me.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yeah, where do we want to start?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Well, I want to touch on probably four main milk
because there are so many milks out there in the sphere,
but I think the four main milks that I think
affect majority of people day to day would be almond, oat, soy,
and cow's milk. So, in your professional opinion, and from
I suppose a nutritional standpoint, could you maybe firstly start
(04:33):
by ranking these options either best to worst, or if
that's not a fair way to position them, maybe giving
each of them a rating out of five.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I reckon. What I want to do is go through
like pros and cons of every one of them. Let's
start with cow's milk. That's probably the most complex one
the pros. Obviously it's pretty high in protein, it's great
source of calcium. It's actually very micro nutrient rich, so
it does have a decent amount of minerals and stuff
like that. That's the easiest pro that we can typically
see for dairy. Let's go of cons like, there are
(05:04):
many reasons why people wouldn't want to have it, whether
it's ethical, whether it's nutrition, where it's just how it
makes people feel. There's so many ways of explaining why
some people might feel better if they have less dairy, Like,
there's so many angles you could go of that one
of the underrated ones they want to go because I
just want to like, like something interesting into this is approximately
sixty five percent of the world is lactose and tolerant
based on some starts, right, And it's very hard to
(05:26):
give clear starts on it because it's a bit of
a spectrum where it's like somebody might be very laptose
and tolerant and somebody might be very mildly and just
doesn't affect their life. But when you hear that sixty
five percent number, obviously, factor in ethnicity plays a role
in that some populations are less likely to have this,
some are more likely to have this. I think one
thing that's a very common theme is if you look
around your friend groups and stuff like that, you'll notice
(05:47):
a lot of people say, I just feel better when
I have less sairy, I feel less bloated, I feel
like whatever it is. They might put it down to inflammation,
they might put it down to whatever. But there is
a big, big gap between the amount of people who'd
say they have laptose and tolerance and people who just
feel better when they have less dairy. And I think
a decent percentage of those people will have lactose intolerance.
(06:08):
But the trickiest thing to navigate with all of this
is it could be other intolerance. Is it could be
other issues and all of these kind of things. So
I wouldn't just pin it down to that, but like
I did want to kind of start there being like
that is an interesting thing to think about.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, all right, let's move on to then soy milk.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
So sow milk is the closest to cow's milk from
a nutrition perspective in terms of out of the milk
alternative is the highest protein option. If people are interested
in keeping protein high, that's one to go to. It
has a decent amount of micronutrients. It would be lowering
things like calcium, which leads me to a point about
being like, if you were concerned about that, with a
switch from cow's milk, you can get calcium fortified options,
(06:44):
usually ones that the calcium fortified will have pretty much
the same amount of calcium, so just covers that kind
of gap if you're concerned about that. That's the kind
of prose. It's just kind of similar to cows milk.
From that, it is the most similar. Cons you spend
any time reading online, you'll see people talk about hormones
and stuff like that with soy milk.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
This was on my list of things to ask you
because I drink soy milk eight because I like the
taste and because it is that kind of protein boost
that I'm actively looking for because I'm a very active
person and see, I love the way soy milk tastes.
And I have told this story on this podcast before,
but I had my old barista I ordered a SOI
cappuccino one day and he said, oh, good luck with
your hormones.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yes, it's crazy. Yes, So like, this is a very
very nuanced topic as well, in terms of we see
very clearly if you have a really really high intake
of soy, it probably does have an impact. There's one
that stands out particularly amongst guys, because that's like a classic,
like soboy. The one that stands out is there's this
(07:40):
guy who got is the big case study. He got
guyano from having heaps of sow milk. He's having three
letters a day, who's having three letters of And people
talk about photo estrogens, which is kind of like mimicking
estrogen and it's in soy milk, and how that could
raise estrogen or it could act similarly. We do tend
to see issues with really high intakes. We don't really
(08:00):
see any issues with really with like moderate intakes. We
don't see issues with moderate intakes. It's really hard for
me to draw a line about where we call moderate
int Like me personally, I would be super super comfortable
having one cup of swing milk per day. I wouldn't
even think about it. Yeah, above that, it gets a
bit nuanced, Like when you look at some like fertility studies,
it's like sometimes it seems to affective of a certain amount.
(08:21):
It's kind of nuance from there. Yeah, but like with
a moderate intake, I'm super comfortable saying there's no downside
from that perspective.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Okay, that's good to know, and I mean to play
devil's advocate. If you're having three litters of any kind
of milk, there's probably going to be some adverse reaction
you're going to have any way that, like the soyboard
thing will be the least.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Of your Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Okay, let's move on to the plant based milks. Then
let's talk about almond milk first, because I think that
we have a bit more to unpack when it comes
to oat milk.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah. One, so, like we almond milk, if you're looking
for the lowest calorie option, that's the biggest pro is
the lowest calorie option. That in a way comes back
to the con of it in that the reasons the
lowest calorie options because the're pretty much water.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
So almond milk is typically one point five to three
percent almond, and then the rest is typically or apart
from anything else, it's kind of added where it's like
fortified or where it's going anything to like thicken it
or anything like that, or sometimes like some sweetener is added.
That makes it kind of simple because it's pretty much water.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, So it's essentially like long black Yeah, with some
extra stuff thrown in there.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, so it's like the lowest calorie, but unless it's
fortified with stuff, it's also going to be in the
lowest macro nutrient, lowest protein.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
All those things to so in terms of benefits, you're
not actually getting a lot of benefits except for probably
a lower clorate consumption. Okay, let's go to oat milk
because I feel like we, as I mentioned before, we
have a lot to talk about with oat milk, and
oat milk went crazy, particularly online, Like if I had
a dollar for every day I scrolled through Instagram and
(09:45):
every time I saw an influencer posting an oat milk
match up, goddamn latte, I would have so many dollars.
And I've never really gotten super onto the oat milk bandwagon.
I am supposed to eat anti inflammatory from all my
other kind of conditions, so I tend to stick like
stay away from gluten, and there is obviously gluten in
(10:05):
oat milk, which I'm not sure if people are aware
of or not, but everyone seems to be drinking oat milk.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
So let's talk about firstly the pros.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, so pros, I just jump Stralia with tastes in
many cases, like if I go some countries don't really
do lattose free milk. So if I go to another country,
like typically Asian countries, like I would be like I'd
get like an oat milk capuccino isn't like larde or whatever,
So tasteems to be the biggest one. I don't. I
can't think of any of it like upside Like I'm
(10:34):
not saying it's bad, it's just like I can't see
the other advantages that I would point to and all
the other things. Like with those other ones, I'm like,
you get the protein or it's like the lowest calorie.
