The debate continues in our household as to what kind of milk is best.
Our family has always chosen whole milk fortified with Vitamin D because Vitamin D helps your body absorb and use calcium. And, there is the fact that half the family cannot stand the taste of skim milk and 2 percent milk because they say it “tastes like water.” Meanwhile, they do not have a problem drinking a lot of water. Go figure.
Any of the milk varieties out there, in my opinion, tastes better than the powdered milk that my father and I would argue about when I was a teen.
Along with that debate, there is the struggle that moms of teen girls may have as they try to get their daughters to drink more milk or foods containing calcium.
We parents learned way back in high school health class that a lack of calcium will make girls hunchbacks and make both boys and girls more likely to have to deal with bone injuries.
Nearly nine out of 10 teenage girls don’t meet daily calcium recommendations, according to the USDA.
That raises the debate we have in our home: How much is enough?
Three cups of milk a day. Wow.
If your teen reacted like ours did, the next question that came up was: “Does all the calcium have to come from milk?”
We decided to find the answers to our questions at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Click here for their Web site. There is a special area just for teachers and parents that is great.
We also found mypyramid.gov helpful, which can be reached by clicking here.
If plain milk doesn’t appeal to them either, try adding the syrup or powders that make the flavor chocolate, strawberry or egg nog - a definite family favorite.
There are calcium-fortified foods such as cereals, orange juice and pudding made with milk. Read the label before you buy; these tend to contain a lot of sugar.
To our surprise, almonds and toasted sesame seeds made the calcium list, as did tortillas (flour rated higher than corn), black beans and red kidney beans.
If you can get your child to eat them, try canned fish and leafy greens - maybe with some cheese on top.
Speaking of cheese, there is a huge variety of hard and soft cheeses to pick from. Buy it in a block and cut it into sticks to save money.
You can also try adding milk to foods you would normally mix with water. For example, oatmeal or hot chocolate. Besides the obvious treat of ice cream, there are also ice milk and frozen yogurt. Have you visited the yogurt section lately? There are so many choices.
She would drink several fruit smoothies a day (she mixes in yogurt), so that might be the answer.
Other than calcium pills, what are some of your ideas?
