Milk and Milk Substitutes: Nutrition & Ethics

Given the huge and growing range of milk substitutes & alternatives, is one of them better to give to your kids? Is one of them more ethical in other ways? >>>

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/evaluating-milk-and-its-substitutes/

…Whether milk is “good” or “bad” and how it compares to the alternative “milks” depends on the question being asked. Good for what? Chemically, milk is emulsified fat in water that’s a good source of protein and several nutrients. If studying the effects of medication is difficult, that’s nothing compared to studying dietary interventions, where it’s exceptionally challenging to tease out cause and effect from studies which lack randomization and blinding. Correlation is not causation, and addressing all of the potential confounders seems nearly impossible. The result is trials with often equivocal results that are used to support nearly any position. Milk may be a good source of calcium, but consumption…