Coconut milk or normal skim milk?
Question
For a balanced sportsman doing crossfit (1x to 2x per week), should I drink coconut milk or diary skim milk?
Background
As a sportsman trying to have a defined body and the energy to exercise can be complicated sometimes.
I know that protein is important for muscle gain, and that to be defined, fat (specially saturated fats) should be avoided.
Recently I have started to see a huge increase over the number of crossfit celebreties that drink coconut milkshakes after workouts and an ever increasing number of sportsman (and women) recommend coconut milk instead of regular milk.
This is specially true among vegans or among those who avoid taking protein from animal sources. According to them, coconut milk is healthy and good for you.
Problem
I was surprised when I checked the nutrition label for coconut milk.
According to the sources from USDA:
Coconut milk nutrition
Diary milk nutrition
One can immediately see a problem with this: coconut milk has 104% of the recommended amount of fat.
Now, fat is not bad nor evil per itself. There are two main kinds of fat (unsaturated and saturated), one is good for your heart and circulatory system overall (unsaturated fat, like in raw olive oil), the other is what gives you heart attacks (saturated fat).
The problem with coconut milk, is that is filled with saturated fat (the one that gives you heart attacks).
Now I have to wonder, how can something with so much saturated fat, be considered so healthy by the community?
Questions
So at this point I am pretty much confused:
Is one type of milk healthier?
Why is coconut milk regarded as healthy?
Why is coconut milk used by sportsmen and women?
What should I take?
Additional Note
Please consider that I am not lactose intolerant, and that for a normal person, there are also lactose-free diary milks as well.
(1)1 Comments
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To answer your question: Why is coconut milk used so much by sportsmen and women?
Nutritional content:
As you rightly asserted, there is a high quantity of saturated fat this is due to the high level of coconut oil, The FDA, WHO, ICoN, DHHS, ADA, AHA, British NHS, and DoC recommend against consuming in significant amounts due to its high levels of saturated fat.
However, the effects of coconut oil aren't insignificant. Examine.com highlights that the main reasons that coconut oil is consumed:
The majority of coconut oil (65%) is made up of medium chain
triglycerides (MCT). Studies suggest replacing calories with MCTs
without exceeding daily caloric requirements can result in a small,
but significant, increase in the rate of fat loss over time. This
effect appears to be slightly more powerful in overweight people.
Coconut oil may also temporarily increase metabolic rate and the
speed at which fats are broken down to release fatty acids, a process
known as lipolysis. This effect occurs when coconut oil is first added
to the diet and disappears after two weeks.
Adding coconut oil to a diet is unlikely to cause noticeable fat loss
effects, but it can replace other dietary fatty acids in order to
fine-tune a diet plan
To summarise, coconut milk has a high fat content due to coconut oil. Coconut oil has been shown to help people who are overweight improve their fat loss rate (provided diet is at calorie deficit). All of this points to coconut milk being most helpful to those on a keto diet. Keto diets are preferred by athletes on a cut because it enables them to retain muscle mass while losing weight.
For a balanced sportsman doing crossfit (1x to 2x per week), should I
drink coconut milk or diary skim milk?
Depends entirely on your dietry requirements, if you are on a cut (probably? as you mentioned 'toning'). To get to a low body-fat percentage (and get 'toned') you need to eat less calories than you put out. Dietry fat as a food type does not have significant impact on body composition. I suggest you have a read though this examine.com question. The only way to definitively know which ones to use would be to work out your calorie and macro-nutritional breakdown and compare it to your diet design.
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