Break Free!
Building healthy bones on a vegan diet
SPECIAL REPORT
By Veronika Powell MSc, Senior Health Researcher at Viva!
We’ve all heard that children need milk and dairy products to grow up big and strong and grown-ups need them to have healthy bones. But is this true? Well, no. It’s the dairy industry’s most successful myth and you have to wonder how this simple marketing fib has managed to penetrate our education system all the way up to university level.
When it comes to bone health, dairy products certainly aren’t the bone-building wonder foods the dairy industry wants us to believe. Countries with the highest dairy consumption also have the highest rates of osteoporosis and fragility fractures. The World Health Organisation (WHO) calls this the ‘calcium paradox’.
We do need calcium (adults 700mg per day, children a bit less, adolescents and lactating women slightly more) but we can easily get enough from non-dairy sources.