Milk is unhealthy because it contains high amounts of saturated fat.

The argument

Saturated fat is a type of dietary fat that, for humans, is considered a "bad" type of fat, and this argument holds that dairy milk delivers enough of it to count against the drink as a whole. The quantity is the first claim. Dairy milk, especially whole milk, contains high levels of saturated fat — up to twenty per cent of the recommended daily allowance. What makes that figure significant on this reasoning is the way milk is consumed: it is treated as a routine drink rather than as a rich food eaten occasionally, and it is added to other foods throughout the day, so the allowance can be used up by something a person does not count as part of their fat intake at all. The mechanism of harm is set out next. Too much saturated fat can lead to serious health problems, because saturated fat at high levels can cause cholesterol to build up in your arteries. That build-up blocks blood flow, and restricted blood flow contributes to the risk for heart disease and stroke — an effect that accumulates over years of ordinary consumption rather than appearing after any single serving. A second route runs through energy. Saturated fats also contain a high density of calories per gram, so a food carrying a lot of them delivers more energy than its volume suggests. That can lead to weight gain, and weight gain brings possible health issues of its own, such as diabetes and heart disease — the latter reached by both routes at once. Because milk contains high amounts of saturated fat and delivers it through daily, unremarked consumption, this argument holds that milk is unhealthy.

Premises

Counter-arguments

-Saturated fat can be avoided by drinking low fat milks such as one per cent. -If one does not drink too much, the saturated fat levels in milk will not cause health problems.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] A share of a daily allowance per serving measures contribution, not excess — supplying part of an allowance is what allowances are for. The premise also generalises from whole milk to milk as such, when the same product is sold at fat levels down to skimmed, which is the counter's point and bears on the title rather than on a detail. [Rejecting P2] The chain from saturated fat to disease is stated more firmly than the evidence for dairy in particular supports: reviews of whole and fermented dairy have not consistently found the cardiovascular increase the premise assumes, and the effect depends on the total dietary pattern and on what replaces the fat. Calorie density likewise makes weight gain a matter of overall intake, so the premises establish at most that milk should be counted within a diet, not that it is unhealthy.