Milk - Yet Another Reason to Drink It!

We’ve all heard that milk is good for your bones, builds muscle and that, as the Milk Advisory would like you believe, “it does a body good.” But reportedly there is a new study that is adding another benefit to being a milk drinker. It apparently may boost your brain power and your memory. Continue reading »

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Daycare owner accused of crushing drugs into milk. She allegedly called it "special milk".

This is SO not the news story I need to read mere days before sending my daughter to daycare for the very first time.

As MSNBC reports, the owner of a daycare in Texas is accused of putting drugs in children’s food so they would fall asleep after lunch.

Kimberly Lane, the owner of the Luv N Learning daycare in Van Alstyne, was arrested and charged with 16 counts of child endangerment after someone called police and said she was mixing an over-the-counter antihistamine with milk and then giving it to children.  Continue reading »

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Scientists in China have successfully genetically modified cows to produce “human breastmilk”.

They claim the milk is identical to breastmilk in its nutritional composition, immune benefits and antibacterial qualities. In other words, they’re saying it’s exactly the same stuff. It just happens to come from cows instead of human mamas.

They hope to be selling the stuff in supermarkets within three years. It’s being promoted as a healthier dairy alternative. Not just for babies. For everybody.

Can you imagine drinking “breastmilk” from a cow? Continue reading »

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I’m not a milk drinker. I have about one glass a year — usually on an especially cake-heavy day. I drink so little milk that my bones shrivel at the sight of Angie Harmon or any of the other white-mustached models in the guilt-inducing “Got Milk?” campaign.

I also don’t push milk on my children, though they’re more frequent drinkers of the stuff than me.

Turns out? That might not be so bad. And, depending on who you’re talking to, that might be a good thing. Continue reading »

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Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reports that vitamin supplements for kids are a billion dollar business–but plenty of pediatricians worry about the risks of overloading on supplements, and both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Dietetic Association say it’s best if kids can get the nutrients they need through eating a varied diet. Not only do some nutrients tend to be better absorbed from food than from supplements (true of both calcium, iron, and vitamins D and A) but because in addition to the nutrients we can identify, foods offer other benefits–some of which, like flavonoids and antioxidants, we’re beginning to recognize, and others of which we’re still unaware.

But it’s tempting to give a child who you know would really prefer to subsist on a diet of Goldfish and chocolate milk supplements to fill on for all of the broccoli and chicken he seems to leave on his plate. How do you know if your child really needs vitamins–or better, how do you know if he doesn’t?
6 signs your kid doesn’t need extra vitamins:
Continue reading »

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Robert Heinlein’s wonderful young adult novel The Star Beast tells the tale of a family pet, an alien, who has outgrown the small town he and his coming-of-age owner live in.  At one point, the boy and his beast head for the hills to hide out from town officials bent on destroying the clumsy beast, camping in the forest near their home.  As this is set in the future, they’re not stuck with the freeze-dried meals that I know so well.  Instead, they feast on meals that heat themselves as soon as you open the package.  In the thirty-odd years since I first read that book, I’ve never forgotten those self-heating meals, waiting patiently for the day when science fiction becomes science fact.  Well, that day has come.

Continue reading »

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If you build the chocolate milk market, the National Dairy Council says kids will come. And that’s not sitting well with parents.

While the NDC and Milk Processor Education Program push out a new sister program to the Got Milk? campaign that asks kids to “Raise your hand for chocolate milk,” parents and teachers are asking why kids can’t be expected to just raise ‘em for the regular version. Continue reading »

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