(by Patrick Holford)
For as long as you breastfeed, you don't have to supplement your baby's diet with cow's milk. However, once you stop, you will need to ensure they get a good source of calcium. Milk has been marketed for decades as the perfect calcium-rich food, especially for yung children. But the key word here is "MARKETED".
Early humans drank no milk after weaning - yet they will managed to develop strong bones and teeth. There is no evidence that once they ceased to be nomadic hunter-gathers and began to cultivate the land, eating grains and keeping animals for meat and milk, their bones got stronger. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. We appear to have shrunk in height by five or six inches! This, however, is thought to be due to difficulties in dealing with grains more than to any problem with milk.
We need to remember that milk is a specialized food full of hormones geared for calves, rather than us. And as we've seen, milk protein or casein causes digestive problems in a lot of people. Meanwhile, if it is so essential, where do the Chinese (for instance), whose consumption of is vanishingly small, get their calcium? From vegetables, nuts, seeds, and soya products. So while it's widely consumed by our society, milk doesn't seem to stand up as an essential for good health. And as many people develop allergies to it, it's not a good idea for your child to become too reliant on milk - as long as you make sure thir diet is rich in other sources of calcium
If you decide you do want to give your child milk, reduce its allergic potential by rotating cow's milk with goat's and sheep's milks, plus soya, rice and nut milks (although you need to wait until they are a year old before introducing any nut products).
(more about this later, stay tuned!!!)
For as long as you breastfeed, you don't have to supplement your baby's diet with cow's milk. However, once you stop, you will need to ensure they get a good source of calcium. Milk has been marketed for decades as the perfect calcium-rich food, especially for yung children. But the key word here is "MARKETED".
Early humans drank no milk after weaning - yet they will managed to develop strong bones and teeth. There is no evidence that once they ceased to be nomadic hunter-gathers and began to cultivate the land, eating grains and keeping animals for meat and milk, their bones got stronger. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. We appear to have shrunk in height by five or six inches! This, however, is thought to be due to difficulties in dealing with grains more than to any problem with milk.
We need to remember that milk is a specialized food full of hormones geared for calves, rather than us. And as we've seen, milk protein or casein causes digestive problems in a lot of people. Meanwhile, if it is so essential, where do the Chinese (for instance), whose consumption of is vanishingly small, get their calcium? From vegetables, nuts, seeds, and soya products. So while it's widely consumed by our society, milk doesn't seem to stand up as an essential for good health. And as many people develop allergies to it, it's not a good idea for your child to become too reliant on milk - as long as you make sure thir diet is rich in other sources of calcium
If you decide you do want to give your child milk, reduce its allergic potential by rotating cow's milk with goat's and sheep's milks, plus soya, rice and nut milks (although you need to wait until they are a year old before introducing any nut products).
(more about this later, stay tuned!!!)
