The value of milk and dairy products in the European diet came under the spotlight at a Brussels conference I attended recently.

At it we were told how milk can help achieve the necessary dietary balance and also learned about the challenges facing those marketing dairy products today.

Unbalanced diets have consequences. They cost the individual by triggering unnecessary health problems like obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers and they cost the country the person lives in by shoving up healthcare bills nationally.

At the “Healthy and Balanced Diets in the European Union: How can milk and dairy help?” conference, we were told that an obese person incurs 25% higher health expenditures in any given year. The conference was organised by the European Milk Forum heard.

There are a number of things that we, as European citizens, are doing that causes this diet imbalance. These include overeating (too much energy consumed compared to expended), consuming too much saturated fat and salt and not getting enough vitamins and iron into our diet.

WHAT MILK CAN DO FOR YOU

So what was the verdict on the value of milk, from the experts? Well, it still has plenty of health benefit strings to its bow, they say:

• The high nutritional value of milk is recognised internationally.

• It s calcium-providing value is important

• The nutrients in milk work synergy with others as well as independently.

• Low fat dairy is beneficial for public health and such products could contribute to the prevention of hypertension (high blood pressure).

• Adequeste calcium intake can reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia in pregnant women.

• The obesity-deterrent value of milk was also reiterated with skim milk being shown to reduce appetite and energy intake compared to a fruit drink in overweight men and women.

• One study showed that calcium intake could help bind fat in the gastro-intestinal tract, thereby aiding weight loss.

NUTRITIOUS BY NATURE

The European Milk Forum is made up of seven countries including Ireland and was set up to develop awareness of the value of milk.

“Helping people to choose natural, nutritious foods such as milk and dairy is important as part of a healthy, balanced diet,” says Dr Catherine Logan, nutrition manager with the National Dairy Council.

She highlights the synergy aspect of milk particularly.

“As well as providing calcium for bones, milk contains a range of other essential nutrients namely protein, iodine and vitamins B2 and B12.

“A growing body of research indicates that nutrients present in milk act in synergy as well as independently – a complex phenomenon referred to as the ‘milk matrix’ but one that is very important.”

“Milk, Nutritious by Nature” is the name of the European Milk Forum campaign that will run until November 2014.

Milk is often the target of negative press articles, the conference heard.

If you’re looking for proof, do a simple search engine search. I typed in “milk is good for you” and got 142 million results. Typing in “milk is bad for you” brought up 281 million.

Saturated fat levels are the main cause of concern around dairy products, with US Harvard studies linking them with prostate cancer and recommending smaller-per-day servings of dairy than the food pyramid recommends here. There is also a regular diet of articles in the media about dairy-free diets and milk allergies, not to mention the mucous-related antimilk focus of many complementary practitioners.

So what should the dairy industry do in a marketing world where five units of good news are needed to counteract one unit of negativity?

Don’t react to unestablished claims, the scientists say, and do sound research to get the real picture. Doctors and practice nurses should also be better trained in delivering nutritional information, they believe.

Mention was also made of the credibility value of bigger studies and of controlled environment studies over less-reliable observational ones.

It wasn’t all happy agreement at the event however. There were some “mais non” mutters from dieticians and attendees when it came to the amounts of cheese that should be consumed. Cheese is generally a food that dieticians recommend limiting because of its saturated fat content but Prof Arne Astrup highlighted a study that showed that cheese intake in larger amounts can help lower LDL- cholesterol concentration compared to butter intake of equal fat content. A topic for debate in the future.

CONSUMERS

Some interesting insights were given about the way we as consumers take in food messages:

We make many food choices based more on emotion than scientific fact.

We also switch off if we are overloaded with information.

We are coming around to the idea that tastiness and healthy food can sit together on the one plate rather than on separate shelves in the fridge.

We like to know the source of our food is good, with an example given of how one study showed that “pasture-raised” on a label was more likely to make people buy than fancy packaging or a string of listed health benefits,

For more information, seewww.milknutritiousbynature.eu