Try Milk Instead of Fruit Juice at Breakfast . . .

I know fruit juice counts as one of your “five-a-day” fruit or veggies and is an important health food, but the Dairy Council would like you to consider milk instead. They quote an Australian study reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, in which the effects of skim milk satiety and energy intake at lunch are estimated in comparison to fruit juice.

Overweight women and men attended at two sessions, one week apart. At each session, the participants ate a standardized breakfast (fixed calories) together with either 600 mL skim milk or a 600 mL fruit drink. At the first session they were randomly assigned milk or fruit juice, and were then given the alternative drink at the second session – in other words, this was a randomized cross-over trial.

There were 21 female and 13 male participants. When they had skim milk at breakfast, they consumed, on average, significantly fewer calories at lunch than those who had taken fruit juice: 635 calories vs. 581 calories. Self-reports of satiety – a feeling of fullness – were higher throughout the morning after a breakfast with skim milk than one with fruit juice; the difference became greater over the 4-hour period leading up to lunch.

It looks as if this would be a useful strategy for those wanting to lose some weight. However, they should make up their missing fruit-or-veggie, and they must rigidly avoid any milk other than skimmed!