Got Milk?

A couple of years ago, my daughter’s Chinese teacher forwarded a video made by TzuChi to all the parents, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=681454phu6A  It was a doctor talking about the problems caused by cow’s milk.  That was the turning point of my family’s life.

My daughters never like the taste of cow’s milk, especially whole milk.  I only ask them to drink a cup of soymilk in the morning and that’s that (we switched to almond milk now).  Yet, it becomes a point of argument with our pediatrician during our annual check up.  It always went like this,

Dr.: “how many cups of milk does Dana/Kate drink?”

I: “One cup of soy milk in the morning.”

Dr.: “That’s not enough calcium for their bones.  They need to drink more milk.”

I: “We eat lots of green vegetables, tofu and bean curds.”

Dr.: “Yeah, but they need more milk to make their bone stronger.”

Eventually, I cracked under the pressure and I decided to ask my kids to drink more milk.  Since soymilk is kind of expensive, I tried cow’s milk.  To get them to like cow’s milk, I put chocolate syrup in there so they can drink chocolate milk.  That became part of our dinner routine for a few months.  My older daughter started to gain weight and her nose is stuffed up.  She also has so much nasal discharge that I was wondering if the allergy season has extended for her.

Then I watched that video.  I was also reading The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell at the time.  I was appalled by the information I saw.  I stopped the nightly chocolate milk and cut dairy off our diet (I was drinking cow’s milk every other day and ate one slice of cheese every day for breakfast).  In a month, I saw some changes in my daughters and myself.  Gone were the phlegm, the stuffed nose, and my younger daughter’s cough.  I used to have quite a few discharges in my eyes.  Those are gone, too.  I was amazed at the changes.

We still eat dairy products sometimes, mostly in a restaurant.  My girls love pizza and ice cream.  I don’t want to deprive them those occasional treats.  Yet, I stopped buying cow’s milk and cheese in any form.  I still notice the effects of dairy every time we eat out and have food that’s made of cheese or milk, though.