Winners made of the white stuff

We may produce it by the tanker load, but milk has been a staple in the Irish diet for so long that we tend to take it for granted, writes PAUL CULLEN

WE USE IT to bulk up our teas and coffees and hand it out free to kids in school but, let’s face it, most of us are more likely to place a glass of wine or water on the dinner table than a tumbler of white liquid.

It’s time to shake off our fuddy-duddy image of milk by recognising its potential as a “cool” food for teenagers and an essential accompaniment to our sporting activities, according to the National Dairy Council (NDC).

It sees a bright future for milk as a home-grown, nutritious rival to the breed of commercially-developed sports drinks which have mushroomed in popularity in recent years.

If downing the contents of a cow’s udder is the last thing you’d think of doing after running a marathon or enduring a heavy workout, it may be time to think again, according to the NDC and its sister organisation in Britain, the Dairy Council.

“Recent studies have confirmed what sports dieticians have known for years – that milk contains nutrients which can help improve performance and recovery in young people involved in sport,” says Dr Judith Bryans, director of the Dairy Council.

“Milk contains similar amounts of carbohydrate and electrolytes to commercially developed sports drinks which aim to replace the essential nutrients lost during physical activity and aid in recovery.”

The two dairy councils brought journalists from Britain and Ireland to Wimbledon to hear from nutrition scientists who have worked with elite athletes and have found a role for milk in their programmes.

Prof Ron Maughan of Loughborough University said milk had the “potential” to help athletes rehydrate after exercise and enable muscles to recover.

When we exercise, we lose water and salt, but the amounts vary hugely from person to person.

Maughan has worked with footballers who have lost up to 9g (0.3oz) of salt after a training session – more than the average individual’s daily intake.

Former French international footballer Zinedine Zidane must rank as one of sport’s sweatiest stars, having on occasion lost over 3.2 per cent of his body weight through dehydration.

Water is fine as it goes for rehydration, but the problem is that we expel it again all too quickly. “If you don’t restore your salt balance, you’re not going to restore your water balance either,” says Maughan.

Milk has a relatively high sodium and potassium content and should therefore be effective in restoring fluid balance, he says. His research suggests that milk can be considered for use after exercise by everyone except the lactose intolerant.

Maughan acknowledges that his research was part-funded by the dairy industry. “We’re not ashamed of the fact that some funding came from the Dairy Council. It has all been subject to independent peer review, as we’ve made plain,” he says.

Bryans says she isn’t ashamed either. “We’re just glad our instincts about the positive role milk can have in sport were right,” she says. “If we were to wait for public funding for this research, it would never get done.”

“Milk has many natural nutrients and naturally occurring electrolytes, so it is very encouraging to see that it can have a role in the nutritional strategy of athletes of all levels,” says Helen Brophy, chief executive of the NDC.

Armed with the research findings, the two councils have begun a campaign to communicate the nutritional benefits of milk in physical activity and sport to 12 to 20-year-olds, a traditionally difficult age-group to reach.

Although we are the second-highest consumers of milk in the EU, more than 40 per cent of teenage girls and 23 per cent of teenage boys in Ireland do not take enough calcium in their diets, the council says.

However, the NDC has failed to get EU health authorities to recognise specific health claims for dairy products.

The Milk in Action campaign runs for three years and embraces the usual communications strategies used to target young people – a dedicated website, adverts in teen magazines and an emphasis on digital media.

The sports drink market is worth an estimated €250 billion a year globally, though, after a decade of rapid growth, it has declined slightly in recent years. Even a small slice of that market would mean good news for Irish milk producers, but as yet there are few milk-based products specifically targeted at the sports market.

Milk also has a number of drawbacks. There are taste and acceptability issues for some consumers, and up to 15 per cent of the population may be lactose intolerant.

However, it is cheaper and less sugary than commercial sports drinks, many of which are now unwisely consumed outside a sports context.

The lack of a commercially produced milk sports drink may be a challenge, but how long is it since some of those lurid mineral drinks we now associate with physical exercise were considered more appropriate for a granny recuperating in hospital?

For more information, see milkitforallits worth.eu.