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Have you heard of ultrafiltered milk? It’s been on store shelves for nearly ten years, since the widely stocked brand “Fairlife” was launched by (checks notes) the Coca-Cola Company (!) in February 2015.
Briefly, ultrafiltered (UF) milk has more protein and calcium, and less sugar per glass. It’s often lactose-free or at least low in lactose (milk sugar).
The taste? Pretty much like regular milk, but a bit creamier and sweeter. The downside: It costs about twice as much as regular milk.
Read on if you have questions, from the likely impact on heart health to three examples of how it can push your breakfast protein into the 25-30 gram range.
What is ultrafiltered milk? How is it made?
UF milk is produced by pushing regular milk through a set of specialized filters, removing some of the water, lactose, vitamins, and minerals, leaving behind a higher concentration of protein and calcium. (Vitamins and minerals are added back later.)
Many producers go a step further and add an enzyme (lactase) to break down the remaining lactose, to make it completely lactose-free. (Double-check the label if you need that.) The resulting simple sugars, glucose and galactose, are responsible for the slightly sweeter taste.
How does it compare nutritionally?
I thought we’d compare two UF milk products we have locally (Coca-Cola’s Fairlife and Canadian brand Natrel Plus) to regular milk and an unsweetened soy beverage. (I included the soy because it’s the highest in protein of the plant-based options.)
You might be able to read this table more easily if you turn your device on its side.
| Nutrients | Beatrice (regular) 2% | Fairlife (UF) 0% | Natrel Plus (UF) 2% | Silk unsweetened soy beverage |
| Calories | 130 | 80 | 160 | 90 |
| Fat (g) | 5 | 0.3 | 5 | 4.5 |
| Saturated + trans fat (g) | 3.5 + 0.2 | 0 + 0 | 3 + 0.2 | 0.5 + 0 |
| Unsaturated fats (calculated) (g) | 1.3 | 0.3 | 1.3 | 4 |
| Cholesterol (mg) | 20 | 5 | 25 | 0 |
| Sodium (mg) | 90 | 125 | 75 | 90 |
| Carbohydrates (g) | 12 | 6 | 9 | 4 |
| Fibre (g) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Sugars (g) | 12 | 6 | 9 | 1 |
| Protein (g) | 9 | 14 | 18 | 8 |
| Potassium (mg / % DV) | 400 / 9 | 400 / 9 | 300 / 6 | 350 / 7 |
| Calcium (mg / % DV) | 300 / 23 | 400 / 31 | 550 / 42 | 300 / 23 |
As you can see, protein and calcium are higher, sugar lower in the UF milk products. (The unsweetened soy is also quite low in sugar.) The other differences are fairly inconsequential.
Just how much protein do I need anyhow?
You might think of protein as being for muscle building, but it also helps build and repair bones, hormones, enzymes, antibodies, and more. Important stuff!
Everyone needs a different amount, so consult a Registered Dietitian if you want a personalized answer to this question. Generally, the official recommendation is 0.8 grams for every kilogram you weigh, or about 0.4 grams per pound, at least to avoid deficiency.
However, a lot of experts feel we’d benefit from more, for optimal health. For example, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), a respected organization in the nutrition field, suggests that after age 50 we up it to one gram of protein per kilo of body weight, to maintain muscle mass (about 0.5 grams per pound).
Further, ACSM says that people who exercise regularly (hopefully that’s you!) need even more protein. They recommend that if you lift weights regularly or are training for a running or cycling event, you should get between 1.2 and 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, or 0.5 to 0.8 grams per pound.
So for example, a 180 lb person who strength trains regularly would need 98 to 139 grams of protein a day. That’s a lot! Dividing it evenly between three meals and snacks would mean aiming for 25 to 35 grams at each meal and at snacks in total.
Most people find that very hard to do at breakfast! That’s where UF milk might come in especially handy. See below for three examples of breakfast meals that will do the trick.
But first…
Why not just use protein powder?
You could certainly do that, but UF milk is more convenient, because you don’t need to keep a bulky tub in your kitchen and stir it in every day.
Plus milk isn’t just a calcium-rich vehicle for protein. It’s also a source of vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B12, potassium, phosphorus, vitamin A, and vitamin D, which is added in processing.
And so many protein powders are full of additives. They’re considered a dietary supplement in the US, and a natural health product in Canada, so regulatory oversight is limited, unlike milk production, which is strictly regulated.
Is the sugar in regular milk even a problem?
Not really, even if you have type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. We don’t tend to worry about sugar that comes packaged in whole foods with nutrients like protein, fibre, and more.
It’s added sugar, especially in beverages, that can raise your risk of health problems, if you frequently have a lot. Furthermore, milk has a low glycemic index.
So we might recommend UF milk for the extra protein and calcium, but not so much for the reduced sugar.
(If lactose gives you digestive trouble, UF milk should help with that, but there’s also regular lactose-free milk, which I found to be less expensive.)
But isn’t ultrafiltered milk processed?