There's no like competitive vegeta.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
And I think, particularly if we're talking about it from
a caloric perspective, I think that people have an assumption
that it's the same as almond milk.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Yeah, and it's very much not so like it's one
of the higher calorie ones, but particularly as we were
talking about off air, it's like one of the highest
cover hydrate one. So like if we look at a
cup of like cow's milk, we're probably looking at like
twelve thirteen grams of carbs. We're looking at oat milk
probably look like twenty grams of carbs and then the
protein is quite low. And then if we look at
almond milk, like it's just tiny yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
And just for people listening who might not be aware
that carbohydrates are sugars. So I think when you hear
people talking a lot about like oat milk is too
behind and sugar And there was that article that came
out with all of these claims that oat milk had
more sugar than a can of coke and things like that,
and then that I'm not even sure if the oat
milk industry took a dip after that, but I feel
like oat milk kind of has scaled back a little
(11:32):
bit in popularity since then.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Have you noticed that, I.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Think a little bit. It's still pretty popular, bit.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
What are things that you should look for when you
are trying to select the right milk option for you?
And again, I mean, don't look to TikTok at your
favorite influencer and what coffee they're drinking, because I have
fallen down that rabbit hole before, and a big part
of the reason that I personally steered away from predominantly
drinking almond milk was because it tastes like shit, Like
(11:57):
an almond milk latte is so so average, and I
enjoy it as much as I enjoy my instant coffees
through the week, and I'm may like basically have that
for my caffeine hit. I love the taste of soy
and I know that I'm getting protein from it. So
I just want everyone to come at this with a
little bit more intention. So what are some things that
people should look for when determining the right milk for them.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Let's go through category, So let's go taste, Let's go
overall nutrition, and let's go how does it make you feel?
So taste, obviously that's a important one, Like you basically
just described that with the almond milk versons, But like
everyone's got individual tastes as well, so like that's one
thing to factor in. But whatever tastes good is obviously
a factor. So many people tell stories about how they
spent years of their life having things that they didn't
(12:40):
like the taste of, just for nutrition purposes, and they
look back now and you're like, I kind of regret that, essentially, And.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Coffee is one of the biggest joys in most of
our days. So if you're gonna have it, enjoy it.
And I am one of those freaks. I actually love
the taste of milk. Like when I was growing up,
we used to have my mum used to make us
have a glass of cold milk in the morning and
I loved it.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I love the taste, but again just makes me feel
not good.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, And then when we go nutrition, like, I think
about things a lot over our total daily intake and
how does it fit into that. For example, I assume
most people listening to this want a decent protein intake,
So you could be looking at that from two angles.
One could be like, oh, soy milk, cow's milk. Both
of those options could help you get your protein up.
From another perspective, you could be like, I get heaps
of protein from other stuff, so I could. So it
(13:24):
just depends on how it fits into your day. That
also comes back to the micro nutriments as well, like
if somebody's trying to make sure they get enough caucium
and all of these kind of things, it fits in
there too. So looking at that and factoring that in,
then the final thing is how does it make you feel.
One of the reasons I do chuck the lactose thing
in there is because I'm like, there are a lot
of people who skip even trying lactose three milk. All
(13:46):
they do to make lactose free milk is just add
an enzyme for the lactose enzyme to break down the
lactose into galactose and glucose, So it's basically the same thing.
It tastes a tiny, tiny, tiny bit sweeter. I don't
know how many people notice that unless they'd heard me
kind of say that, But that's one option. But then
the other thing is like literally just paying attention, like
say you try something multiple time like this doesn't make
me feel good, and try something else and it feels fine.
(14:08):
That's another thing that's pretty simple to take note of
as well. So that is why I also didn't want
to rank stuff from start to finish or one to
four or whatever, because if you go through that entire process,
you'll probably find something that works best for you, and
also know that you're not tied to one thing, like
you can just alternate between stuff as well at times two.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
And I think that's so important to note because firstly,
I'm not shit talking oat milk. If you like oat milk,
drink oat milk. There's nothing wrong with having carbohydrates and
sugar in your diet. But again, I think it comes
back to that intention and what your personal reason is
for having that in your diet. And like you said,
I really like those categories that you listed out before.
Now I know that a lot of this episode we've
been chatting about the milk in coffee, but I know
(14:50):
that we do include milk in other ways through the
day as well. So when things like if people are
having oats, or if you're having I don't know, a
dessert or cereal or something, how much does the quantity
of milk you drink affect the choice of milk that
you're making.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
That is a very good question. It does actually factor
in a fair bit. Like a great example of that
is the full cream versus skim milk kind of thing.
I think it's gonna be hard for me to go
through this without giving a bunch of contexts on that.
I'll give a bit of context, then I'll go to
that and then talk about that. So like a bit
of context on that. So full cream versus skim. One
cup of full cream milk has two hundred calories one
(15:27):
cup of skim milk has about ninety ish calories. The
fat content changes from like eight to ten down to
zero grams with skim milk basically, and if you look
at this from a simple calories in calories out kind
of perspective, you would make the assumption pastation from full
cream milk to skim milk, I should lose weight, assuming
all other variables remain equal. That then raises questions about
being like why don't we always see that in research,
Like why don't we see like in research where all
(15:50):
they do is make that switch. This happens. And one
of the issues is other variables change always no variable
just like remains unchanged. Like if you took away three
hundred calories of anything in your day, you're probably going
to change something else. Most likely you are on a
strict kind of routine where you're like tracking everything, what
you've got a plan or whatever it is. If you're
just living your life and kind of eating had libertum,
(16:11):
eating when you're hungry or whatever, other things change and
I kind of make a bit of assumption. That's like
say people had milk at breakfast normally and then they
switched out for skim milk and they've saved the one
hundred calories or whatever. Do they then have a snack later?
That kind of like, because our appetites largely based on
food volume, how much we eat total, and also calorie intake,
we reduce a calory intach typically people would be hungry elsewhere.
(16:32):
That's a very brief way of kind of going like,
why don't we see this that clearly in research, things
often balance out the full cream milk people a bit fuller.
But you could also make an argument being like, well,
what if we matched for calories. What if we swapped
two hundred calories of full cream milk for two hundred
calories of skim milk, now having a lot of skim
milk kind of thing. That's one way to think about it.
But where that comes back to this whole like, doesn't
(16:53):
matter how much you're having in the day. Sometimes people
have a black and white perspective about being this one
is better than that one. For example, maybe maybe they
have a big preference for full cream, maybe they have
a big preference to skim. But what if somebody happened
to be having four cups of milk in a day.
As an example that I'm using an intentionally high target,
Suddenly the calorie number comes out very differently. We're talking
(17:16):
a huge difference in calories based on that, and then
this change might actually make a bigger difference kind of thing.
Same kind of thing with like I'm in milk versus
oat milk and stuff like that, Like if somebody had
one oat milk coffee on the weekend, it's very different
than if they had three oat milk coffees every single day,
And you could make some logic about being like, well,
maybe one of these occasionally and maybe a lower calorie
(17:36):
alternative or whatever more frequently. Kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I love that you say that, because I also don't
know that the average person only has one coffee a day,
and I think a lot of people tend to have two,
sometimes three. My partner has three normally in a day.
