Why should we not give our kids skimmed milk??

Smashing

Your child will not drop dead of malnutrition if you give them semi or skimmed milk, but the advice is to stick to whole milk until the age of 5 to ensure they are getting enough fat and calories which can be difficult as they often have smaller appetites and can struggle to take in sufficient energy - this is, of course not applicable if you prefer to feed your children on a diet of jelly tots and wotsits in which case their legs may fall off.

Personally, I wouldn't be inflicting skimmed milk on anyone - may as well put water on your cereal for all the taste it has.

The orange label stuff isn't skimmed - it's a gimmicky half way between skimmed and semi skimmed for people with some rememants of taste buds who can't quite stomach skimmed.

starbump

NHS Healthy Start: "Stick to whole milk for children under two, and whole or semi-skimmed for children aged between two and five. Young children need the extra fat and vitamins."

Dr Sears: "It contains nearly all the basic nutrients that a growing child needs: fats, carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals (except iron). While it is true that most of the nutrients in milk can be gotten easily from other sources, such as vegetables, legumes, and seafood, milk puts them all together in a convenient package. Realistically, children eat or drink dairy products in greater amounts and more consistently than other foods. While whole milk is not the only way to get calcium in a child's diet, it's the most practical way. Good luck serving your child a breakfast of calcium-rich broccoli, kale, and sardines."

Agree with Alikay (post #7) - if your kids are getting the same nutrients from other sources then they should be able to drink whatever cow milk they like best.

Staciep88

Smashing wrote: »

Your child will not drop dead of malnutrition if you give them semi or skimmed milk, but the advice is to stick to whole milk until the age of 5 to ensure they are getting enough fat and calories which can be difficult as they often have smaller appetites and can struggle to take in sufficient energy - this is, of course not applicable if you prefer to feed your children on a diet of jelly tots and wotsits in which case their legs may fall off.

Personally, I wouldn't be inflicting skimmed milk on anyone - may as well put water on your cereal for all the taste it has.

The orange label stuff isn't skimmed - it's a gimmicky half way between skimmed and semi skimmed for people with some rememants of taste buds who can't quite stomach skimmed.

So true - it tastes horrible!

silvercar

Years ago all milk from the milkman was un-homogonised ordinary milk, so you had to shake the bottle yourself before opening. I absolutely detested the creamy stuff at the top and used to pour that away before using the milk. I guess I was making my own skimmed milk.

Now that all supermarket milk is homogenised (ie the fat stays evenly mixed), its a blessing that I can buy skimmed milk.

I never realised that the vitamin D was removed from the skimmed milk. That explains why my nails are so bad, even though I've drink a lot of milk.

skintchick

We used to fight over the cream in our house! WE'd rush to be first ti pour it over our cereal - a big glob of cream! Yum!

Swan_2

silvercar wrote: »

Years ago all milk from the milkman was un-homogonised ordinary milk, so you had to shake the bottle yourself before opening. I absolutely detested the creamy stuff at the top and used to pour that away before using the milk. I guess I was making my own skimmed milk.

Now that all supermarket milk is homogenised (ie the fat stays evenly mixed), its a blessing that I can buy skimmed milk.

I never realised that the vitamin D was removed from the skimmed milk. That explains why my nails are so bad, even though I've drink a lot of milk.

I'm old enough to remember the little bottles of school milk, & how they used to put them next the radiators in the winter (cold milk would give you a 'chill on your stomach' :rolleyes:) it still makes me shudder thinking of the thick, almost solid, warm cream you'd have to poke your straw through to get at the milk _pale_ _pale_ _pale_ & you had to drink it :mad:
thank goodness for semi-skimmed!


about the vitamin D/calcium uptake thing, if you're female, you have to watch out for your bone density too if you're using skimmed exclusively

KellyWelly

My milk is still un-homogenised (from the milk man), and the cows it comes from are in the fields opposite my house.

I can't believe they would put the milk next to the radiators. YUCK! The (free) milk my kids get in school now is semi-skim.

Swan_2

KellyWelly wrote: »

My milk is still un-homogenised (from the milk man), and the cows it comes from are in the fields opposite my house.

I can't believe they would put the milk next to the radiators. YUCK! The (free) milk my kids get in school now is semi-skim.

ah, memories of me & my grandfather walking to the farm up the hill with our 'tin' flagon to get our milk for the day

that warm school milk was quite a long time ago

blue_monkey_2

I forgot I asked this until I was about to make a coffee with lunch!! Thanks for all the replies.

Ah of course, the fat content and vitimins, I thought it was the calcium. My kids eat a lot of fromage frais (sometimes 3 a day) and cheese so does this kind of make up for it?

It is not the skimmed it is the 1% fat stuff, under Semi skimmed though because this has 'less than 2% fat' on the label. They have been having semi skimmed for about a year I guess because I started weight watchers I was fed up of faffing around with milks. There seems to be no ill effects but I wanted to make sure I was not doing them any harm but they did have full fat until the ages of 3 (DS) and 4 (DD).

Yes, I noticed they had SS at school too. Never thought of this before.

I also remember those little bottles of milk, I had forgotten all about those, what a blast form the past! My dad would only have his cup of tea with the cream from the top of the milk so mum had to get a bottle of the cream each day. And he had to have real butter too. Now he is rife with High Blood Pressure..... Hmmmm.

Becles

I remember the warm school milk and kept pestering my Mam to write a note saying I was allergic to milk so I didn't have to drink it. She never did though

I knew it's best to keep children on full fat milk for the vitamins, however my boys are 11 and 9 now and they still prefer full fat to semi-skimmed milk. They're stick thin though, so I'm not worried about the extra calories. They still have a big glass of milk each morning, and milk on their cereal.

Yes there is calcium in fromage frais and cheese, so they will be getting benefits from eating those foods.