Are you a milk drinker? Did your parents make sure you had your three glasses a day so you’d have strong bones? Mine did. We were also big cheese and butter fans. Lots of dairy in our house, mainly because my mother was raised on a farm where dairy products were a staple of her family’s diet. She drank milk every day of her life.

My mother, like her sister, developed terrible osteoporosis. My aunt’s bones are so bad that she lost five inches in her spine. FIVE INCHES. Her vertebrae have collapsed against each other. Her organs are being squeezed so she can barely breathe, and I won’t even go into the digestive problems. She’s in a wheel chair. My mother, before she died, had to use a walker. Let me repeat: they drank their milk.

Cut to my husband’s family. They’re Greek, and have always eaten a Mediterranean diet. Lots of olive oil. Lots of fresh vegetables and fruit, along with plenty of rice, lamb and chicken, but no processed foods. The only dairy they consumed came from feta cheese made from goats’ milk, and the occasional pat of butter. And none of the six of them – most are senior citizens now – NONE of them have osteoporosis.

What’s wrong with that picture? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

We love Thai food. Last week, as we sat in our favorite Thai restaurant, I watched a big family that were of Thai descent pass by our table. It was clearly a family reunion. Grandma and grandpa, several sets of parents, along with numerous grandchildren. The grandparents walked in straight and slender. No one hobbled, no one was overweight, not even the kids. If you patronize a genuine Thai restaurant, check their menu for dairy products. They’re hard to find. And, by the way, when was the last time you had a cream sauce in a Chinese restaurant?

So every time I see that “Got Milk?” ad, I get frustrated, knowing many countries of the world don’t consume any dairy, and have low rates of osteoporosis, while here in the U.S, we are told to drink our milk and take our calcium supplements, yet the cases of osteoporosis continue to climb. Look how many Americans are being put on drugs to save their bones. Obviously all that milk drinking isn’t working.

Very simply, bones can’t absorb calcium without other important nutrients, such as lots of Vitamin D (mainly from the sun) and Vitamin K (green leafy vegetables.) And I’m not talking about the small amounts contained in a glass of milk or a multivitamin, either. If you’re not getting enough of those other nutrients, all the calcium in the world won’t build you new bone.

Please educate yourself before you end up like my aunt. Her birthday was two days ago. She turned 81, and she’s in constant pain. That day I opened a magazine and the “Got Milk” ad hit me in the face. And at that moment I knew what this week’s blog would be about. 

 Happy Fourth of July,

Kate