He does drink oat milk, but he also doesn't snack.
I wish I was like, yeah, my snack all day long.
But I think that when you do talk about those
multiple coffees, and again, I don't know that people think
(17:59):
about it in terms of if you are having say
three full cream medium cappuccino in a day.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
That does take up pretty quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
So in that instance is that when you'd recommend someone
maybe reconsider maybe your second have an almond milk or
a long black or something a little.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Bit potentially Yeah, one hundredcent, and particularly because like when
I am working with people, often I'm trying to get
in a decent amount of calories through food, like through
like whole nutritious meals. I'm trying to get a decent
amount in through maybe some snacks or whatever it is,
and sometimes we run out of a bit of room
in the calorie budget if they're having say six hundred
plus calories through just coffees for example.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Unders.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I also think another point to highlight there is smoothies,
which I think is something a lot of people listening
probably do dabble in quite frequently. I myself used to
use almond milk when I made smoothies, but again to
your point earlier about almond milk being basically two percent almonds,
when I discovered that by looking at the back, like
the nutrition, like why am I paying four dollars for
(18:59):
this cardon of basically water? So now I use smooth
Art sorry water in my smoothies. It tastes absolutely no different.
But again, I think it's been mindful of the way
that you're using milk throughout your day and looking at
it as a whole rather than just siloing it to
something like coffee.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Well, I think you have wrapped up all my questions
in a perfect little bow. Is there anything else that
you want to add that I haven't touched on?
Speaker 3 (19:22):
No, I think that covers a lot of things. Obviously.
I suppose the one thing of the dairy, Like all
I really touch on was like the lactoses and potential issues, like,
there are other very complex things, like in terms of like,
in some cases people might like we can see a
bit of research on acne and dairy in terms of
like it seems like to be a small link. It's
not big enough that if I personally experienced acne, I
would take it too seriously. Like sometimes I see people
(19:45):
cut it out for that purpose and then a year
later still have acne. Yeah, and it's like, how much
did that move the needle? Was it worth doing it
for that thing? That's a very individual type decision. But
that's one kind of thing I was going to touch
on that is based on the research. There is a
bit of a link there. Other stuff that like sometimes
it could make people feel different is the types of
(20:06):
protein and stuff like that, like obviously we've got like
A two protein like the ATWO milk and stuff like that.
If you look at their research, and it's kind of
tough because you're like, well, this is industry funded and
like all like, but like if you do look at
their research day, they've done somethingies where they've compared They've
just got a group of people with what you'd call
diagnosed lactose intolerance and they've given them A two milk
versus regular milk, and the people on the A two
(20:27):
milk got less symptoms than the people in the regular
milk group. And that's really interesting because it's kind of like, well,
they have lactose intolerance, this milk still contains lactose, Why
do they get fewer symptoms. That doesn't mean it solved everything.
It's just they got fewer symptoms based on the scale
so they were using. But it also means like could
we then interpret that as being like, well, people often
(20:47):
have multiple issues. Maybe they have issues of like A
one protein or whatever and issues of lactose. There can
be so many angles to look at for which is
kind of why I sit away from talking about it,
because it could just turn into a massive kind of
thing from the cow's milk perspective.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Actually, lastly, one more thing just popped into my head.
So my mum has quite severe osteoporosis, and she is
she has to get shots for her bones once a month,
like it's pretty bad. Yeah, And she's always been on calcium.
She's always drunk skin milk her whole life. And something
that she says to me a lot because I don't
drink like cow's milkore I don't have a lot of
lactose in my diet, is that she's really worried about
(21:22):
my calcium intake. Is that something broadly that more of
us should be aware of when we're younger. So we
don't get to that point because the lactose free thing
seems to be like a bit cool now.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, so let's talk about that, because there's heaps I
can say on that. One, I'm surprisingly passionate about bone health. Two.
I did my systematic review back in Universe. I didn't
publish it because it would have been a lot of
hoops to jump through to actually get published, but I
do this mac review on calcium and vittomin and de
supplantation and fractures risk, and there's a lot to go
with that. Why not say is that calcium is one
(21:54):
of many, many variables for bone health. It's tricky than
you'd think interpreting the research. Obviously I've gone deep down,
but at a glance you can see some things that
can be confusing. For example, there's one study from Harvard,
I believe, where they found that milk intake wasn't correlated
with bone mineral density, or it was like almost like
more milk equaled worse bone meal density. And almost anybody
(22:14):
in an anti milk camp will kind of point to that,
or anti cow's milk camp pull point to that. Often
people in plant based diet groups will kind of highlight
that study. It's a massive outline, like it's a massive
out life. All the other research does point that it
does seem to increase bone mineral density. The calcium thing,
even just looking straight up at calcium supplements, it's not
as clear as you'd think. My kind of consensus from
(22:35):
that systematic review review that I didn't publish was that
it seems to help a little bit. One thing that
stood out massively with the calcium supplements studies was that
if you just jump straight to the conclusion or the results,
it seemed like it wasn't a statistically significant improvement, but
a lot of a lot of a common theme that
I found in there was that people weren't taking their
(22:56):
supplements consistently. Like if you just look at the intention
to treat kind of analysis, people didn't see that pick
of an improvement. But calcium supplants typically need to be
taken twice a day because you can only absorb so
much in one go. When you look at the study
over like a three year timeframe, the amount of people
who are still taking every single day twice a day
like it just drops off a cliff. But once you
account for that, there seems to be a small improvement.
(23:17):
But why I say it's only one variable amongst many, many,
many variables is one we can look around the world
and see that there's many populations that have lower calcium
intakes than Australians do, and they have better bone real
density and lower rates of ousia porosis. You could instantly
jump to genetics like that's one thing, right, but you
could also point to other factors of lifestyle. You could
look at other dietary factors like protein intake, magnesium intake,
(23:38):
vitamin K intake. It could turn into a pretty long list.
Potassium goes in there as well, decent list of other
things that go into that. All of those things add
up and matter. Vitamin D status as well, I should
check in there. All of those things add up. They
arguably matter at least as much as calcium, if not more,
But because there's so many of them, it adds up quickly.
And then the other thing is obviously exercise. Exercise is
(24:00):
just so much more powerful than all of those things,
assuming you're not like really making a mess of the
other stuff. Yeah, it's the stimulus on the bones. Like
one thing is obviously lifting weight. It helps dramatically, like
you're not going to see a powerlift with low bone
real density is pretty rare, right you, It helps with that.
But the other thing is doing more than just one modality,
Like if somebody only lifts weights, they're leaving some stones unturned.
