I was driving through the Western Adirondacks recently and saw a road sign that read "Drink Whole Milk, 97% Fat Free".

That got me to thinking, well by that logic, whole milk is also 97% protein free, and 95% carb free. Why you could even say milk is 12% water free, when you consider that milk is 88% water.

People have their reasons for drinking whole milk. I get that. Toddlers should be getting whole milk until the age of 2 if they aren't breastfeeding. Some studies indicate whole milk is associated with less obesity in children, although there's probably a lot more to it than that, and recommendations are still to use 1% or skim with children aged 2 and older. It could be the fat in whole milk increases satiety in children, in which case the milk fat could be replaced with nuts, peanut butter or other healthy fats and have the same effect on satiety and weight.

As for adults, if you don't eat meat and cheese you can easily fit whole milk into your diet, but at 5 grams of saturated fat per cup, whole milk is problem for those who may already be consuming more than the maximum of around 20 grams a day from meats, cheese, cream in their coffee and the more than occasional serving of ice cream.

So back to that road sign. I wish I could think of a clever way to fix it for them, but it's just plain misleading. Maybe it should read, "Drink whole milk if you can afford to, otherwise stick to 1% or skim".