Nonfat and Lowfat Made Me Dislike Milk for a Long Time

Gallons that could barely be considered milk turned me off from drinking milk for a long time

My mom used to feed us milk a ton growing up. We always either had nonfat milk, 1%, or 2% milk. My mom was health-conscious and a strict budgeter so it made sense to me looking back. I think that she listened to the doctors who told her that anything more would be bad for her and the kids.

She believed the line that skim milk was healthier than full-fat milk. There have more recent studies to suggest that she might’ve been wrong. I also used to believe that milk would make me big and strong. I took that to mean tall and muscular. Shoot, at age 41 and 6'2", I’ll take one of those, although the big I got to isn’t what I imagined when I was a kid.

I believed all that hype. For a while, I carried on and tried to drink the milk that she bought us. I would have at least one glass a day. Then I got into singing. I had heard that milk was bad for your vocal cords and created extra mucus that could destroy them. It was likely a myth as there are conflicting reports out there about it but it was still always in the back of my mind. I wanted to be a superstar singer and if I had an excuse to stop drinking milk, especially gross milk, this would’ve been it.

Around the time I was a teenager, I started drinking less and less milk. It would cause my mom to stop buying milk altogether at certain junctures. She became less obsessed with helping me grow “big and strong”. I was already getting big enough for her. She then started buying alternative milk other than cow’s milk like almond and soy milk for herself. I tasted them and liked those better but I still never really drank that for a long time.

When I was an adult, I drank milk a little more often but I didn’t like drinking it. I think it was the lingering memory of the taste of skim milk that stayed with me as I continued to buy skim milk since it was cheaper and I had even less money than my family did when I was a kid.

I didn’t have the luxury of being choosy so I wasn’t. I am still very budget-conscious like my mom to this day. The difference is in my choices now as an adult.

Even though I still don’t really drink much milk, my partner has me turned on to whole milk. We drink it together occasionally and buy about a half-gallon every two weeks that we use for coffee and cereal, mainly. Whole milk definitely tastes like something that I thought that milk tastes more like.

I get that all milk is processed and pasteurized to a heavy degree. I couldn’t even imagine drinking the sour stuff that comes directly from the mother cow when being milked. I like that whole milk has more fat in it and seems to be healthier along with having a better taste. I think that my trauma lies in having believed that fat in foods was a bad thing before. Milk should have fat and protein in it. It is a nutrient-dense beverage.

Anyway, when I’m not completely hating drinking it and listening to non-proven medical conspiracies about the beverage, I enjoy it occasionally now. I still have a lot of baggage around it and it’s probably a good idea anyway that I don’t drink it more often. My partner used to drink it every day in volume even when we first got together but now his consumption is more sensible. Mine has kind of leveled off but I appreciate it.

I don’t completely hate it these days but I don't necessarily need it. I do get upset when it spoils or goes bad though. I think that’s only because I spent money and wasted it. I hate wasting money. Milk is useful as a supplement to my main diet but I could go without it for long stretches, especially if I considered a vegetarian diet.

I was a lacto-ovo vegetarian for long stretches of my childhood, after all. If I went fully vegan or vegetarian, I could just choose to drink one of the alternatives. I just know now that milk isn’t as harmful to me as they once thought it was and I feel all right about it. Just don’t ask to unload a ton extra on me because you don’t want it. Milk and I still have a complicated relationship, after all.