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All adults and children, with rare exceptions, know the popular and funny adage – “Drink, children, milk, you will be healthy!” … However, today, thanks to a lot of scientific research, the positive tinge of this statement has significantly faded – it turns out that not all adults and children milk is really healthy. Moreover, in some cases, milk is not only unhealthy, but also hazardous to health! Is it possible or not for children to milk?
Dozens of generations have grown up on the belief that animal milk is one of the “cornerstones” of human nutrition, in other words, one of the most important and useful foods in the diet of not only adults, but also children practically from birth. However, in our time, many black spots have appeared on the white reputation of milk.
Can children eat milk? Age matters!
It turns out that each human age has its own special relationship with cow’s milk (and by the way, not only with cow’s milk, but also with goat’s, sheep’s, camel’s, etc.). And these relations are regulated primarily by the ability of our digestive system to qualitatively digest this very milk.
The bottom line is that milk contains a special milk sugar – lactose (in the exact language of scientists, lactose is a carbohydrate of the disaccharide group). To break down lactose, a person needs a sufficient amount of a special enzyme – lactase.
When a baby is born, the production of the lactase enzyme in his body is extremely high – thus nature “thought out” so that the baby can get the maximum benefit and nutrients from his mother’s breast milk.
But with age, the activity of the production of the enzyme lactase in the human body greatly decreases (by 10-15 years in some adolescents, it practically disappears).
That is why modern medicine does not encourage the use of milk (not sour milk products, but directly milk itself!) By adults. Nowadays, doctors have agreed that drinking milk brings more harm to human health than good …
And here a reasonable question arises: if a newborn crumbs and an infant under one year old have the maximum production of the lactase enzyme in their entire future life, does this mean that babies, provided that breastfeeding is impossible, it is more useful to feed “live” cow’s milk than infant formula from a bank?
It turns out – no! The use of cow’s milk is not just not good for the health of babies, but moreover, it is fraught with a lot of dangers. What are they?
Can milk be used for children under one year old?
Fortunately, or unfortunately, in the minds of a large number of adults (especially those who live in rural areas) in recent years, a stereotype has developed that in the absence of a young mother’s own milk, the baby can and should be fed not with a mixture from a can, but with divorced rustic cow or goat milk. They say that it is both more economical, and closer to nature, and more useful for the growth and development of the child – after all, this is how people have acted from time immemorial! ..
But in fact, the use of milk from farm animals by infants (that is, children under one year old) carries a huge risk to children’s health!
For example, one of the main troubles of using the milk of a cow (or a goat, a mare, a reindeer – not the point) in the nutrition of children in the first year of life is the development of severe rickets in almost 100% of cases.
How does this happen? The fact is that rickets, as is widely known, occurs against the background of a systematic lack of vitamin D. But even if the baby is actually given this invaluable vitamin D from birth, but at the same time feed him with cow’s milk (which, by the way, is itself is a generous source of vitamin D), then any efforts to prevent rickets will be in vain – the phosphorus contained in milk, alas, will become the culprit of constant and total losses of calcium and that very vitamin D.
If a baby consumes cow’s milk for up to a year, he receives almost 5 times more calcium than he needs, and phosphorus – almost 7 times more than the norm. And if excess calcium is eliminated from the baby’s body without problems, then in order to remove a fair amount of phosphorus, the kidneys have to use both calcium and vitamin D. Thus, the more milk the baby consumes, the more acute deficiency of vitamin D and calcium his body experiences.
So it turns out: if a child eats cow’s milk for up to a year (even as a complementary food), he does not receive the calcium he needs, but on the contrary, he loses it constantly and in large quantities.
And together with calcium, he also loses the priceless vitamin D, against the background of a deficiency of which the baby will inevitably develop rickets. As for baby milk formulas, in them all, without exception, all excess phosphorus is deliberately removed – for the nutrition of babies, they are, by definition, more useful than whole cow (or goat) milk.
And only when the children outgrow the age of 1 year, only then their kidneys mature so much that they are already able to remove excess phosphorus, without depriving the body of the calcium and vitamin D it needs. And, accordingly, cow’s milk (as well as goat’s and any other milk of animal origin) from harmful products in the children’s menu it turns into a useful and important product.
