Milk -- is it a food or a beverage?

[mimisings]

Wondering how milk products (2%, nonfat, 1/2 & 1/2) would be categorized...as a food, thus it would be considered a snack in between meals, or a beverage, which, then, I would assume it would NOT be considered a snack. For example, can I have a non-sweetened latte, the biggest size (:o) in between lunch and dinner?

Thanks in advance for your input.

[la_loser]

Welcome!

For the life of me, I can't find it on the main No S page, but I know it's addressed on these boards multiple times, but here's the scoop. Reinhard's theory is that the liquids we should avoid are sugary soft drinks, milkshakes, etc.

He actually encourages the use of milk and real juice in place of snacks to help us make it from meal to meal, especially in the beginning when we're beginning to learn to form better habits. The idea there is that we're not likely to overdo it with milk or juice like we might with a bag of chips or jar of nuts or a bowl of Skittles.

Even using real sugar in your coffee or tea, etc. is ok so long as it's not to point of turning it into a "sweet!" (note the rule says no sweets-not no sugar) It's even ok to have alcohol up to a couple of times a day--again, unless it's really a sweet. (like those Brandy Alexanders I love! save those for S days)

[reinhard]

Welcome! Yes, milk is OK. Enjoy that latte.

Relevant blurb from the book:

(pages 55-56)

Caloric drinks (as long as they’re not full of sugar) are
also acceptable snack substitutes. While liquid calories
are qualitatively no different from solid- food calories,
by reaching for a drink instead of a solid snack, the habit
of not eating solid food between meals is still preserved,
and you are unlikely to drink nonsugar drinks in suffi -
cient quantities for it to be much of an issue, calorically
speaking. So while noncaloric drinks between meals
are preferable, if you’re about to break down and start
snacking, it’s okay to have a glass of milk instead.

Whole milk is loaded with fat and calories. But
guess how much whole milk Americans drank in the
thin 1970s compared with Americans today? Accord-
ing to the USDA,over three times more (25 gallons
per person per year in 1970, but only 8 gallons today).
In the even thinner 1940s, we drank almost six times
more (45 gallons in 1945). All that skim and reduced-
fat milk we now drink instead hasn’t slimmed us down
any (15 gallons today versus 6 gallons in 1970 and
4 gallons in 1945). It has probably only lubricated our
consciences to make us ignore all the sugar soda we’re
drinking (22 gallons in 1970 compared to 56 gallons
today). Dairy is actually the only top- level category
of food substance tracked by the USDA’s Economic
Research Service to have shown a decrease in calorie
consumption since 1970.

Whole milk, like 100 percent fruit juice, is very
filling. It’s difficult to drink large quantities at once
because you can taste the fat and calories. You can get
away with drinking a much smaller amount, without
the false sense of security that lower- calorie milk prod-
ucts give you. It also tastes much better. So although it
isn’t a technical requirement of the No S Diet, I would
recommend sticking with whole milk rather than skim
or reduced- fat milk. Our bodies have evolved to expect
milk to be fatty and caloric, and the statistics show
that tricking our bodies with less fatty substitutes has
clearly not worked as a weight loss strategy— quite the
contrary.