I appreciate that it does not take a rocket scientist to hypothesize that a whole milk product will taste better than a skim milk product, but when is the last time you tried it? I bought whole milk Greek yogurt for the first time last week (typically got nonfat) and my mind. was. blown.
It was so much creamier! And it tasted well…more like yogurt than the other stuff. It was so much more rich that a smaller portion size satisfied my craving. I now only add a 1/3 cup to my smoothies vs. 3/4 cup.
I had this same experience when I went from regular milk to organic. It just tasted more like milk. Same with fresh-from-the-farm eggs. (Have you seen a fresh-from-the-farm egg – the yolks are such a bright orange color; grocery store eggs pale (literally) in comparison.) Moral of the story – it shouldn’t surprise me that the closer I get to the natural, undoctored up product, the better the item tastes, but it does. And the fact that it might be healthier for me, too? Well, in the words of one of my many teenage crushes, “whoa”. (Bonus points: name that character and/or show.)
On the other hand, now I have all of these extra calories and fat grams to deal with. True. In my yoga teacher training this weekend we learned about ayurveda and how to lead that type of lifestyle. This goes really off the deep end for your average bear. (I was able to watch Randy’s eyes literally gloss over as I tried to tell him why I needed to add more limes to my diet and get rose water eye drops.) One of the things ayurveda talks about is that we need to eat food in it’s natural form. As I understand it, in their eyes, canning, freezing, and using the microwave isn’t good for the food. Neither is adding refined sugars, caffeine, or alcohol. If you leave it at those two sentences, it makes sense for any kind of healthy person, right? Not just us yoga hippies. Farm-to-table is so big right now and that’s what this boils down to. Perhaps we just need to (gasp!) get a smaller plate, eat in season, and spend a moment savoring our food vs. throwing it down the gullet, in the car, on the way to the next stressful activity.
This is getting super soap-boxy, so let me hop off at this point. But I do think you should give 2% milk or a full-fat yogurt a shot the next time you’re in the store. You may be surprised. And share your feedback! On the other end of the health spectrum, if I were to try to go from diet coke to coke, I would gag. Perhaps someone has that experience trying to force down whole milk??