The second serious problem that arises when feeding babies with cow’s milk is the development of severe forms of anemia. As can be seen from the table, the iron content in human breast milk is slightly higher than in cow’s milk. But even the iron that is still present in the milk of cows, goats, sheep and other agricultural animals is not absorbed by the child’s body at all – therefore, the development of anemia when feeding with cow’s milk is practically guaranteed.
Milk in the diet of children after a year
However, the taboo on the use of milk in a child’s life is a temporary phenomenon. Already when the baby crosses the one-year-old milestone, his kidneys become a fully formed and mature organ, the electrolyte metabolism is normalized and the excess phosphorus in milk becomes not so scary for him.
And starting from a year, it is quite possible to introduce whole cow or goat milk into the child’s diet. And if in the period from 1 to 3 years its amount should be regulated – the daily rate is about 2-4 glasses of whole milk – then after 3 years the child is free to drink as much milk per day as he wants.
Strictly speaking, for children, whole cow’s milk is not a vital and indispensable food product – all the benefits that it contains can be obtained from other products as well.
Therefore, doctors insist that the use of milk is determined only by the addictions of the baby himself: if he loves milk, and if he does not feel any discomfort after drinking it, then let him drink to his health! And if she doesn’t like it, or worse, she feels bad from milk, then your first parental concern is to convince your grandmother that even without milk, children can grow up healthy, strong and happy …
So, let’s briefly repeat which children can enjoy milk completely uncontrollably, which ones should drink it under the supervision of their parents, and which ones should be completely deprived of this product in their diet:
Children from 0 to 1 year old: milk is dangerous for their health and is not recommended even in small quantities (since the risk of developing rickets and anemia is extremely high);
Children from 1 to 3 years old: milk can be included in the children’s menu, but it is better to give it to the child in limited quantities (2-3 glasses per day);
Children from 3 years old to 13 years old: at this age, milk can be consumed according to the principle “as much as he wants – let him drink as much”;
Children over 13 years old: after 12-13 years in the human body, the production of the lactase enzyme begins to gradually fade away, in connection with which modern doctors insist on extremely moderate consumption of whole milk and the transition to exclusively sour-milk products, in which the fermentation processes have already “worked” on the breakdown of milk sugar.
Modern doctors believe that after the age of 15 years, about 65% of the inhabitants of the Earth, the production of an enzyme that breaks down milk sugar decreases to negligible values. That can potentially cause all sorts of problems and diseases in the gastrointestinal tract. That is why the consumption of whole milk in adolescence (and then in adulthood) is considered undesirable from the point of view of modern medicine.
Useful facts about milk for babies and more
In conclusion, here are some little-known facts about cow’s milk and its use, especially by children:
When boiled, milk retains all proteins, fats and carbohydrates, as well as calcium, phosphorus and other minerals. However, harmful bacteria are killed and vitamins are destroyed (which, in fairness, it should be said, have never been the main benefits of milk). So if you are in doubt about the origin of milk (especially if you bought it on the market, in the “private sector”, etc.), be sure to boil it before giving it to your child.
For a child aged 1 to 4-5 years, it is advisable not to give milk, the fat content of which exceeds 3%.
Physiologically, the human body can easily live its entire life without whole milk, while maintaining both health and activity. In other words, there are no substances in milk of animal origin that would be indispensable for humans.
If a child has a rotavirus infection, then immediately after recovery, milk should be completely excluded from his diet for about 2-3 weeks. The fact is that for some time the rotavirus in the human body “turns off” the production of the enzyme lactose – the one that breaks down milk sugar lactase. In other words, if a child is fed dairy products (including breast milk!) After suffering a rotavirus, this is guaranteed to add several digestive ailments in the form of indigestion, abdominal pain, constipation or diarrhea, etc.
Several years ago, one of the most respected medical research centers in the world – Harvard Medical School – officially excluded whole milk of animal origin from the list of products that are good for human health. Research has accumulated that the regular and excessive consumption of milk has a positive effect on the development of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases, as well as the occurrence of diabetes and even cancer. Nevertheless, even doctors from the prestigious Harvard School explained that moderate and occasional drinking of milk is perfectly acceptable and safe. The point is that milk for a long time was mistakenly considered one of the most important products for human life, health and longevity, and today it has lost this privileged status, as well as a place in the daily diet of adults and children.