Sorry to break it to you, but most of our food, even the stuff associated with better health outcomes, is processed to some degree.
Researchers use the Nova food classification system to categorize foods by degree of processing. Regular milk is in group 1: “Unprocessed or minimally processed food.” As the creators describe it, “Beans are just dried and packed… wheat grains are transformed into flour, couscous, and pasta… milk is pasteurized.”
The Nova system isn’t perfect, but for what it’s worth, it’s really frequent consumption of group 4, “Ultra-processed food and drinks,” that’s been linked to health problems.
The concern is ultra-processed foods (UPFs) where the processing removes nutritious components, as in refined versus whole grains, for example. Plus UPFs often contain lots of added sugar, salt, and/or other unhelpful additives. It’s foods like Fruit Loops, Cheetos, and (dang it) ice cream.
I’m not sure anyone has assigned UF milk a Nova category, but I can’t imagine that filtering it to shift the concentration of protein, sugar, etc, would make it an ultra-processed food. Don’t worry about this.
Is it better for heart health?
First, what about milk in general?
Milk is a nutrient-dense food, but not a must-have. Significant portions of the world’s population don’t drink it. According to the US National Library of Medicine, “Approximately 65 percent of the human population has a reduced ability to digest lactose after infancy.”
For coronary heart disease, cholesterol, and triglycerides, the effect of milk is relative to what you might have instead. It’s clearly a heart-healthier protein source than unprocessed meats (eg. sausage, ham) and probably unprocessed red meat. It’s better to drink milk than sweetened iced tea or soda to reduce your risk of diabetes and possibly high blood pressure. As a snack, it beats muffins, crackers, and other refined carbohydrate foods.
But for heart health, you’re better off getting protein from plant-based sources like tofu, nuts, and legumes as well as yogurt, possibly cheese, and fish. As you might have noticed in the chart above, soy beverages have more heart-healthy unsaturated fats and even some fibre!
But most people I work with don’t want fish at breakfast, aren’t keen on soy milk, and can only take so much Greek yogurt! So milk is an option, and a nutrient-rich one at that.
How does ultrafiltered milk compare?
I couldn’t find many studies, but with its additional protein and calcium and reduced sugar, it’s reasonable to predict that it would have an edge on regular milk.
If you have type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, in theory the extra protein should help blunt the blood sugar effect of your meal. Also, protein can increase satiety, helping you feel more full after eating. Again, it would be reasonable to expect UF milk to do that a little bit better.
A systematic review and meta-analysis (study of studies) looked at giving extra whey (milk) protein daily to people with metabolic syndrome (a cluster of conditions including increased blood pressure, blood sugars, waist circumference, triglycerides, and abnormal cholesterol).
The result? Improvements in blood sugar control, insulin, insulin resistance, triglycerides, and cholesterol. (All good!) Could UF milk, with its extra protein, have similar effects? Probably.
Not directly heart-health related, but important to many of my readers: Would UF milk help prevent or slow age-related muscle loss? One small randomized controlled trial with volunteers 50 or older who were already getting enough protein, found that high protein milk twice a day increased strength, but not muscle mass, but only in combination with resistance training three times a week. Again with the weight lifting!
What level of milk fat should I drink?
That’s a controversial question: For heart health, what’s best: skim/nonfat, 1%, 2%, or 3.25%/whole milk?
The traditional advice has been to go with low-fat milk products, because higher saturated fat intakes in general raise artery-clogging LDL-cholesterol.
However, research doesn’t link dairy fats to of cardiovascular disease like you might expect. In fact, in some studies, the opposite was true – they were slightly protective!
(We can’t rule out the impact of other factors in studies like this. Maybe the milk drinkers have other healthy habits. Perhaps they’re more affluent. Either way, higher fat milk products don’t appear to be harmful like previously thought.)
If you inherited high cholesterol and you’re trying to do all you can to lower it with your diet, go with low-fat or preferably soy milk. But if that’s not the case, choose whichever milk you like best. Because UF milk is creamier than regular milk, you might enjoy a lower-fat milk than you’re used to.
How about chocolate ultrafiltered milk?
Unsurprisingly, producers have come up with other products using UF milk. You might find chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla-flavoured UF milk and higher protein flavoured shakes.
If you’re tempted, check out the sugar content (or “added sugar” if you’re in the US). If the total for sugars is 12 grams or less (or added sugar 8 grams or less), that’s pretty good! Much lower than conventional chocolate milk at 26 grams or so.
And if you’re hesitant about artificial sweeteners, scour the ingredient list, because many of the flavoured UF milks use them, to keep their carbohydrate and sugar numbers down.
Are artificial sweeteners safe? Another controversy! There are concerns about their long-term effects, but the evidence isn’t strong. (Long-term outcomes like this are always hard to study.)
On the other hand, the risks of regularly drinking sugar-sweetened beverages are well-established. But those studies are usually looking at soda, not milk. The protein may balance the sugar somewhat.
