Cow's milk is typically fortified to include additional nutrients. You're getting roughly the equivalent of that in fortified soy milk, except for maybe less fat and cholesterol.
Most children would do just fine with soy milk as an alternative.
I was responding to a post that also did not show evidence.
> The height difference for a child aged 3 y consuming 3 cups noncow milk/d relative to 3 cups cow milk/d was 1.5 cm (95% CI: 0.8, 2.0 cm).
We're talking about 1.5cm here. I guess if you're training your kid to be an olympic athlete then stick to cow's milk, but they'll be fine in the general sense with an similarly nutritious alternative. Lactose-intolerant kids aren't horrifically short or malnourished.
There's a general fear that cow's milk is some sort of necessity (as instilled by the dairy lobby), but it's not. The outcomes are negligible given an otherwise normal diet.
I'm not gonna purposely stunt my child's growth over the selection of drink product at the grocery store. 1.5cm at 3yo is 3-5% of the kids total growth since born and probably more significant if you subtract 1 year of breastfeeding. That would be 1.5cm within 2 years of growth.
Your grandkids may very well experience climate-related famine, but hopefully they'll find solace in their parents being a few cm taller than the lactose intolerant.
This is a little bit of a ridiculous way to approach nutrition. My point is that very few people actually need cow's milk to the extent that the dairy industry would lead you to believe. A few cm does not negate that. Compared to most of human history we live in a time of nutritional abundance.
my understanding about this is that milk production is not subsidized so that poor people can afford it, but so that farmers can afford to continue producing it. in some places milk production is not profitable and farmers would go out of business without government support.
the price they get paid for their milk does not depend on what the consumers would be willing to pay, but on the large milk production companies who buy all their milk and dictate what they are willing to pay, and without subsidies they would simply buy their milk elsewhere.
> milk production is not subsidized so that poor people can afford it, but so that farmers can afford to continue producing it.
Yes, because poor people can't afford to pay the prices required to sustain enough production. And because dairy is a staple, especially in rough times, it's in governments' interest to maintain production.
Depends upon where you are in the world. In rich countries local producers are outcompeted by producers in lower cost regions. Without price supports the local industry would collapse.
If a country's food supply becomes completely dependent upon imports, then this gives the exporter political power over the importer, and also reduces the importer's resilience to disasters.
according to some sources we have overproduction of milk worldwide. so stopping subsidies will not raise the price of milk on the market. it will only put those farmers out of business that don't have a profitable milk production.
the choice is between subsidizing farmers to produce milk or paying them welfare checks.
the EU is doing this, and they don't exactly have a problem with lots of poor people not being able to afford higher milk prices. more likely higher prices would lead to less consumption even among those that could afford it.
yes of course. that doesn't change anything. infant formula is already very expensive. poor people can't afford anything but their own breast milk for their babies.