milk consumption

Question
How much milk should teen(16-22) consumes daily? Is there a maixmum amount? If so, what are the harms?

Answer
Ted,

Dairy is a hot topic of debate. If you believe the commercials you would think everyone should drink milk. But dairy is only necessary as a source of calcium, which we all should get. There are other good sources of calcium, like soy, some nuts and dark green veggies.

The downside to dairy is mostly the fat. It has a lot of saturated fat. If you use dairy as your primary source of calcium you should drink or eat the fat-free stuff.

Another problem with dairy is that is is low in magnesium and we really need that along with the calcium. Soy milk has the same calcium as cow's milk but much more magnesium and has mostly healthy fats instead of saturated fat.

I'm not saying you should cut dairy but realize that there are alternatives. You should get about 900-1000mg of calcium a day for teens and adults. A serving of milk has almost 1/3 of what you need.

Just look at the labels of some of the common foods you eat and figure out how many serving it takes to get 100 of the calcium - the equivalent of about 3 glasses of milk.

Sorry for the long answer but I didn't just want to tell you 3 glasses of milk because there are many alternatives that  are healthier.

Hope this helps.  

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