General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do Kids Really Need Milk with their Meal ? [View all]hunter
(38,311 posts)People who eat an ordinary diet that includes these basics (for example, many traditional Mediterranean and Asian cuisines) don't suffer calcium deficiencies even when the measured calcium levels of the total diet seem low.
Homeostatic Regulation of Calcium (Vitamin D plays a part in this) is not a trivial matter of eating more calcium to maintain levels.
Human breast milk has 79 mg of calcium per cup, cow's milk 300. Not surprisingly, human infants fed human breast milk exclusively do not suffer any calcium deficiencies. Humans are not cows.
Milk can be used as a calcium supplement, but this only matters when the rest of an individual's diet is highly constrained to cereal grains like white rice or wheat flour. In the traditional cuisines of indigenous Americans corn was often treated in various ways with lime, which made up for some of corn's nutritional deficiencies.
There are also foods and beverages that interfere with the absorption or retention of calcium.
I consider the dairy industry's nutritional advertising fraudulent.