Almond milk or fortified rice dream for best calcium absorption?

[catski]

I've had my son on a dairy free diet for the last month and as he's only 18 months old I'm keen to make sure he gets enough calcium.

Up until now he's been drinking Rice Dream with added calcium. However, I've just been trawling through some older threads and one of them made the point that although semi skimmed cows milk contains as much calcium as full fat cows milk, it's not recommended for the under twos because fat is needed to enable calcium to be absorbed.

On that basis, is the added calcium in fortified Rice Dream not really absorbed because of rice milk being so low in fat? I was thinking of buying or making almond 'milk' instead as presumably that would be higher in fat.

As long as there is a reasonable amount of fat in his food then that will ensure he can absorb the calcium. My DD has drank Rice Milk with added calcium since shw was 12 months and at 2.4 she is strong boned and is a healthy weight .

The dietitian recommended fortified rice milk for dd. Plus fortified soya yogurts.

Aha - so as long as he takes in enough fat over the day, then it doesn't have to be in the milk per se.....that makes sense now. Thank you!

You could always stir ground up almonds into his cereal. Ups the fat, the protein and the calcium. Nothing wrong with almond milk, plus it's quite nice in lollies and ice creams.

Calcium absorption is nothing to do with fat content, the calcium content of semi skimmed milk is actually a bit higher as calcium is not fat soluble, unlike vits A and D.

Good idea - thanks Brange.