Fuel Family Meals with Dairy
This blog post is in partnership with Midwest Dairy. Check out this post and the linked recipe & video, Farmer Breakfast Bowls, for info about how to include dairy in family meals, dairy nutrition, sustainability, and a delicious recipe.
Choosing what to feed your family can be tricky. There is so much nutrition information out there saying “eat this” or “don’t eat that!” Confusing, I know. Luckily, if you are reading this you have come to the right place for nutrition information backed by science and no scare tactics. Plus, I know a thing or two about family meals to help you out.
A lot of the moms I speak to have a few concerns when choosing what to serve at family meals and snacks. One, they want it to be nutritionally dense. And two, they want to choose foods that are environmentally responsible. The good news is that you can do both when choosing to add dairy in family meals. Let’s dive into why.
Benefits of Family Meals
Eating together as a family is important for a multitude of reasons. Family meals put sustainability and sociability into eating because it provides a set time for your children to look forward to eating and encourages conversation. For some family meals are hard! With hectic schedules, it’s understandable if mealtimes are a struggle every night. Check out this post, Empowering Kids at the Dinner Table, for tips on how to make mealtimes easier.
Family meals, no matter what your family looks like, are helpful in a variety of ways:
- Children and teens who have family meals eat better, feel better about themselves, and do better in school.
- Family meals help both adults and children eat the amount they need to weigh what is right for them.
- Meals keep food in its place as only one of life’s great pleasures. You pay attention and enjoy it when it is time to eat, forget about it between times.
Nutrition Benefits of Dairy for the Whole Family
Dairy is great because it contains nutrients that will benefit all members of the family, no matter age or gender. Real milk offers a unique nutrient package that’s difficult to match in any other single food or beverage. Dairy is an excellent source of high-quality protein that contains all of the essential amino acids which we rely on to come from food to grow, repair body tissue, and the synthesis of hormones.
Dairy Nutrition for Different Life Stages
Children:
Children need calcium and vitamin D that dairy provides to help build strong bones. The combination of these nutrients is crucial because vitamin D helps your body effectively absorb calcium. It’s a one, two punch. Adolescence is an important time to eat dairy because peak bone mass is attained during early childhood and adolescents. Three servings of dairy a day can help those ages 9 and older with the nutrients they need to achieve peak bone mass and prevent osteoporosis later in life.
Athletes:
Athletes often have higher protein needs. Milk contains two types of proteins: whey and casein. The whey goes to your muscles right away and provides instant satisfaction, which stops hunger. The casein is slowly released to help muscles, cells, and hormones while you sleep.
Dairy in the form of whey protein powder added to a smoothie or energy bites like the Cinnamon Vanilla Energy Bites below is a great post-workout snack because of the combination of protein and carbohydrates to refuel and repair muscles as well as provide electrolytes lost in sweat.
Women:
A 2017 study found that eating low-fat yogurt reduced biomarkers of chronic inflammation and improved gut integrity in healthy women. A 2020 systematic review (the gold standard of studies) also found that adequate dairy consumption as part of a nutrient-rich, balanced diet is not adversely linked to chronic inflammation, but rather has potential beneficial effects on inflammation. Other ways to help manage inflammation through lifestyle is getting regular exercise and managing stress.
Aging Adults:
Dairy foods are still important for adult bones and have been linked to a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes. Three servings of dairy is also included in the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet which has been shown to lower blood pressure, lower LDL cholesterol, and decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease. Aging adults also benefit from the high-quality protein that dairy provides to help preserve muscle.
Sustainability of Dairy
Just like you are dedicated to the health and well-being of your family, the dairy industry is committed to being an environmental solution and is continually raising the bar on social and environmental responsibility. The U.S. dairy industry is working to become carbon neutral or better by 2050.
Below is a photo from a dairy farm tour I had the opportunity of going on last year. The one huge take away from that: these farmers are high tech environmentalist! Also, cows are cute, especially baby ones.
Everything in the dairy process has been examined from practices in cow comfort, improved feed and genetics, and modern barn design to figure out how to reduce the environmental impact of producing a gallon of milk.
Tradition of Sustainability
Many dairy farmers that I’ve met have come from a long family tradition of dairy farming. They’ve learned best practices from their families and continued to improve them. Progress can even be seen in a ten-year time span. From 2007 to 2017 producing a gallon of milk involved 30% less water, 21% less land, a 19% smaller carbon footprint, and 20% less manure than it did in 2007.
Dairy farmers are true stewards of the environment. For example, Dairy provides more than half of the calcium and vitamin D and 18% of the protein consumed by Americans, while the U.S. dairy industry’s greenhouse gas footprint is only about 2% of the U.S. total.
Dairy cows play an important role in a sustainable food system. They can eat leftovers that people can’t eat, like almond hulls and orange peels, which would otherwise go into landfills. Unlike their human counterparts, I’m pretty sure they haven’t changed their behavior too much in recent times. What has changed is how humans track their behavior. Imagine a Fitbit like device on each cow that farmers can use to track movements within the herd. This helps farmers make sure the cows are comfortable, have higher yields, and ultimately reduce their impact on the environment.
Along with being environmentally friendly, dairy farmers are incredibly resilient. Check out this story about the Leach Family Dairy Farm and what it’s like to rebuild after a class 4 tornado.
It’s technology like this that the nation’s dairy farmers are using to develop, adopt and share new, science-based practices, leading to a more sustainable dairy industry.
Family Meals with Dairy
There’s no shortage of great recipes using dairy and I’ve created one more to add to the bunch. These Farmer Breakfast Bowls could be a great option to have a family breakfast together or even have breakfast for dinner!
Farmer Breakfast Bowls
