Milk and bread -- good or bad? Who is right?

Question
Hi Tanya,

My world has been turned upside down!  I am currently taking a massage therapy course and that includes the study of nutrition, among other things.  I'm 23, healthy and in great shape and for a long time I've had an interest in fitness, nutrition and overall wellness.  One of our instructors (who is currently going through grad school as a chiropractor, I believe) is very knowledgeable in the nutrition field.  

According to him, milk is bad for you!  Now I'll agree that whole milk contains a lot of fat and is not good for adults but, is ALL milk bad?  He says dairy cows nowadays are being fed so much extra stuff that the quality of the milk has gone way down and the only milk that would be considered good to drink would be "organic milk."  Do you agree with this?

He also says to stay away from bread, even whole-grain bread.  Bread?!  Are all those government-approved food pyramids wrong when they say to eat 10-12 servings of whole grains (i.e. bread) per day?  This shatters my world because all my life I've been eating lots of bread and cereals.  I ate cereal everyday in high school and after I work out I always want to go to Subway.  Again, is he correct in saying bread is bad for you?

I'm not trying to attack my instructor and say he's wrong.  I just want a second opinion.

Thanks!

Tom

Answer
Dear Tom,

I know it can be confusing and there's no completely certain answer. I'll try to make a bigger picture so you'll be able to decide by yourself.

First, there's no food that's bad (or good) for everyone. Take milk -- it's bad for those with lactose intolerance, for those watching fat intake, and for those on a very low carb diet. Let me explain the last case.

Suppose you are on Atkins diet, the initial, induction phase. You are only allowed to have 20 grams of effective (total g. minus fiber g.) carbohydrate. One cup of milk has 11.6 grams of carbs. Two cups, and your carb allowance is over for the day.

On the other hand, suppose you want to have only foods promoting lipolysis (fat burning) and not lipogenesis (fat storing) -- then you need to have carb+protein to be at least 1.5 times lower than fats (see http://dietandbody.com/banta/inside/fat_burning_index.htm) and in milk it's only 0.6 time lower.

As to organic milk, it's not only important how the cows are fed but also how they live and move -- physically inactive cows kept in stables have really bad fats in their milk and meat while freely moving cows have healthier fatty acids and less total saturated fat in milk and meat.

Now, about bread. I can imagine that a food high in carbohydrates, no matter good or bad ones, has what they call low nutrient density while having high energy density. This means that ounce for once, you have lots of calories and little nutrients. An opposite example is dark green leafy vegetables. Bread promotes unhealthy appetite for both reasons.

The matter is, anti-intuitive as it is, our body decides when to stop eating a meal judging by meals volume and not calories or nutrient content so energy-dense foods in the same volume bring in more calories.

High carbohydrate content encourages your body to keep running on carbohydrates for fuel and there's only very small carbohydrate depots in the body so we want to refill them often. Meanwhile, our _fat_ depots are huge and if we manage to switch the metabolism from running on carbs to running on fats (ketones) there's no rush to refill since we have plenty of internal fat -- so our appetite is much healthier since it considers not only food fats but our own fat as potential fuel to run on.

The bottom line, I think, can be the following: no one benefits from refined carbohydrates (sugar, white flour, etc.) because they are pure empty calories. Milk can be bad or not so bad, but generally speaking, fermented milk is better because it is lower in carbohydrates and has nutrient values added by the friendly bacteria (see http://dietandbody.com/plan/yogurts.html). Bread, if it's 100% whole grain, can be good enough -- if you can manage portion control and appetite, and can burn off the excess calories by exercising a lot.

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