(24:23):
Like if you're doing some form of impact, whether it's
running or whatever. The current consensus seems for stuff like running,
it seems to be useful up to about fifteen minutes
of activity, where it's like if somebody does fifteen minutes
or sixty minutes, it's not a further stimulus on the bones.
It's the current consensus.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I love to hear that because God, I hate running.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, but it's always good to do some form of impact,
Like even looking at certain elite sports, like if we're
looking at people like swimmers or even cyclists, if all
they do is eve swimming or cycling and they just
kind of rest outside of that and that's like all
they do, typically bone real density declines at a faster
rate than you would kind of expect. Yeah, and then
the final thing is like some form of like jumping
type activity, just because that puts a real stimulus on
(25:02):
the bones. And when you come back to that thing
about starting earlier, there's two ways I look at that.
One way, I look at it like it's never too
late to start. Like a lot of people assume it's
like a decline that just you're just trying to slow
the decline. We've got solid research that shows that you
can increase bone real dancy later in life, so like
that's important. But the second thing is it's a lot
easier to build a good base early on, and the
(25:24):
further things go, like once you've got osteoporosis and stuff
like that, it's a lot harder to rebuild it because
of exercise being such an important stimulus that you're now saying,
like jumping like that can be a useful tool if
you got osteoporosis, that's only pretty dangerous, Like it's pretty
dangous to be trying to add a high volume of
stuff like that. So the earlier you can get on
top of it, the better from building a higher base.
But then also because it's harder to reverse the further
(25:46):
it progresses.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I love that that's so helpful because I feel like
people just automatically assume and I, like myself do that.
I just like equate all that stuff to calcium intake
calcium is I suppose we forget that it's just one
piece of a much bigger puzzle.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Yeah, And even one more thing I'll add on that
is I obviously make a nutrition plans for people, and
we obviously have like recommend early intakes and stuff like that.
They're like, it's not what guides me, But I always
like I was just kind of looking plan and be like,
is this ticking, like all of the boxes and the
recommendarly intakes for calcium in Australia is one thousand milligrams
for most people. Once you get black post menopause, it
(26:22):
jumps up to one thousand, three hundred. But a cup
of cow's milk is three hundred milligrams. A cup of
a calcium fortified milk alternative will be around three hundred
milligrams as well. So when you look at that, it's
like that's a lot of dairy. You're just getting it
through dairy. You can look at non dairy alternatives like
stuff like arm and spinach, et cetera, but they when
you do the maths and they contain pretty small amounts.
(26:42):
You have to eat a lot of those things to
get up there. It's the one thing in my plants
are often people, even with a plan I've made, typically
they're not getting too a thousand milligrams just because a
lot of people would start questionings like this is a
lot of this one thing you're getting in and I'm
kind of okay with falling a little bit short of that,
not stupidly short of that, Like I wouldn't give somebody
two hundred milligrams of calcium if we amy for like
one thousand, but I'm okay with for on me a
(27:04):
bit short of that because all the other variables matter
so much, and above the minimum kind of amount of
caucle we need, which is quite low. All we're really
looking at it from is a bone real density type perspective.
That's the main thing, and all of these variables together
matter heaps for that.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, I love that so much.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
And then I always finish the podcast the exact same way,
and that is to ask my guest what is the
one piece of advice.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
They would give to everybody listening to this podcast.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
This is the most boring one especial when it comes
to my mind, is more fruits, more vegetables. You know
how people like rip on dietary guidelines all the time.
I'm not an advocate for the guidelines. I like, there's
many things I do differently right, but like it's weird
to rip on them and say that's causing problems when
nobody's doing it, Like nobody's even close. There's a start
that I chuck out there that's somewhere between like four
and eight percent. It depends on the year, it depends
on the survey data, somewhere between four and eight percent
(27:48):
of people eat the recommend daily intake of fruits and vegetables.
So if somebody was to be like, oh no, the
guidelines have caused OBC or chronic health disease or whatever
it is, you can't cherry pick. You can't be like,
oh no, we're eating more refined cars because the guidelines
and then just ignore the fact that it's like no
one needs enough.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Vegetubles literally, oh my god, and people just overcomplicate it.
You don't need your greens powders, you don't need this,
you don't need that. Just get your five serves in
and you've got to go.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And then I'm going to roll off that.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
And my piece of advice is, guys, drink the milk
you want to drink and don't care about things, boy.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Boy, and that's how I'm going to finish. Thank you
so much for coming, Thanks so much having me, Thank
you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Guys.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I really hope you enjoyed the episode, and don't forget
to help a sister out by following the podcast on Apple,
on Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, Rate it,
write me a review and if you want more Finish.
We do have a private Facebook group. There is going
to be exclusive Q and A is happening with my
guests in that group. That's going to be events, going
(28:49):
life first, so much fun stuff happening. Just look up
fit ish in brackets on Facebook and you can be
part of the Finish online community
Apodjay production. Before we get into the episode, it has
come to my attention that majority of you listening right
now I'm not actually subscribed to the show. So if
that is you jump on give me a follow or
a subscribe on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen
to your podcasts, because the more subscribers I have, the
(00:27):
more free content I can give you. Guys, enjoy the episode.
Welcome to Fit Fish. I'm Phoebe Parsons, and this is
the podcast that proves that you don't have to choose
between staying fit and having fun.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Have you heard that.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Oat milk has more sugar in it than a can
of coke? Or maybe at some point you've heard that
soy milk will mess with your hormones. When it comes
to milk, there is so much conflicting information out there.
It's no wonderful rule, so damn confused. So this week
I'm turning to the experts to help get to the
bottom of it.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Soy milk, cow's milk, for those options could help you
get your protein. Whatever taste of good is obviously factor
because our optich is largely based on food volume, how
much we eat total and also calorie intech. The reason
is the lowest calorie options because they pretty much water.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Welcome to the podcast, A supports dietitian and the founder
of Ideal Nutrition, Aidan Newer. Welcome to the podcast, Aidan
Mewer from Ideal Nutrition. I am so excited to be
turned into you today about millennials and our milk choices,
which I think is a very hot topic, and we
have so much to unpack here.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Yeah, I'm so keen to go through this. It's so
much to unpack.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Hey, I'm so excited. I'm such a nerd. I love
talking about this stuff. But like, if I try and
bring this up with my group of friends, They're like,
I don't care. So I always tet my podcast the
exact same way, and that is to ask my guest,
what makes you fit ish?
Speaker 3 (01:47):
So I am pretty into fitness. I am pretty into
how a lot of the decisions I make are based
on that. The only thing, not the only thing, The
biggest thing that's probably not a line of that is
probably just alcohol intake. So like I drink probably like
alcohol less than average person, but I still drink, and
it's one of the things that's like not a line
with everything I do. There are times I drink more
than I should, et cetera. Not a huge part of
(02:08):
my personality or anything like that, but the one thing
that's not aligned with everything else, If that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I think it's really refreshing to actually hear that dietitians
do drink alcohol and each sugar because I feel like
so often people put up this front, and I suppose
if you're in social situations to people sometimes are they
shocked when they find it?
