This in the news about milk has thrown me a bit (take children over 2 off full fat milk)

[TsarChasm]

This

Mine still have full fat milk and eat a good diet. (All beanpole-ish in stature)

I buy whole milk specifically for them. Are the Government's Food Standards Agency getting a bit ott about this? It seems the wrong thing to tell people to remove from their (or their children's) diet to me.

I have never understood why full fat milk is so bad either, when it is less than 4% fat.

Less than 4% fat is considered low fat for the purposes of my FIL's diet to reduce his blood pressure etc so why it is a big issue for small children I don't know.

I would agree there are far worse things to be worrying about than milk consumption when it comes to the diet of small children. If you are worried about obesity you cut out the crap first, not the milk.

It all seems just another thing for parents to worry about.

FWIW though, the less fat milk has the more calcuim it has. If you are drinking milk for the calcuim content then skimmed is the way to go (although obviously not if you drink it because it tastes nice).

''She added: 'After that age, it is perfectly fine to start moving to semi-skimmed and 1 per cent milk.'...''

How does this say ''Children should be stopped from drinking full-fat milk from the age of two...'' ? .

And why does it not say as the headline 'children should do more exercise and cut down on processed food' or 'children should not eat cream cakes/pate''...why focus on something with is less bad for them, and is in fact essential and will just lead to confusion....its either crap reporting or they are hoping to influence somehow? Do they want us to mess our children's health up?

Gorionne - As I understand it hydrogenated fats aren't banned outright but some supermarkets have chosen to ban their use in their own brand products and other manufacturers have followed suit.

god this is ridiculous - so lets all switch to semiskimmed and then continue to drive our kids everywhere. gah.

tum - thats an interesting article - does it mention anything about the amount of fat in bm needing to increase as you go on because the volume they are having lessens or does the fat increase as they get older regardless of the volume? (I know I should read the article and will do later honest)

so - do i swop my dd who is nearly 4 onto semi skimmed??

she has really skinny legs and bum, and a lovely rounded baby tummy still

she was breastfed till about 9 months

am confused

i hate the DM yet still read it - WHY?

Thank you niecie! You know what drives me mad? As parents we are bombarded with advice of what we should NOT give to our children but nothing or very little is done to actually make it feasable. I take the exemple of low sugar content, they reduce the amount of sugar but replace it by "chemical sugar" that is just as bad if not worse for children! I am longing the reduced sugar that will actually taste a little bit less sweet but at least will be "natural"

I also think it is really "nice" of the gouvernment to give us all these advice but does not stop food manufacturers to use the ingredients that parents should not give their children. I am very fortunate to love cooking from scratch and have time for it, but if I had to rely more on ready made or processed, I would probably really struggle to find something acceptable for all the guidance given!

I think we are now getting completely burried in guidance and are forgetting common senses!

I read somewhere that when the government had decided to go for the traffic light guidance on food (which I have never come accross myself, was it abandonned? does anyone know why?) raisins had a red light because of their content of sugar! Talk about non sense!

Sorry, I am "heating u" again, maybe I should hide all food guidance related threads

heatig up

Gorionine - Sainsburys use the traffic light system on their own brand stuff. It is very useful and helps those who find the stats and numbers confusing. It is an 'at a glance' guide which saves ploughing through the figures. Mind you, you do have to be sensible because something may be showing red light levels of sugar but actually it is 90% fruit or something which obviously is preferable to the same red light and something that is 50% fruit and 40% added sugar.

In case you are interested this is the most up to date article I found on the situation regarding transfats in this country. I must admit to not looking hard so there may be better articles.

The shocking thing to me is that countries who have banned transfats are allowed to product things and ship them over here. There should be a ban on importing the stuff if you ask me. The first article I found was a bit old (Aug 2006) but it said that Denmark particularly was guilty of this.

Anyway, that is off the point of milk really which as an almost entirely untouched natural product is really way down on the list of things to worry about I would have thought.

