Cheese reigns supreme

My mom has always been obsessed with keeping up with the Jones' in ways that sort of exploit her children a bit. But she hasn't exploited us in the way families in developing nations with a bunch of kids have (children = labor/$, so they contribute to the overall wealth of the family except that the quality of life for each individual child isn't so great).

She's pushed us to be the best and the brightest Asians on the block-- forcing us to guzzle down glasses of milk twice a day for our whole adolescent lives. I know I should blame the milk industry for their persistent marketing campaigns, but nope, I blame my mother for having the best intentions, but being blindly misinformed as well. Sure, added nutrition and living in America will make your children taller and stronger. But there's a limit, and after the 2000 calorie mark, we will only get wider and fatter.

And now that my mom has started eating cheese to increase bone density, I've made it my priority to get to the bottom of these theories. I heard an interesting podcast on NPR the other day about Osteopenia, which is a condition where bone mineral density is lower than normal. Many doctors consider it to be a precursor to Osteoporosis, but a lot of people will be surprised to know that an arbitrary line drawn on a graph of diminishing bone density at a meeting of experts in 1992 (WHO) determined the difference between women who have Osteopenia and those who have Osteoporosis.

Turns out Osteopenia is just slight thinning of the bones that occurs naturally as women get older and typically doesn't result in disabling bone breaks. The reason so many women are recommended to go on treatment is because Merck, in developing Fosamax (a prescribed drug for osteopenia), pushed for a contested method of measuring bone density to be cheaper and more widely available. Check out the full story here.

Now, research is showing that women who eat an ounce of full-fat cheese every day gain fewer pounds over time than those who don't, according to a study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Turns out whole-fat dairy may stoke your metabolism because it contains conjugated linoleic acid (CLA).

Milk is a rich source of CLA, because it contains vaccenic acid, which is the precursor to CLA. The body converts vaccenic acid to CLA during digestion. The higher the percentage of milk fat, the more vaccenic acid in the milk. That means your body will convert more vaccenic acid to a higher level of CLA. Heating during pasteurization can destroy the vaccenic acid, so it is beneficial to drink unpasteurized milk to preserve the CLA precursor.

It is illegal in some states to buy or sell unpasteurized milk, but be happy you live in California because this Ish is legal, and if you've ever tried Raw milk, it's effin delicious.

I guess I'm going to have to push my mom to buy raw milk (i hear you can get it at pet food stores too ha!) and eat better cheeses. It's great news for me because i love cheese. However, what's this business about U.S. Milk being banned in Europe? And U.S. beef being banned in Britain? Does anyone know if this is true?

Making mozzarella soon, pics going up after that.