Speaker 3 (02:24):
O the time? Every food I eat, everything, like, everything
I eat like, if it's a new person who's never
met me, there will always be some point of comment.
If it's healthy, it's like of course reading your dietician.
If it's unhealthy, there will always be something they like,
aren't you a dietician's.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I hate that with people, like I hate when people
feel like they've got to justify their choices in front
of you just because you work in this industry. Yeah,
guy's balance. So I'm so excited to chat to you,
as I mentioned before, about something that majority of us
consume every single day, and that is milk. So I
firstly wanted to start by asking you what is your
coffee order?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I have two, I just have I slatta on lactose
three milk or just a capucina or on laftose three.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Okay, So you're not into the funny milks, you're not
into the plant based milk, so that.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
But that's just what I like.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, interesting, Okay. Controversially, I only buy coffee on the weekends.
I'm an instant coffee my day to Friday, and then
I'm a soy cap or an almond cap on the weekends.
So I'm glad we got that sorted. So firstly, as
a millennial, I have lived through all of the milk eras.
I grew up on trim milk and I still remember
the red label on that big bottle of milk that
(03:31):
my mum had growing up. And then I was put
on fodmap when I was about six, and I was
kind of on.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
And off fod map.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
That's crazy for XMA.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I had really bad x MATH. So I was like
on and off dairy kind of through my whole childhood.
And then when clean eating became a thing, almond milk
burst onto the scene and I was all team almond milk.
And then I remembered how delicious soy milk was, so
I went back to soy milk, and then oat milk
came out and kind of crashed into the world and
took over everything. And then as quick as oat milk
(04:00):
took over, all of a sudden, it's being demonized again,
people saying it's worse than coke. So we just had
so much to unpack. You and I've got so many questions,
and I think that you are the men who can
answer them for me.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yeah, where do we want to start?
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Well, I want to touch on probably four main milk
because there are so many milks out there in the sphere,
but I think the four main milks that I think
affect majority of people day to day would be almond, oat, soy,
and cow's milk. So, in your professional opinion, and from
I suppose a nutritional standpoint, could you maybe firstly start
(04:33):
by ranking these options either best to worst, or if
that's not a fair way to position them, maybe giving
each of them a rating out of five.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I reckon. What I want to do is go through
like pros and cons of every one of them. Let's
start with cow's milk. That's probably the most complex one
the pros. Obviously it's pretty high in protein, it's great
source of calcium. It's actually very micro nutrient rich, so
it does have a decent amount of minerals and stuff
like that. That's the easiest pro that we can typically
see for dairy. Let's go of cons like, there are
(05:04):
many reasons why people wouldn't want to have it, whether
it's ethical, whether it's nutrition, where it's just how it
makes people feel. There's so many ways of explaining why
some people might feel better if they have less dairy, Like,
there's so many angles you could go of that one
of the underrated ones they want to go because I
just want to like, like something interesting into this is approximately
sixty five percent of the world is lactose and tolerant
based on some starts, right, And it's very hard to
(05:26):
give clear starts on it because it's a bit of
a spectrum where it's like somebody might be very laptose
and tolerant and somebody might be very mildly and just
doesn't affect their life. But when you hear that sixty
five percent number, obviously, factor in ethnicity plays a role
in that some populations are less likely to have this,
some are more likely to have this. I think one
thing that's a very common theme is if you look
around your friend groups and stuff like that, you'll notice
(05:47):
a lot of people say, I just feel better when
I have less sairy, I feel less bloated, I feel
like whatever it is. They might put it down to inflammation,
they might put it down to whatever. But there is
a big, big gap between the amount of people who'd
say they have laptose and tolerance and people who just
feel better when they have less dairy. And I think
a decent percentage of those people will have lactose intolerance.
(06:08):
But the trickiest thing to navigate with all of this
is it could be other intolerance. Is it could be
other issues and all of these kind of things. So
I wouldn't just pin it down to that, but like
I did want to kind of start there being like
that is an interesting thing to think about.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, all right, let's move on to then soy milk.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
So sow milk is the closest to cow's milk from
a nutrition perspective in terms of out of the milk
alternative is the highest protein option. If people are interested
in keeping protein high, that's one to go to. It
has a decent amount of micronutrients. It would be lowering
things like calcium, which leads me to a point about
being like, if you were concerned about that, with a
switch from cow's milk, you can get calcium fortified options,
(06:44):
usually ones that the calcium fortified will have pretty much
the same amount of calcium, so just covers that kind
of gap if you're concerned about that. That's the kind
of prose. It's just kind of similar to cows milk.
From that, it is the most similar. Cons you spend
any time reading online, you'll see people talk about hormones
and stuff like that with soy milk.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
This was on my list of things to ask you
because I drink soy milk eight because I like the
taste and because it is that kind of protein boost
that I'm actively looking for because I'm a very active
person and see, I love the way soy milk tastes.
And I have told this story on this podcast before,
but I had my old barista I ordered a SOI
cappuccino one day and he said, oh, good luck with
your hormones.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yes, it's crazy. Yes, So like, this is a very
very nuanced topic as well, in terms of we see
very clearly if you have a really really high intake
of soy, it probably does have an impact. There's one
that stands out particularly amongst guys, because that's like a classic,
like soboy. The one that stands out is there's this
(07:40):
guy who got is the big case study. He got
guyano from having heaps of sow milk. He's having three
letters a day, who's having three letters of And people
talk about photo estrogens, which is kind of like mimicking
estrogen and it's in soy milk, and how that could
raise estrogen or it could act similarly. We do tend
to see issues with really high intakes. We don't really
(08:00):
see any issues with really with like moderate intakes. We
don't see issues with moderate intakes. It's really hard for
me to draw a line about where we call moderate
int Like me personally, I would be super super comfortable
having one cup of swing milk per day. I wouldn't
even think about it. Yeah, above that, it gets a
bit nuanced, Like when you look at some like fertility studies,
it's like sometimes it seems to affective of a certain amount.
(08:21):
It's kind of nuance from there. Yeah, but like with
a moderate intake, I'm super comfortable saying there's no downside
from that perspective.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Okay, that's good to know, and I mean to play
devil's advocate. If you're having three litters of any kind
of milk, there's probably going to be some adverse reaction
you're going to have any way that, like the soyboard
thing will be the least.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Of your Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Okay, let's move on to the plant based milks. Then
let's talk about almond milk first, because I think that
we have a bit more to unpack when it comes
to oat milk.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Yeah. One, so, like we almond milk, if you're looking
for the lowest calorie option, that's the biggest pro is
the lowest calorie option. That in a way comes back
to the con of it in that the reasons the
lowest calorie options because the're pretty much water.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
So almond milk is typically one point five to three
percent almond, and then the rest is typically or apart
from anything else, it's kind of added where it's like
fortified or where it's going anything to like thicken it
or anything like that, or sometimes like some sweetener is added.
