I'm typically a lurker (actually, I guess always a lurker here since this is my first post) but I just had to chime in, because dairy is something that's very important to me.
At this point in my journey I've lost a little over 30 lbs and one of the BIGGEST reasons for this is replacing horrible processed snack choices for a serving or two of whole, raw (unpasteurized and non-homogenized) milk. Now, I have my own cow and dairy goats. So I know what they eat, what they look like, how clean they are. My cow is a Jersey, so she has more butterfat than what you drink in store bought milk (which is mostly from Holstein cattle). I do skim from the top to make my own butter and sour creams and to get cream for coffee and whipped cream, but it's in NO way skim. That doesn't mean I'd keep losing weight if I drank a gallon of that milk and still ate a bunch of junky foods. It is all in moderation, and counting calories, just like everything. (Also, most of you folks can't get the real deal, but non-pasteurized milk contains lactase, which means if you're "lactose intolerant" you can drink it.)
I want to say too (since someone mentioned cattle and "how they live" and "where milk comes from") that my cow is a very conscious individual, hates being dirty and prefers any dry, clean area to a dry, dirty area or a muddy one. Big dairies where your pasteurized milk comes from is a different story...
Oh and one more thing. Humans are NOT the only animals that continue to drink milk into adulthood. Almost ALL animals love milk. Horses, pigs, dogs and cats (in moderation here, but they can still drink it if raw), chickens, of course rodents, and even adult cows. In livestock breeds, if the mare/cow/sow/goat doe/ewe does not have another pregnancy, the youngster will not usually willingly stop nursing and the dam will continue to let her offspring nurse indefinately.
Back to the topic at hand, if you're drinking 8 or 10 ounces of whole milk a day or every other day, and replacing something like cheez-its or a snickers or an other unhealthy snack, I wouldn't necessarily sweat that it's not skim.
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