The protein in milk is high-quality protein with high nutritional value. Drinking milk can supplement sufficient calcium, strengthen the body, and improve skin health. It is a nutritional supplement that most people choose. However, if you don't drink it correctly, it not only fails to nourish the body but can also harm it.
1. The thicker the milk, the better
Some people believe that the thicker the milk, the more nutrients the body gets, which is unscientific. So-called overly thick milk means adding more milk powder and less water to the milk, making its concentration exceed the normal proportion. Others are afraid that fresh milk is too thin and add milk powder to it. If infants and young children often drink overly thick milk, it can cause diarrhea, constipation, loss of appetite, or even refusal to eat, and can also lead to acute hemorrhagic enteritis. This is because the organs of infants and young children are delicate and cannot withstand the heavy burden and pressure.
2. The more sugar added, the better
It is a common misconception that unsweetened milk is hard to digest. Sugar is added to increase the calories supplied by carbohydrates, but it must be in a specific quantity, generally 5-8 grams of sugar per 100 ml of milk.
What kind of sugar is best to add to milk? Sucrose is the best choice. After sucrose enters the digestive tract, it is broken down by digestive juices into glucose, which is absorbed by the body. Glucose has a low sweetness, and using too much of it can easily exceed the recommended amount.
There is also the question of when to add sugar. If sugar and milk are heated together, lysine in the milk will react with the sugar at high temperatures (80°C-100°C) to form a harmful substance called glycosylated lysine. This substance is not absorbed by the body and can be harmful to health. Therefore, you should first let the boiled milk cool down to warm (40°C-50°C) before adding the sugar to dissolve it.
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3. Milk with chocolate
Some people think that since milk is a high-protein food and chocolate is an energy food, eating them together must be very beneficial. This is not the case. Liquid milk plus chocolate causes a chemical reaction between the calcium in the milk and the oxalic acid in the chocolate, forming "calcium oxalate." As a result, the originally nutritious calcium becomes a harmful substance to the human body, leading to calcium deficiency, diarrhea, delayed development in children and adolescents, dry hair, easy fractures, and an increased incidence of urinary tract stones.
4. Taking medicine with milk to kill two birds with one stone
Some people believe that taking medicine with something nutritious must be beneficial, but this is extremely wrong. Milk can significantly affect the speed at which the human body absorbs drugs, causing the concentration of the drug in the blood to be significantly lower than in people who take the same medicine without milk, within the same time frame. Taking medicine with milk can also easily form a coating on the surface of the drug, causing the calcium and magnesium minerals in the milk to react with the drug to form insoluble substances. This not only reduces the effectiveness of the drug but may also be harmful to the body. Therefore, it is best not to drink milk within 1-2 hours before and after taking medication.
5. Feeding infants with yogurt
Yogurt is a healthy drink that aids digestion, and some parents often feed it to their babies. However, the antibiotics produced by lactic acid bacteria in yogurt, while inhibiting the growth of many pathogens, also destroy the growth conditions for beneficial normal flora in the human body and can affect normal digestive function. Infants and young children, especially those with gastroenteritis or premature infants, may experience vomiting and necrotizing enteritis if they are fed yogurt.
6. Adding orange or lemon juice to milk to enhance flavor
Adding orange or lemon juice to milk might seem like a good idea, but in reality, oranges and lemons are both high in fruit acid. When fruit acid comes into contact with the protein in milk, it causes the protein to denature, thereby reducing its nutritional value.
7. Adding rice soup or congee to milk
Some people think that this can complement the nutrients. In fact, this practice is very unscientific. Milk contains vitamin A, while rice soup and congee are mainly starch-based. They contain lipoxidase, which destroys vitamin A. Children, especially infants and young children, if they have an insufficient intake of vitamin A, will experience delayed development and a weak, sickly constitution. Therefore, even for the purpose of supplementing nutrition, the two should be consumed separately.
8. Milk must be boiled
Typically, the temperature required for milk pasteurization is not high; 3 minutes at 70°C or 6 minutes at 60°C is sufficient. If boiled, the temperature reaches 100°C, and the lactose in the milk will caramelize. Caramel can induce cancer. Secondly, after boiling, the calcium in the milk will precipitate as calcium phosphate, thereby reducing the nutritional value of the milk.
9. Exposing bottled milk to sunlight can increase vitamin D
Some people learned from advertisements that to supplement calcium, you also need to supplement vitamin D, and that getting more sunlight is a good way to get it. So they followed the advice and put bottled milk out in the sun. In fact, this is a case of the cure being worse than the disease. The milk may get some vitamin D, but it loses vitamin B1, vitamin B2, and vitamin C. These three nutrients break down in sunlight, causing them to be partially or completely lost. Moreover, the lactose in the milk will ferment in the sun, causing it to spoil.
10. Using condensed milk instead of milk
Condensed milk is a dairy product made by evaporating fresh milk to 2/5 of its original volume and then adding 40% sucrose before canning. Some people, influenced by the idea that "all concentrated things are essence," use condensed milk as a substitute for milk. This is clearly wrong. Condensed milk is too sweet and must be diluted with 5-8 times its volume of water. But when the sweetness meets the requirement, the concentration of protein and fat is also half that of fresh milk. If water is added to the condensed milk to bring the protein and fat concentrations close to that of fresh milk, the sugar content will then be too high.