That makes it kind of simple because it's pretty much water.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Yeah, So it's essentially like long black Yeah, with some
extra stuff thrown in there.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yeah, so it's like the lowest calorie, but unless it's
fortified with stuff, it's also going to be in the
lowest macro nutrient, lowest protein.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
All those things to so in terms of benefits, you're
not actually getting a lot of benefits except for probably
a lower clorate consumption. Okay, let's go to oat milk
because I feel like we, as I mentioned before, we
have a lot to talk about with oat milk, and
oat milk went crazy, particularly online, Like if I had
a dollar for every day I scrolled through Instagram and
(09:45):
every time I saw an influencer posting an oat milk
match up, goddamn latte, I would have so many dollars.
And I've never really gotten super onto the oat milk bandwagon.
I am supposed to eat anti inflammatory from all my
other kind of conditions, so I tend to stick like
stay away from gluten, and there is obviously gluten in
(10:05):
oat milk, which I'm not sure if people are aware
of or not, but everyone seems to be drinking oat milk.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
So let's talk about firstly the pros.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, so pros, I just jump Stralia with tastes in
many cases, like if I go some countries don't really
do lattose free milk. So if I go to another country,
like typically Asian countries, like I would be like I'd
get like an oat milk capuccino isn't like larde or whatever,
So tasteems to be the biggest one. I don't. I
can't think of any of it like upside Like I'm
(10:34):
not saying it's bad, it's just like I can't see
the other advantages that I would point to and all
the other things. Like with those other ones, I'm like,
you get the protein or it's like the lowest calorie.
There's no like competitive vegeta.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
And I think, particularly if we're talking about it from
a caloric perspective, I think that people have an assumption
that it's the same as almond milk.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Yeah, and it's very much not so like it's one
of the higher calorie ones, but particularly as we were
talking about off air, it's like one of the highest
cover hydrate one. So like if we look at a
cup of like cow's milk, we're probably looking at like
twelve thirteen grams of carbs. We're looking at oat milk
probably look like twenty grams of carbs and then the
protein is quite low. And then if we look at
almond milk, like it's just tiny yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
And just for people listening who might not be aware
that carbohydrates are sugars. So I think when you hear
people talking a lot about like oat milk is too
behind and sugar And there was that article that came
out with all of these claims that oat milk had
more sugar than a can of coke and things like that,
and then that I'm not even sure if the oat
milk industry took a dip after that, but I feel
like oat milk kind of has scaled back a little
(11:32):
bit in popularity since then.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Have you noticed that, I.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Think a little bit. It's still pretty popular, bit.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
What are things that you should look for when you
are trying to select the right milk option for you?
And again, I mean, don't look to TikTok at your
favorite influencer and what coffee they're drinking, because I have
fallen down that rabbit hole before, and a big part
of the reason that I personally steered away from predominantly
drinking almond milk was because it tastes like shit, Like
(11:57):
an almond milk latte is so so average, and I
enjoy it as much as I enjoy my instant coffees
through the week, and I'm may like basically have that
for my caffeine hit. I love the taste of soy
and I know that I'm getting protein from it. So
I just want everyone to come at this with a
little bit more intention. So what are some things that
people should look for when determining the right milk for them.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Let's go through category, So let's go taste, Let's go
overall nutrition, and let's go how does it make you feel?
So taste, obviously that's a important one, Like you basically
just described that with the almond milk versons, But like
everyone's got individual tastes as well, so like that's one
thing to factor in. But whatever tastes good is obviously
a factor. So many people tell stories about how they
spent years of their life having things that they didn't
(12:40):
like the taste of, just for nutrition purposes, and they
look back now and you're like, I kind of regret that, essentially, And.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Coffee is one of the biggest joys in most of
our days. So if you're gonna have it, enjoy it.
And I am one of those freaks. I actually love
the taste of milk. Like when I was growing up,
we used to have my mum used to make us
have a glass of cold milk in the morning and
I loved it.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I love the taste, but again just makes me feel
not good.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, And then when we go nutrition, like, I think
about things a lot over our total daily intake and
how does it fit into that. For example, I assume
most people listening to this want a decent protein intake,
So you could be looking at that from two angles.
One could be like, oh, soy milk, cow's milk. Both
of those options could help you get your protein up.
From another perspective, you could be like, I get heaps
of protein from other stuff, so I could. So it
(13:24):
just depends on how it fits into your day. That
also comes back to the micro nutriments as well, like
if somebody's trying to make sure they get enough caucium
and all of these kind of things, it fits in
there too. So looking at that and factoring that in,
then the final thing is how does it make you feel.
One of the reasons I do chuck the lactose thing
in there is because I'm like, there are a lot
of people who skip even trying lactose three milk. All
(13:46):
they do to make lactose free milk is just add
an enzyme for the lactose enzyme to break down the
lactose into galactose and glucose, So it's basically the same thing.
It tastes a tiny, tiny, tiny bit sweeter. I don't
know how many people notice that unless they'd heard me
kind of say that, But that's one option. But then
the other thing is like literally just paying attention, like
say you try something multiple time like this doesn't make
me feel good, and try something else and it feels fine.
(14:08):
That's another thing that's pretty simple to take note of
as well. So that is why I also didn't want
to rank stuff from start to finish or one to
four or whatever, because if you go through that entire process,
you'll probably find something that works best for you, and
also know that you're not tied to one thing, like
you can just alternate between stuff as well at times two.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
And I think that's so important to note because firstly,
I'm not shit talking oat milk. If you like oat milk,
drink oat milk. There's nothing wrong with having carbohydrates and
sugar in your diet. But again, I think it comes
back to that intention and what your personal reason is
for having that in your diet. And like you said,
I really like those categories that you listed out before.
Now I know that a lot of this episode we've
been chatting about the milk in coffee, but I know
(14:50):
that we do include milk in other ways through the
day as well. So when things like if people are
having oats, or if you're having I don't know, a
dessert or cereal or something, how much does the quantity
of milk you drink affect the choice of milk that
you're making.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
That is a very good question. It does actually factor
in a fair bit. Like a great example of that
is the full cream versus skim milk kind of thing.
I think it's gonna be hard for me to go
through this without giving a bunch of contexts on that.
