Milk is an important part of our daily nutrition. It has nine essential nutrients that benefit our health like calcium and vitamin D for strong bones, proteins for energy, potassium for a healthy blood pressure, phosphorus, vitamin B12, Vitamin B2, and Niacin. Not only is it great for our bodies, it is delicious as well. I try to drink at least a glass of milk a day. Growing up, my grandparents owned a couple of cows so I used to drink unpasteurized milk all the time. Nowadays we know that is a no-no.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning that raw or unpasteurized milk can contain dangerous bacteria. However, the demand for raw milk has been on the rise for the past few years because of fears about hormones contained by traditional milk. Thirty Five people across four states have found out the hard way just how dangerous unpasteurized milk can be when they purchased raw milk from Family Cow farm In Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The company voluntarily suspended production of the raw milk and advises its consumers to through away any milk they have purchased from the company on and after January 1^st. Twenty eight of the infected were in Pennsylvania, four in Maryland, two in West Virginia, and one in New Jersey.

HOW TO READ THE NUTRITION FACTS ON YOUR FOOD LABEL

Are you the kind of person who picks up foods at the supermarket and flips it over to check for nutritional values? Are you watching your weight or do you just want better health for you and your family? Whatever be the reason, you maybe shocked to know that those food labels you rely on are not telling you the whole truth. Go the extra mile to clear your concerns about what you’re ingesting. This article will give you a mini tutorial on how to read food labels. Ready?

Getting the total calories vs serving size part right… Grab any edible product within reach and flip it over to the nutritional value chart. How many calories does it contain? If you answered with the number beside the amount per serving, brace yourself for a big shock! Here’s the tricky part. When they say per serving they mean per serving… where one serving is equal to one cup or one portion. Most people however do not realize that each container contains anywhere between 2-4 servings. So you need to multiple the amount per serving with the number besides servings per container to get the total calorific value of the container. So to give you an example, if my soda says amount per serving 100 and servings per container 4, the total calorie content of my soda is 400 calories and NOT 100 calories. This just does not apply to the number of calories but the fat, sodium, sugars, protein, carbohydrates etc. This is yet another advertising technique manufactures use to misguide you. So when ever you see ‘per serving’ start doing the math! 

The myth of the word reduced or low (fat/sodium)
How often have you reached for a cup of yoghurt or a packet of soup because it said “low fat’ or ‘low sodium’? The word reduced or low often directs our thoughts to the feeling of consuming little to nothing which is far away from the truth. When a product says reduced sodium it only means that is has sodium content reduced by 25% than the original, it doesn’t mean that the product is a low sodium food. It still has a high content of sodium just a little lesser than the original. The same rule applies for low fat. For a product to be low fat it has to have 1/3 less calories than the original product. So if the original product is a1300 calories, is the low fat version of it really low fat? When something is low fat you have a tendency to binge without guilt and fail to remember that it still has calories and it still contributes to your calorie consumption.

Interpreting the % daily values (%DV as written on the nutritional chart)
Calories from fat are different from %DV total fat. Calories from fat is the fat content of the product that is usually a number you’ll see beside the amount per serving. However %DV total fat is the % of fat your using up from your total calories from fat you need for the day. Therefore you’ll mostly see at the bottom “Percent daily values are based on a 2000 calorie diet” This means that if the product contains %DV 5% from fat, means you are consuming 5% of your daily fat requirement if you consume a diet of 2000 calories per day. Kapish?

Natural sugar vs added sugar
You don’t need to be scared by the word sugar. What you really need to be scared of though are these four words… “HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP” This is the fancy name for artificially added sugar that manufactures use to misguide us. Milk has sugars too but you won’t find high fructose corn syrup on a milk carton. All soda does however have them. When you see those four dreaded words on your nutritional label it means that refined sugar is added to the product and you want to stay clear of it.

There’s no such thing as free
The FDA allows all products with contents below a certain limit to be termed as free. For example if a product contains less that 5mgs of sodium per serving it’s allowed to be termed as sodium free. Less that ½ a gm of fat is allowed to be termed fat free, less that ½ a gm of sugar per serving is allowed to be termed sugar free. That means nothing is a 100% free it’s just within the legal limit. No preservatives, you’ve often seen this one… no preservatives added does not mean no preservatives at all it just means it contains no ingredients that are not approved by the FDA.

We all love our cheese and why wouldn’t we?! It tastes great, it makes other food taste great and it’s nutritious as hell. Here are some facts it may be fun to know about that little piece of melt in the mouth heaven.

1. There are over 2000 different varieties of cheeses in the world.

2. Consuming cheese immediately after meals or as a between-meal snack helps to reduce the risk of tooth decay. Cheese has calcium, phosphorus and other components that contribute to this beneficial effect.

3.Eating cheese before bedtime contributes to pleasant dreams,due to high levels of the serotonin-producing amino acid tryptophan, it is likely to induce sleep and reduce stress. A research concluded that the type of cheese you consume is responsible for the type of dreams you are likely to get. For example, Cheddar induces a higher proportion of dreams about celebrities; Red Leicester summons childhood memories; Lancashire generates dreams about work; while Cheshire inspires no dreams at all.

3. The fear of cheese is called Turophobia.

4. More than one-third of all milk produced each year in the U.S. is used to make cheese.

5. The United States produces more than 25 percent of the world's supply of cheese, approximately 9 billion pounds per year.

6. Macaroni and Cheese features as America's No.1 cheese recipe.

7. When it comes to cheese consumption, America ranks 12th in the world consuming 31 lbs of cheese per person per year.

8. Pizza Hut alone uses about 300 million pounds of cheese per year. 

 Advertisements portraying celebrities adorning the familiar ‘milk mustache’ for the ‘Got Milk’ campaign have flooded magazines for decades. Traditionally, milk has been thought of as the primary source of calcium. Thus, it had been incorporated into one’s diet as a staple product due to its calcium component, which is directly correlated with strong bone growth, prevention of osteoporosis, strong teeth, and so on. Studies in recent years, however, have shown that diets high in milk consumption do not necessarily ward off osteoporosis and deterioration of bone mass. To further inform people about the misconceptions regarding milk, the ‘No Milk’ campaign has been established, serving as a crusade against the continued proliferation of these misguided assumptions and beliefs. 

Research shows that calcium is important to help bone growth and prevent bone mass deterioration, as long as it is complemented by a comparable amount of magnesium in order to absorb and transport the calcium to the bones. Without the presence of magnesium, the body absorbs only a fractional amount of the consumed calcium. Consequently, the excess calcium circulates throughout the body and winds up settling in soft tissue which leads to a variety of health problems including osteoporosis and brittle bones. Therefore, excess calcium can actually cause bone loss/deterioration if it is not supplemented with an equivalent amount of magnesium. Furthermore, according to the Harvard School of Public Health, calcium does help build bones and prevent loss of bone mass, but it should not be assumed that dairy products are the best source of calcium. Due to the high levels of saturated fats and the mediocre level of calcium in each serving (30% of Daily Value), there are much healthier alternatives to attaining the recommended daily value of calcium. Supplements, as well as food items such as collard greens, broccoli, and spinach, serve as a better source of calcium than dairy products. Just remember the magnesium!