Milk: The 1% or Less Campaign

Right here in West Virginia, we are fortunate to have nationally recognized health promotion innovators, research and wellness campaigns...and I am not referring to Jamie Oliver's food revolution. Today I want to explain why you should switch to fat-free milk - and that led me to recall a highly successful marketing campaign designed by one of my former professors, Dr. Bill Reger-Nash, and his colleague Steve Booth-Butterfield.

Today marketing wellness with catchy bill-boards and ads are pretty common-place (think "Click-it or Ticket"), but that was not the case in the mid-1990's when Dr. Reger-Nash set out to educate north central West Virginia about the health risks associated with consuming whole-milk. Alarmed by facts like this:
the amount of saturated fat in one glass of whole milk is the same as five strips of bacon,
and concerned about the rate of high cholesterol and heart disease in West Virginia, Reger-Nash and Booth-Butterfield designed the 1% or Less campaign ,

using few words, but lots of images to get the message across that just switching to 2% milk was not enough. To really reduce the risk of heart disease, you have to switch to milk that is 1% milkfat or less. Why target milk? Because they determined that milk is the primary daily source of  saturated fat for most people.

The terms 2% and 1% make us think that we are getting much less fat than whole milk because we naturally assume whole milk is 100% fat. But whole milk is actually about 4% butterfat per serving. It follows then that the lesser-fat milks are: 2% (roughly) and 1% (roughly) butterfat, and that in fat-free milk , nearly all the butterfat has been "skimmed" off- hence the name "skim milk".

A look at the labels will show you how much you can save in terms of calories and saturated fat by switching the milk you buy and consume:

You can see that about half of whole milk's 150 calories per serving come from fat, and most of the fat is the artery-clogging saturated kind. Do you see that 25% of your recommended daily allowance of saturated fat is coming in that one glass of milk?

Switching to 2% milk gives you about 1/3 of your calories from fat, so really we should be calling it 34% milk! And only a 20 calorie difference. Now let's look at our really low-fat choices:

Opting for a cup serving of 1% milk instead of whole saves a whopping 40 calories and  cuts the calories from fat from 70 to 20, and the grams of saturated fat from 5 to 1.5!  Even better -- make the move all the way to skim ( or fat-free) and you have saved 70 calories per serving and get no fat whatsoever from your milk. 

Only the very young toddlers need the benefit of whole milk. After age 2, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends feeding your child a low-fat or fat-free milk.

And note that as the fat is reduced in the type of milk, so is the available cholesterol in the milk!

"But my family won't drink blue milk!" I've hard that complaint before and naturally, I have a suggestion!

Trials have shown that it takes about 3 weeks for us humans to adapt to a new taste.  My best suggestion - especially for those people who drink a glass of milk is this: when you are switching from whole milk, buy equal amounts of whole milk and fat-free milk. (I prefer the milk that is labeled fat-free rather than "skim" because it seems to have a "thicker" consistency -- more like whole milk). Then start mixing them each time you serve them or drink milk yourself.  Keep it up for three weeks, gradually increasing the amount of fat-free milk until you have gotten used to  the fat-free.

I know this works! It worked for me and for my family! In fact, I never even told my family I was doing it and they have all been happily drinking fat-free milk for years!
If you feel the need to "step-down" from whole, to 2%, to 1%, and then skim, that's fine too.
And what about Dr. Reger-Nash's 1% or less campaign in West Virginia?  Pre-and post-campaign surveys showed that the percentage of people buying lower-fat milk had nearly doubled six months following their marketing efforts.

So keep drinking milk for its protein, vitamin and calcium benefits, Just remember-- for health and weight reasons you want your milk to be 1% or Less!