Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Where's the milk?

My wife recently bought some processed foods from the grocery store. For those of you who know us, this is astounding. It was for a demo and talk at the elementary school. I took the liberty of looking at the ingredients.

American "cheese": folks call this cheese, but as you can see, it has nothing to do with milk products (unless you count whey, probably not naturally produced, and isolated lactic acid).

Notice there are no natural sources of calcium. The problem with calcium supplemented "cheese" is, your body can't absorb it because it is not bonded with the proper elements, and things like magnesium that are crucial to uptake and balance of calcium are limited or nonexistent as they are in unprocessed (not homogenized or pasteurized) milk.

Now the yogurt you might think of as healthy. The live cultures are good, but it only has 2 of the 6-8 naturally occurring in real yogurt, or the 30-40 in kefir. The problem with lowfat and skim milks are that the milk fats are crucial to nutrient absorption. And, sugar (probably refined - the worst kind) is the second ingredient. Plain yogurt should be sweetened with fruit, maple syrup, and or raw honey (the stuff that doesn't squeeze or pour easily).