Eat your fruit, don’t drink it.
Milk is another “healthy” beverage. It has been proclaimed to be a great source of protein which is true. However, it also is full of hormones and antibiotics (unless you are drinking organic). These enter the milk from the cow through their feed and are passed to us through their output in things like milk, yogurt, cheese, and even meat products. Be very, very careful selecting beef and dairy products. Look for grass fed & grass finished beef and pasture dairy.
Any non-grass fed beef or dairy is very inflammatory and can create digestive issues. Milk has actually been linked to increased risk of childhood ear infections and asthma. My little brother is a perfect example of this. His entire life he struggled with asthma. He had trips to the ER for attacks. He always carried an inhaler with him and used it frequently. When he got to college, someone handed him a book called Don’t Drink Your Milk. After reading it, he cut out all dairy. His asthma literally went away. He has never gone back and is still symptom free almost 10 years later.
A great alternative to cow’s milk is coconut milk or almond milk. Just make sure you buy the unsweetened original. If you are having a challenge switching or helping your kids adjust, try switching for a week or two to the chocolate or vanilla. When upleveling our foods, it can take a bit to adjust if something is very similar to what we have been used to as far as purpose goes. Think almond butter switched for peanut butter. It is used in the same way, just made with different ingredients so they do not taste the same. Your brain needs to forget how different something is from what you are used to, then it can be a much smoother transition to something with healthier ingredients. When I switched, I couldn’t go straight from skim milk to unsweetened original. I had a memory of what it “should taste like” and the unsweetened original was definitely not it! So I drank chocolate for a week or two, then switched to vanilla, then I was ok with the original.
