Baby drinking almond milk develops scurvy

For many generations, people in India have relied on cow’s full fat organic milk for meeting the nutritional needs of babies and toddlers. The use of cow’s full cream milk for toddlers has turned out to be a good practice, as it has helped our young ones to grow mentally and physically strong. Even toned milk has worked well since double toned milk nutrition is mostly the same as full fat organic milk, excluding of course the amount of fat content.

However, in recent times, many brands have started offering plant based milk products such as almond milk. This is not a sustainable development since it has been proven in laboratory studies that plant based milk products such as almond milk is not a whole food and is nutrient deficient. A case supporting this deficient nature of plant based milk products has recently come up in Spain. In this case, a 11-month baby, who was drinking only almond milk, has been diagnosed with Scurvy, a disease that is caused by the deficiency of Vitamin C. Details of this case have been published in the Pediatrics journal and it points out to the risks associated with plant based milk products for babies and toddlers. The baby was severely affected, as he used to be very unstable when in the sitting position. He remained tired and irritable, and would find it difficult to stand on a solid surface. Femur fractures were found during medical examination and extremely low Vitamin C levels, which prompted doctors to diagnose it as Scurvy.

Some experts opine that in this particular case, the synthetic chemicals used in processing almond milk may be inhibiting the absorption of essential nutrients such as Vitamin C. Plant based milk products such as almond milk may appear to be nutrient rich in theory, but what they are essentially is factory produced and laden with chemicals. In comparison, cow’s full fat organic milk and cow’s full cream milk for toddlers are 100% natural, safe and healthy.

Using plant based milk products is like going against nature. This may not be good since we are yet to fully understand how nature and our bodies work, especially in the long term. Till things are clearer, it would be a wise decision to use natural food sources such as full fat organic milk and full cream milk for toddlers. Even toned milk would be good since double toned milk nutrition is not very different from full fat milk, if you exclude the fat portion.