Never drink milk like this!
Milk is an indispensable food in people's lives. It is nutritious, affordable, and easy to consume, but if you drink it "right after boiling," you will make some "taken for granted" mistakes that greatly reduce the nutritional value of the milk.
1. The more sugar, the better
It's a common misconception among many parents 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 to 8 grams of sugar per 100 milliliters of milk. If too much sugar is added, it is more harmful than beneficial for the growth and development of infants and young children. Excess sugar entering a baby's body can cause water retention, making muscles and subcutaneous tissues soft and weak. Such a baby may appear plump, but their body's resistance is very poor, a condition medically known as a "mud-paste" physique. Excess sugar stored in the body can also become a risk factor for certain diseases, such as cavities, myopia, and arteriosclerosis.
What kind of sugar is best to add to milk? Sucrose is the best choice. When sucrose enters the digestive tract, it is broken down by digestive fluids into glucose, which is absorbed by the body. Some parents specifically buy glucose for their children, which is entirely unnecessary. Glucose has a low sweetness level, and using too much of it can easily exceed the recommended amount. Moreover, children might refuse it because it's not sweet enough.
There's also the question of when to add the sugar. Some parents add sugar to the milk and heat them together. This causes the lysine in the milk to react with the sugar at high temperatures (80°C to 100°C), producing a harmful substance called glycosylated lysine. This substance is not only absorbed by the human body but is also harmful to health, especially for young children. Therefore, you should first let the boiled milk cool down to lukewarm (40°C to 50°C) before adding the sugar to dissolve it.
2. The thicker the milk, the better
Some parents believe that the thicker the milk, the more nutrients their child gets, but this is unscientific.
So-called "overly concentrated milk" refers to adding too much milk powder and too little water, making the milk's concentration exceed the normal standard. Other parents, fearing that fresh milk is too thin, add milk powder to it. In fact, the concentration of milk for infants and young children should be proportional to their age, gradually increasing with the number of months. Even for newborns under one month old, the ratio of water mixed with milk should be gradually reduced based on their digestive capacity.
If infants and young children often drink overly concentrated milk, it can cause diarrhea, constipation, loss of appetite, or even refusal to eat. Over time, their weight will not increase and may even lead to acute hemorrhagic enteritis. This is because the organs of infants and young children are delicate and cannot withstand the burden of excessive concentration. Milk powder that is mixed too thickly, or fresh milk with added powder, has a higher concentration of nutrients that exceeds the digestive and absorption limits of a young child's gastrointestinal tract. This not only makes it hard to digest but can also damage the digestive organs. Therefore, when feeding infants and young children with milk, the amount of water added should be determined by the quality of the milk and the child's age.
3. Killing two birds with one stone by taking medicine with milk
Some people believe that taking medicine with something nutritious is definitely 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 those who take their medicine without milk, over the same period. Taking medicine with milk can also easily form a film on the surface of the pill, causing the calcium and magnesium minerals in the milk to react chemically with the drug, forming insoluble substances. This not only reduces the drug's effectiveness but can also be harmful to the body. Therefore, it is best not to drink milk for 1-2 hours before and after taking medication.
4. 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 conditions for the growth of beneficial normal flora in the human body and can affect normal digestive function. This is especially true for infants and young children with gastroenteritis and premature babies; feeding them yogurt can cause vomiting and necrotizing enteritis.
5. Adding orange or lemon juice to milk
To make their children love milk, some parents think it's a good idea to add a little orange or lemon juice. However, in reality, oranges and lemons are both high in fruit acid, and when this acid encounters the protein in milk, it causes the protein to denature, thereby reducing its nutritional value.
6. Adding chocolate to milk
Some parents 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 the calcium in the milk to react with the oxalic acid in the chocolate to form "calcium oxalate." Thus, 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, an increased risk of fractures, and a higher incidence of urinary tract stones.
7. 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. Influenced by the idea that "all concentrated things are精华 (essence)," some people use condensed milk as a substitute for milk for their children.
This approach is clearly wrong. Condensed milk is too sweet and must be diluted with 5 to 8 times its volume of water. However, when the sweetness is acceptable, the concentration of protein and fat is also half that of fresh milk. Feeding this to infants and young children obviously fails to meet their nutritional needs for growth and development and can lead to no weight gain, a pale complexion, and frequent illness. If water is added to the condensed milk to make the protein and fat concentration similar to fresh milk, the sugar content becomes too high. Feeding this "milk" to a child can easily cause diarrhea. Furthermore, if a child gets used to an overly sweet taste, it will make it difficult to introduce other solid foods later on.
8. Adding rice soup or congee to milk
Some parents believe that this practice can complement the nutrients. In fact, this 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, who have an insufficient intake of vitamin A will experience delayed development and be weak and prone to illness. Therefore, even for nutritional supplementation, the two should be consumed separately.
9. Milk must be boiled
Generally, the temperature required to pasteurize milk is not very 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.
10. Putting bottled milk in the sun
Some parents learned from advertisements that to supplement calcium, you also need vitamin D, and that sun exposure is a good way to get it. So, they followed the advice and put bottled milk out in the sun. This is actually counterproductive. The milk might gain some vitamin D, but it loses vitamins B1, B2, and C. These three nutrients decompose 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.