I'll give a bit of context, then I'll go to
that and then talk about that. So like a bit
of context on that. So full cream versus skim. One
cup of full cream milk has two hundred calories one
(15:27):
cup of skim milk has about ninety ish calories. The
fat content changes from like eight to ten down to
zero grams with skim milk basically, and if you look
at this from a simple calories in calories out kind
of perspective, you would make the assumption pastation from full
cream milk to skim milk, I should lose weight, assuming
all other variables remain equal. That then raises questions about
being like why don't we always see that in research,
Like why don't we see like in research where all
(15:50):
they do is make that switch. This happens. And one
of the issues is other variables change always no variable
just like remains unchanged. Like if you took away three
hundred calories of anything in your day, you're probably going
to change something else. Most likely you are on a
strict kind of routine where you're like tracking everything, what
you've got a plan or whatever it is. If you're
just living your life and kind of eating had libertum,
(16:11):
eating when you're hungry or whatever, other things change and
I kind of make a bit of assumption. That's like
say people had milk at breakfast normally and then they
switched out for skim milk and they've saved the one
hundred calories or whatever. Do they then have a snack later?
That kind of like, because our appetites largely based on
food volume, how much we eat total, and also calorie intake,
we reduce a calory intach typically people would be hungry elsewhere.
(16:32):
That's a very brief way of kind of going like,
why don't we see this that clearly in research, things
often balance out the full cream milk people a bit fuller.
But you could also make an argument being like, well,
what if we matched for calories. What if we swapped
two hundred calories of full cream milk for two hundred
calories of skim milk, now having a lot of skim
milk kind of thing. That's one way to think about it.
But where that comes back to this whole like, doesn't
(16:53):
matter how much you're having in the day. Sometimes people
have a black and white perspective about being this one
is better than that one. For example, maybe maybe they
have a big preference for full cream, maybe they have
a big preference to skim. But what if somebody happened
to be having four cups of milk in a day.
As an example that I'm using an intentionally high target,
Suddenly the calorie number comes out very differently. We're talking
(17:16):
a huge difference in calories based on that, and then
this change might actually make a bigger difference kind of thing.
Same kind of thing with like I'm in milk versus
oat milk and stuff like that, Like if somebody had
one oat milk coffee on the weekend, it's very different
than if they had three oat milk coffees every single day,
And you could make some logic about being like, well,
maybe one of these occasionally and maybe a lower calorie
(17:36):
alternative or whatever more frequently. Kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I love that you say that, because I also don't
know that the average person only has one coffee a day,
and I think a lot of people tend to have two,
sometimes three. My partner has three normally in a day.
He does drink oat milk, but he also doesn't snack.
I wish I was like, yeah, my snack all day long.
But I think that when you do talk about those
multiple coffees, and again, I don't know that people think
(17:59):
about it in terms of if you are having say
three full cream medium cappuccino in a day.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
That does take up pretty quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
So in that instance is that when you'd recommend someone
maybe reconsider maybe your second have an almond milk or
a long black or something a little.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Bit potentially Yeah, one hundredcent, and particularly because like when
I am working with people, often I'm trying to get
in a decent amount of calories through food, like through
like whole nutritious meals. I'm trying to get a decent
amount in through maybe some snacks or whatever it is,
and sometimes we run out of a bit of room
in the calorie budget if they're having say six hundred
plus calories through just coffees for example.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Unders.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I also think another point to highlight there is smoothies,
which I think is something a lot of people listening
probably do dabble in quite frequently. I myself used to
use almond milk when I made smoothies, but again to
your point earlier about almond milk being basically two percent almonds,
when I discovered that by looking at the back, like
the nutrition, like why am I paying four dollars for
(18:59):
this cardon of basically water? So now I use smooth
Art sorry water in my smoothies. It tastes absolutely no different.
But again, I think it's been mindful of the way
that you're using milk throughout your day and looking at
it as a whole rather than just siloing it to
something like coffee.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Well, I think you have wrapped up all my questions
in a perfect little bow. Is there anything else that
you want to add that I haven't touched on?
Speaker 3 (19:22):
No, I think that covers a lot of things. Obviously.
I suppose the one thing of the dairy, Like all
I really touch on was like the lactoses and potential issues, like,
there are other very complex things, like in terms of like,
in some cases people might like we can see a
bit of research on acne and dairy in terms of
like it seems like to be a small link. It's
not big enough that if I personally experienced acne, I
would take it too seriously. Like sometimes I see people
(19:45):
cut it out for that purpose and then a year
later still have acne. Yeah, and it's like, how much
did that move the needle? Was it worth doing it
for that thing? That's a very individual type decision. But
that's one kind of thing I was going to touch
on that is based on the research. There is a
bit of a link there. Other stuff that like sometimes
it could make people feel different is the types of
(20:06):
protein and stuff like that, like obviously we've got like
A two protein like the ATWO milk and stuff like that.
If you look at their research, and it's kind of
tough because you're like, well, this is industry funded and
like all like, but like if you do look at
their research day, they've done somethingies where they've compared They've
just got a group of people with what you'd call
diagnosed lactose intolerance and they've given them A two milk
versus regular milk, and the people on the A two
(20:27):
milk got less symptoms than the people in the regular
milk group. And that's really interesting because it's kind of like, well,
they have lactose intolerance, this milk still contains lactose, Why
do they get fewer symptoms. That doesn't mean it solved everything.
It's just they got fewer symptoms based on the scale
so they were using. But it also means like could
we then interpret that as being like, well, people often
(20:47):
have multiple issues. Maybe they have issues of like A
one protein or whatever and issues of lactose. There can
be so many angles to look at for which is
kind of why I sit away from talking about it,
because it could just turn into a massive kind of
thing from the cow's milk perspective.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Actually, lastly, one more thing just popped into my head.
So my mum has quite severe osteoporosis, and she is
she has to get shots for her bones once a month,
like it's pretty bad. Yeah, And she's always been on calcium.
She's always drunk skin milk her whole life. And something
that she says to me a lot because I don't
drink like cow's milkore I don't have a lot of
lactose in my diet, is that she's really worried about
(21:22):
my calcium intake. Is that something broadly that more of
us should be aware of when we're younger. So we
don't get to that point because the lactose free thing
seems to be like a bit cool now.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, so let's talk about that, because there's heaps I
can say on that. One, I'm surprisingly passionate about bone health. Two.
