Which kind of milk has the more of the essential minerals, such as calcium, that your body needs; whole 2%, 1%, or skim? How healthy is milk?

First setup the stand and crucible with the crucible about 2-3 cm above the burner. Clean the crucible with water and heat it empty for ten minutes to clean the bottom and remove moisture. Let the crucible cool to room temperature. Weigh the empty, clean crucible. Do not touch the crucible with your hands until the end of experiment to keep oils from your hands off of it. Fill the crucible about 1/3 full of milk and weigh it again. Start heating the crucible from side to side keeping the burner moving. Heat until the water in the milk boils off, leaving a black residue. Once all the water is boiled off heat the crucible more leaving the flame directly under it. Heat until only a gray ash remains. Allow it to cool, and mass the crucible.

Type of Milk	Empty Crucible	Crucible with Milk	Crucible with Ash	Percent Mineral
Skin	20.14	23.4	20.18	1.22%
1 %	19.21	24.19	19.26	1.00%
2%	20.17	23.96	20.20	0.79%
Whole	20.63	24.54	20.66	0.70%

The data from the experiment as well as nutrition labels contradicts the hypothesis made ( whole milk will have a higher %). Skim milk has a higher percentage of calcium as well as a larger gram amount. The hypothesis was made because whole milk has more fat it was believed to be able to hold more minerals. Judging from the data, this hypothesis is wrong. Because of the higher fat content the percent of minerals will be lower then in skim milk. Skim milk is constructed by removing things like fat. Because undesirable components are removed from skim milk and beneficial components are kept the percent of the helpful minerals will be higher. Although skim milk goes through significantly more processing to remove fat and add extra things such as Vitamin A and more calcium all the types of milk have very close amounts of calcium, one of the main minerals in milk. Therefore, ones choice in milk depends solely on their desired fat content, mineral amounts should not be a concern as they are all close.

Research on the true health advantages and disadvantages left me undecided on whether milk is beneficial or detrimental to ones health. While My first response would be to accept the fact that milk is healthy research showed possible flaws in this belief. For example, the massive increase of milk output by cows from 20 years ago is due to hormones and drugs fed to the cows, which come out in the milk. Yet many of the anti-milk arguments I found were based on inconclusive surveys on milk and its links to certain diseases. Therefore my final result based on research was undecided.

This experiment showed that subtle differences between the different types of milk sold today. This information can be useful when choosing what milk to buy and why. The research part of my project is just as important because it raised several different issues. Does the National Dairy Association cover health facts up by clever commercial campaigns? Does milk cause more diseases then it prevents? In the long run does your body benefit from drinking milk? Both sides of the argument have strong points. I found its up to the individual consumer to become informed and make up their own mind.

 

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