World Milk Day

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Today, 1 June, South Africa joins a number of other countries around the world in celebrating World Milk Day.

Why?

Because milk is an important source of nutrients we all need to survive. These include calcium, vitamin A, vitamin B12, vitamin B2, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, magnesium and protein.

The South African Department of Health’s daily dietary guidelines stipulate we should all have milk, maas or yoghurt every day as part of a healthy, balanced diet.

Thought we would share four excellent reasons why you should include dairy in your daily diet:

  1. As an adult you need 1000mg of calcium per day. One serving of dairy (that’s 250ml of milk or 40g of cheese or 200ml yoghurt or maas) provides 300mg of calcium. In other words, just three servings of dairy give your body almost all the calcium it needs every day.
  2. Milk, maas and yoghurt have low sodium-to-potassium ratios and contain bioactive peptides. This composition may help to protect against the development of non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
  3. The calcium in dairy products is highly bio-available, contributing significantly to your bone-mineral content.
  4. The calcium in milk, maas and yoghurt could play an important role in the regulation of body weight and metabolic syndrome.

World Milk Day aims to celebrate milk as a nutritionally important, global food. Find out all you need to know about the health and nutritional benefits of dairy by visiting http://www.rediscoverdairy.co.za – an online portal, brought to you by the Consumer Education Project of Milk SA, featuring up-to-date and scientifically sound information on the health and nutritional value of all dairy products.