[micromacrofoot]

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.

[denimnerd42]

I'm not sure how you can make statements like that without any evidence.

It may be related to IGF-1 or some other nutrients instead.

https://www.nature.com/articles/1601948

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/106/2/597/4557638

[micromacrofoot]

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.

[denimnerd42]

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.

[micromacrofoot]

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.