I did my systematic review back in Universe. I didn't
publish it because it would have been a lot of
hoops to jump through to actually get published, but I
do this mac review on calcium and vittomin and de
supplantation and fractures risk, and there's a lot to go
with that. Why not say is that calcium is one
(21:54):
of many, many variables for bone health. It's tricky than
you'd think interpreting the research. Obviously I've gone deep down,
but at a glance you can see some things that
can be confusing. For example, there's one study from Harvard,
I believe, where they found that milk intake wasn't correlated
with bone mineral density, or it was like almost like
more milk equaled worse bone meal density. And almost anybody
(22:14):
in an anti milk camp will kind of point to that,
or anti cow's milk camp pull point to that. Often
people in plant based diet groups will kind of highlight
that study. It's a massive outline, like it's a massive
out life. All the other research does point that it
does seem to increase bone mineral density. The calcium thing,
even just looking straight up at calcium supplements, it's not
as clear as you'd think. My kind of consensus from
(22:35):
that systematic review review that I didn't publish was that
it seems to help a little bit. One thing that
stood out massively with the calcium supplements studies was that
if you just jump straight to the conclusion or the results,
it seemed like it wasn't a statistically significant improvement, but
a lot of a lot of a common theme that
I found in there was that people weren't taking their
(22:56):
supplements consistently. Like if you just look at the intention
to treat kind of analysis, people didn't see that pick
of an improvement. But calcium supplants typically need to be
taken twice a day because you can only absorb so
much in one go. When you look at the study
over like a three year timeframe, the amount of people
who are still taking every single day twice a day
like it just drops off a cliff. But once you
account for that, there seems to be a small improvement.
(23:17):
But why I say it's only one variable amongst many, many,
many variables is one we can look around the world
and see that there's many populations that have lower calcium
intakes than Australians do, and they have better bone real
density and lower rates of ousia porosis. You could instantly
jump to genetics like that's one thing, right, but you
could also point to other factors of lifestyle. You could
look at other dietary factors like protein intake, magnesium intake,
(23:38):
vitamin K intake. It could turn into a pretty long list.
Potassium goes in there as well, decent list of other
things that go into that. All of those things add
up and matter. Vitamin D status as well, I should
check in there. All of those things add up. They
arguably matter at least as much as calcium, if not more,
But because there's so many of them, it adds up quickly.
And then the other thing is obviously exercise. Exercise is
(24:00):
just so much more powerful than all of those things,
assuming you're not like really making a mess of the
other stuff. Yeah, it's the stimulus on the bones. Like
one thing is obviously lifting weight. It helps dramatically, like
you're not going to see a powerlift with low bone
real density is pretty rare, right you, It helps with that.
But the other thing is doing more than just one modality,
Like if somebody only lifts weights, they're leaving some stones unturned.
(24:23):
Like if you're doing some form of impact, whether it's
running or whatever. The current consensus seems for stuff like running,
it seems to be useful up to about fifteen minutes
of activity, where it's like if somebody does fifteen minutes
or sixty minutes, it's not a further stimulus on the bones.
It's the current consensus.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I love to hear that because God, I hate running.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, but it's always good to do some form of impact,
Like even looking at certain elite sports, like if we're
looking at people like swimmers or even cyclists, if all
they do is eve swimming or cycling and they just
kind of rest outside of that and that's like all
they do, typically bone real density declines at a faster
rate than you would kind of expect. Yeah, and then
the final thing is like some form of like jumping
type activity, just because that puts a real stimulus on
(25:02):
the bones. And when you come back to that thing
about starting earlier, there's two ways I look at that.
One way, I look at it like it's never too
late to start. Like a lot of people assume it's
like a decline that just you're just trying to slow
the decline. We've got solid research that shows that you
can increase bone real dancy later in life, so like
that's important. But the second thing is it's a lot
easier to build a good base early on, and the
(25:24):
further things go, like once you've got osteoporosis and stuff
like that, it's a lot harder to rebuild it because
of exercise being such an important stimulus that you're now saying,
like jumping like that can be a useful tool if
you got osteoporosis, that's only pretty dangerous, Like it's pretty
dangous to be trying to add a high volume of
stuff like that. So the earlier you can get on
top of it, the better from building a higher base.
But then also because it's harder to reverse the further
(25:46):
it progresses.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I love that that's so helpful because I feel like
people just automatically assume and I, like myself do that.
I just like equate all that stuff to calcium intake
calcium is I suppose we forget that it's just one
piece of a much bigger puzzle.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Yeah, And even one more thing I'll add on that
is I obviously make a nutrition plans for people, and
we obviously have like recommend early intakes and stuff like that.
They're like, it's not what guides me, But I always
like I was just kind of looking plan and be like,
is this ticking, like all of the boxes and the
recommendarly intakes for calcium in Australia is one thousand milligrams
for most people. Once you get black post menopause, it
(26:22):
jumps up to one thousand, three hundred. But a cup
of cow's milk is three hundred milligrams. A cup of
a calcium fortified milk alternative will be around three hundred
milligrams as well. So when you look at that, it's
like that's a lot of dairy. You're just getting it
through dairy. You can look at non dairy alternatives like
stuff like arm and spinach, et cetera, but they when
you do the maths and they contain pretty small amounts.
(26:42):
You have to eat a lot of those things to
get up there. It's the one thing in my plants
are often people, even with a plan I've made, typically
they're not getting too a thousand milligrams just because a
lot of people would start questionings like this is a
lot of this one thing you're getting in and I'm
kind of okay with falling a little bit short of that,
not stupidly short of that, Like I wouldn't give somebody
two hundred milligrams of calcium if we amy for like
one thousand, but I'm okay with for on me a
(27:04):
bit short of that because all the other variables matter
so much, and above the minimum kind of amount of
caucle we need, which is quite low. All we're really
looking at it from is a bone real density type perspective.
That's the main thing, and all of these variables together
matter heaps for that.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, I love that so much.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
And then I always finish the podcast the exact same way,
and that is to ask my guest what is the
one piece of advice.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
They would give to everybody listening to this podcast.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
This is the most boring one especial when it comes
to my mind, is more fruits, more vegetables. You know
how people like rip on dietary guidelines all the time.
I'm not an advocate for the guidelines. I like, there's
many things I do differently right, but like it's weird
to rip on them and say that's causing problems when
nobody's doing it, Like nobody's even close. There's a start
that I chuck out there that's somewhere between like four
and eight percent. It depends on the year, it depends
on the survey data, somewhere between four and eight percent
(27:48):
of people eat the recommend daily intake of fruits and vegetables.
So if somebody was to be like, oh no, the
guidelines have caused OBC or chronic health disease or whatever
it is, you can't cherry pick. You can't be like,
oh no, we're eating more refined cars because the guidelines
and then just ignore the fact that it's like no
one needs enough.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Vegetubles literally, oh my god, and people just overcomplicate it.
You don't need your greens powders, you don't need this,
you don't need that. Just get your five serves in
and you've got to go.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
And then I'm going to roll off that.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
And my piece of advice is, guys, drink the milk
you want to drink and don't care about things, boy.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Boy, and that's how I'm going to finish. Thank you
so much for coming, Thanks so much having me, Thank
you so much for listening.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Guys.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I really hope you enjoyed the episode, and don't forget
to help a sister out by following the podcast on Apple,
on Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, Rate it,
write me a review and if you want more Finish.
We do have a private Facebook group. There is going
to be exclusive Q and A is happening with my
guests in that group. That's going to be events, going
(28:49):
life first, so much fun stuff happening. Just look up
fit ish in brackets on Facebook and you can be
part of the Finish online community
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