Nutrition - Milk

The Milk, Yogurt, and Cheese group includes milk and things made from milk that retain their calcium content. Foods from this group provide a good source of calcium, which helps build and maintain bone mass. Calcium is especially important to bone health and growth in childhood and adolescence. Adequate calcium in the diet helps reduce the risk of osteoporosis . Milk and milk products are the major source of calcium in the American diet.

Foods from the Milk, Yogurt, and Cheese group are also excellent sources of proteins . Your body takes the proteins in the foods that you eat and uses them to make its own proteins. These proteins help your body's cells to grow and repair themselves.

You also get important vitamins by drinking milk. In your body, vitamins help change food into energy and living tissue . Your body can't make most of the vitamins that you need, so you have to get them from the foods that you eat. Milk provides a good source of vitamins A, B complex, and D. These vitamins do lots of things including helping to make your bones, skin, and teeth healthy.

Milk and milk products, especially yogurt and fluid milk, are good sources of minerals such as potassium. Potassium is an important nutrient that your body needs to maintain healthy muscle tissue and blood pressure.

Most of the food choices you make from this group should be fat-free or low fat. Fat-free and low fat choices will add little or no solid fat to your diet, which is a good thing! Foods that are high in saturated fats and cholesterol can raise “bad” cholesterol (LDL or low-density lipoprotein) levels in the blood, which can lead to heart disease and risk of stroke.

If you happen to be lactose intolerant, you can choose lactose-free and lower-lactose products. Just remember that calcium-fortified drinks like soy beverages or orange juice may provide calcium, but may not have all the other nutrients found in milk and milk products.

How to make wise choices

  • Choose fat-free or low-fat milk to drink at meals.
  • Choose fat-free or low-fat milk when you are making snacks like pudding or cereal.
  • Choose fat-free or low-fat yogurt as a snack.
  • Choose fat-free or low-fat cheeses .