I get so cross about the whole saturated = bad and unsaturated = good myth. The important thing is to get the balance of Omega3's to Omega6's right. Omega3's are very good for you and protect your heart, they are found in animal fats, particularly fat from grass fed and or organic animals. Too much veg oil means that you end up with too much omega six compared to omega 3 (it should be about 4:1 omega six to omega three but is often as much as 20:1 in a modern processed diet) This can lead to an inflammatory response in the body which could lead to heart didease, arthritis or immune disorders.
Give up cakes, biscuits,crisps and marg but carry on with organic or grass fed meat and dairy and of course leafy veg (which also has omega3 in it)
The government seem to think we are all too thick to grasp the difference between good and bad fats and therfore tell us to cut down on all fats, which is quite simply the wrong thing to do, especially for children.

Wow thanks all for the comments about the article!

I should now pretend that I am super clever and a breast milk fat expert who has carried out extensive research but in fact it was one swift google

V interesting though - if BM is up to 17.5% fat then a bit of 4% cows milk is nothing really.

Also looked into sugar content of BM when weaning DD and found IIRC it was 7% or 9% - ie a fair bit and based on that gave her ambrosia rice pudding on the basis it was just like BM but with some rice in it

Everyone see the fab news about eggs today? It has been donkeys years that we were supposed to limit them and they seemed so sure about that one... 20 years or however long on and it turns out to be cobblers...

oh this is all a load of fucking bollox

breastfeed, don;t breastfeed, give formula, don;t give formula, breastfeed only until 1yr old, then wean onto follow-on formula until 2yrs old....................at what point are we supposed to give Full Fat Milk to be able to swap them onto semi-skinned????????????

it is not milk causing the obesity probs, it is the ready-meals and too-much-food-on-your-plate added to no exercise becuase the are too many dangers out there.

we CANNOT win.

load of crap!!!

Breakfast tomorrow will be

Scrabbled egg made with butter on white[homemade]bread with coffee and 2 tsp sugar. Yum

I have always believed that whole foods, homemade is good food with all the full fat milk,butter and sugar.
Its convience food that causes health issues.
Sweetners/hydrogented fats/spreadable butter like yellow gunk. Just eat butter but less of it.

cows milk isnt really supposed to feature too heavily in our diets anyway. that is the problem.

Veni - thats a bit of a myth actually. am sure theres loads of threads about it. It may not have been initially but actually by now we are pretty evolved to cope with it.

We are more evolved to cope with it than a packet of crisps and a wispa anyway.

oh yes, definitely evolved enough to cope with chocolate and a cup of tea

The majority of Western Europeans and Northern Americans have adapted to it and their body continues to produce lactase to digest it until they are much older.

No human beings actually need cows milk, and, as I said, we werent designed to have so much of it, but lots of us have adapted. I'm less inclined to be overjoyed about cows milk because my daughter was born allergic to cows milk protein and I know how easy it is to live without it.

I think it is totally common sense - if your child is fat and eats really well drop to skimmed after 2. DD is super slim and not a huge eater so she gets many of her nutrients from Full fat milk. It's different for all children.

mmm packet of crisps, a wispa and a cup of tea...ahem sorry.

Right, well, I now have the tea, I just need the chocolate........mmmmmmmm

not seen this but pleased
have said this for years

I have not heard about the egg thing, what is it? shall we eat more or less of them?

More I think they are saying - or at least dont worry about the cholesterol aspect. Carrying on as usual in our house then...

The egg thing is Bitish Heart Foundation saying there is no reason to limit eggs to 3 per week as there is no evidence that eggs contribute ti high cholesterol

I moved DS onto semi at 2 much to my mothers horror though both appear to have coped pretty well...

"I strongly believe that the food stuffs we've evolved to eat are are likely to be composed in a way that makes their nutrients most readily available to us " - I would have more sympathy with the natural way if we had to find our food the natural way. If we had to fin and kill/gather our food before we could eat it then have no doubt we would all be drinking full fat milk eating full fat cheese etc without putting on a pound.

tumtetum - its been known for years that dietary cholesterol in eggs doesn;t contribute to high blood cholesterol - I wonder why its made news now?

No idea friar I'm afraid.

It would be nice if when there was good news reversing (in this case) very commonly held previous thinking then someone would actually bloody tell us.

Personally I'm of the everything in moderation and a lot bit of what you fancy does you no harm, but a lot of people do listen and try to stick to the current thinking which is OK until no-one bothers to mention that the current thinking is now old hat and all in the know are chomping eggs like there's no tomorrow...