Milk

Milk is also considered a hybrid food in OTP. It used to be that when someone said milk, everyone knew they were talking about cow milk – that was the only available option. Now, there’s rice milk, almond milk, hemp milk, flaxseed milk, coconut milk, soy milk, goat milk, oat milk and more. And within each of these types there are subtypes — sweetened, unsweetened, vanilla flavored, non-fat, reduced-fat and full-fat. So many choices!!! 

I’m going to use cow milk as an example for starters and explain how it fits into ONE-TWO PUNCH. A cup of cow milk has 8 grams of protein, about the same as a cheese stick. It also has around 13 grams of carbs, near the carbs in a slice of bread. So, consider a glass of cow milk a hybrid food — it has both carbohydrate and protein. 

It’s the same for a cup of regular, not Greek, plain cow milk yogurt. It’s a hybrid food and that’s just the plain version! When you add fruit and/or sugar, you’re adding another carb and it’s like you’ve got two fists of carbs to one fist protein. With Greek yogurt, much of the lactose or milk sugar is strained out. It then becomes higher in protein and lower in carbohydrate. That’s why OTP considers plain Greek yogurt a protein. When Greek yogurt has fruit and/or sugar included, it’s already a balance of a fist of carb and a fist of protein. 

So how should you treat all the other milks in ONE-TWO PUNCH? I hesitate laying down guidelines, as I don’t want you to get caught up in the details that will cause this to unravel. Remember, we are into simple – waaaay into simple. But I also understand you need some parameters.

Here they are:

If a milk has around 8 grams of protein and less than 5 grams of carbohydrate, it serves as a protein. If a milk has more than 10 grams of carbs, it should be considered a carbohydrate serving. It can also serve as a protein serving if it meets the requirement of around 8 grams of protein. What if a serving of milk has 4 grams of protein and about 6 grams of carbohydrate? It doesn’t pack enough punch to be considered as a significant source of either protein or carbohydrate. Go ahead and use it, but use it in addition to your fist of protein and fist of carbohydrate. This might be over cereal, in smoothies and in recipes. In this case, the milk serves as a condiment in much the same way that fat does.