Ideally you have neither sugary drinks nor artificial sweeteners, or just have a small amount of sugar. A teaspoon in your tea isn’t a concern. (That’s about four grams. For perspective, a can of pop has about 40 grams.)
Interestingly, the two products I checked, chocolate Fairlife and Natrel Plus, each have 12 grams of sugar per cup, despite Fairlife using two artificial sweeteners (acesulfame-potassium and sucralose) and Natrel Plus using just sugar. I’d go with the latter.
3 heart-healthy breakfast combos with ultrafiltered milk
Breakfast is where I think UF milk could be most helpful. A cup of Natrel UF milk has 18 grams of protein! That’s about the same as 3/4 cup of plain Greek yogurt.
As you can see, depending on your protein goal and which product you choose, you may not even need to drink a whole cup. I often have just a half-cup to top up my protein.
Peanut butter and strawberries on toast with UF milk
| Food | Amount | Protein (g) |
| Natural peanut butter | 2 tbsp | 7.8 |
| Whole- & multi-grain bread | 1 large slice | 5.5 |
| Sliced strawberries | 1/2 cup | 0.5 |
| Fairlife 2% UF milk | 1 cup | 14 |
| Total | 28 grams |
Calories: 441, saturated fat 5.8g, trans fat 0g, cholesterol 20mg, sodium 377mg, carbohydrates 36g, fibre 7g, sugars 14g
Oatmeal cooked in UF milk with frozen blueberries and walnuts
| Food | Amount | Protein (g) |
| Rolled oats, dry | 1/3 cup | 3.5 |
| Natrel Plus 2% UF milk | 1 cup (cook the oats with 2/3 cup, drizzle the remaining 1/3 cup over it) | 18 |
| Frozen blueberries, thawed | 1/2 cup | 0.5 |
| Walnuts, roughly chopped | 1/4 cup | 4.5 |
| Total | 27 grams |
Calories: 512, saturated fat 5g, trans fat 0.2g, cholesterol 25mg, sodium 78mg, carbohydrates 45g, fibre 8g, sugars 20g
Breakfast wrap with homemade UF mocha latte
I put chocolate UF milk in this one for fun. A Sunday morning special.
| Food | Amount | Protein (g) |
| Egg | 1 | 6.3 |
| Whole wheat tortilla (medium) | 1 | 4.4 |
| Spinach | 1 cup | 0.9 |
| Cheddar cheese | 1 oz (30g) | 6.5 |
| 2% chocolate Natrel Plus UF milk | 2/3 cup | 12.1 |
| Coffee, black | 1 cup | 0.3 |
| Total | 30 grams |
Calories: 441, saturated fat 9.4g, trans fat 0.4g, cholesterol 231mg, sodium 801mg, carbohydrates 38g, fibre 7g, sugars 10g
Where can I buy UF milk?
You should be able to find it in a good-sized supermarket, wherever they store the regular milk.
Here in Calgary I’ve found Natrel Plus at Superstore, but it’s often out of stock. Fairlife is more reliable. Walmart carries only Fairlife, at least online.
Depending on where you live, you’ll likely find other brands of UF milk: Joyya (by Neilson), Dairyland, and Slate, to name a few.
How much does it cost?
This is just one store, on one day, but it gives you an idea of the relative cost, in descending order from most to least expensive per cup (240 mL):
- UF: Fairlife 2% (1.5L / 54 oz jug) – $1.06 / cup
- UF: Natrel Plus 2% (2L / 71 oz carton) – $0.84 / cup
- Regular: Beatrice 2% (2L / 71 oz carton) – $0.55 / cup
- Regular: Beatrice 2% (4L / gallon jug) – $0.34 / cup
All prices from Real Canadian Superstore online, October 3, 2024.
If you normally buy milk by the gallon (4L), UF milk will really hit your grocery bill. A 4L jug of regular 2% milk is $5.80 this week, while a 2L carton of Natrel Plus 2% UF milk is $7.21. Two of them, or 4 litres, will cost you $14.42!
If you use protein powder though, you’re probably spending around this much. For example, going from regular milk to Natrel Plus adds 9 grams of protein per cup. To get 9g of protein from Boost Just Protein powder, it would take 1.5 scoops, which, at the same retailer, works out to just over a dollar!
UF milk has a longer shelf life, which might offset the extra cost, if you often find yourself pouring spoiled milk down the drain. The fancy filters also remove bacteria that can cause spoilage. Once opened however, the USDA says to use it within seven days. (We find it’s good much longer than that.)
Bottom line
If you drink milk, put it in your coffee, oatmeal, or cereal, and could use a little extra protein in the morning, at lunch, or for a snack, it might be worth considering ultrafiltered milk, if the cost isn’t a barrier for you.
Have you tried it?
If so, what did you think? Chime in on Facebook, in my free Sweet Spot Heart-Healthy Cooking Club, and find out what others are saying.
As always, this post is not sponsored! Any mention of specific products are to help you, not for financial gain.
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