Before I tell you the answer, let me ask you a question. If you put lemon into your milk, what will happen to your milk? It will curdle, right? The sourness of the lemon will cause the milk to go sour and hence go bad. It is the sour quality that affects the quality of milk. Even if you add salt to milk, the milk will curdle.

So really, milk can only be combined with only purely sweet and ripe fruits. For example, a ripe, sweet mango can be combined with milk. Raisins and dates can also be combined. All berries are a no. That strawberry may be sweet, but it is also sour in taste. When you add the berries to your milk, it may not curdle right away, but it will curdle in your stomach. This will lead to indigestion and other digestive problems.

What about bananas and milk? Ripe bananas are sweet in taste, but its property changes by the time it goes from your mouth down to the stomach. By the time the banana reaches your stomach, it becomes sour. Therefore, if you mix the banana with milk, the banana will cause the milk to curdle in your stomach and therefore, you will most likely feel really heavy afterwards. Remember, after eating any meal or snack, you should not feel heavy afterwards. If you are feeling heavy, then you are having indigestion.

With that said and bananas being the one exception to the rule, only purely sweet tastes can be mixed with milk. Not sure what the exact taste or quality is of a fruit? Send me an email and I will let you know. Also, I am working on a chart that outlines the most common fruits, vegetables, and other foods, in which I will let you know what its tastes are and how it affects the doshas. So keep a look out for that…it should be up in a few weeks.

Eat your fruits and drink your milk!!! Separately, they are very good for you. And by separately, I mean to say that you should allow at least one hour (ideally three hours) in between the consumption of the fruit and milk. This way, you won’t be mixing the two together during the digestive process

Health and happiness,

Varsha

And here are the answers:
1) Almost all forms of nature stop drinking mother’s milk after infancy. So the question here is why do we, as humans, continue to drink milk? We continue to drink milk for its nourishment on all levels…from mental to physical to emotional to spiritual. Milk alone has countless benefits and a strong healing power. Milk promotes Ojas, your strength, immunity, and intellect. Ultimately, milk provides us with those benefits and nutrition that is pretty much hard to find anywhere else. To simply phrase it, we are supposed to drink milk throughout our lives for its nutritional values that nourishes and enhances our quality of life by increasing the strength within our inner core and supports our immunity.

2) From birth till about two years of age, human’s milk is best. As we all know, babies, especially newborns, are very delicate and require a lot of nutrition and nurturing. Human’s milk is light and easy to digest. It is a blood purifier and contains all the nutrition that a baby needs to grow and develop…especially in the most critical years. The first two years pave the way for the rest of your life.

Human’s milk only has nutritional value up until about the age of 2. After that, mother’s milk will be Kapha aggravating, which means that both Kapha and Ojas will become imbalanced. Mother’s milk is easy to digest for a delicate newborn and best for newborns and infants to build strong immune systems. But as you get older, you require more fat and more nutrition and that is why most people typically switch to cow’s milk.

3) There are many types of milk, but I am going to cover the most common ones that can be found in most grocery stores. They are cow’s milk, goat’s milk and soy milk.

First of all, I do not consider soy milk to be real milk. For those that are lactose intolerant, its fine to drink, but personally, I do not advocate soy milk as being the same nutritionally or healthier than cow’s or goat’s milk. Real milk comes from the mammary glands and soy milk is processed through machines and various chemicals and therefore isn’t naturally produced milk.

With that said, goat’s milk is more suitable for those who are weak and ill. It helps with nourishing the Dhatus, or tissues that have become weak. It is easily digestible and is excellent for fevers, bleeding disorders, and diarrhea. Goat’s milk is more recommended when there is an imbalance and the digestion is weak.

Cow’s milk is what majority of the population drinks. As mentioned earlier, cow’s milk promotes Ojas, promotes a longer life span, increases intelligences, improves strength, and the list continues. There are only benefits after benefits from drinking milk. If you pay close attention, those children who grow up drinking lots of milk, have a tendency to be healthier and have stronger immune systems. Milk is an excellent source for calcium, phosphorous, iron, carbohydrates, protein, fat, vitamins A, B12, and C.

Also, intuitively, for centuries, the human race has been drinking milk. Just like we eat our vegetables, we should drink our milk. Our ancestors drank their milk and it’s pretty much a tradition that has been passed down from one generation to the next.

Health and happiness,

Varsha

I often get asked, why drink milk? These days, even drinking milk has become a controversy. There was the time when “got milk?” was huge and today, there is supposed preliminary research that shows that milk has no nutritional value for anyone past childhood. I dispute the research because milk is one of the best forms of nutrition out there and it is for all ages. There is also strong evidence in favor of all age groups drinking milk from both Ayurveda and modern scientific studies.

There is no strong evidence in disputing the benefits of milk, because the research has been mainly done on lab animals, such as rats and rabbits. Biotechnology companies, such as Fonterra, have funded many of the research studies. Their research, done on rabbits found that drinking milk can lead to heart disease. But according to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, studies have shown that drinking milk can improve kidney functioning and reduce the risk of heart disease. In another study published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, ”Boosting calcium intake by drinking milk could reduce healthy adults’ chances of a debilitating bone break. Healthy men and women supplemented with 1,200 mg of calcium per day – the amount in four glasses of milk – reduced their risk of bone fractures by 72 percent.” These are just a couple of studies out of thousands that have been conducted over the years. And with that said, why wouldn’t you want to drink your milk?

Ayurveda has also laid out the countless benefits of drinking milk. Ojas, as you may already know is the finest product of digestion and it represents your immune system, strength, and vitality. Drinking milk promotes and enhances the Ojas. Milk directly nourishes the life forces and also nourishes all the tissues of the body. It increases strength, promotes life span, excellent for the eyes and intellect, reverses the aging process, heals wounds, and increases virility. Furthermore, milk is used for irritable bowel syndrome, excessive thirst, is good for hyperacidity, great for heart disorders, urinary tract problems, hemorrhoids, and bleeding tendencies. Milk is excellent for emaciation, anemia, and fatigue due to excess physical exertion. Milk can be hard to digest. Therefore, if you have trouble digesting milk, boil the milk with some fresh ginger and then drink it. Boiling the milk makes the milk lighter and easier to digest. The ginger will aid in the digestion of the milk.

There are many more benefits than what I have mentioned. Milk is one of the greatest nutritional drinks out there and it is recommended for everyone. Ayurveda continues to say that milk is the first drink of life and therefore, it should be continued throughout life. In a follow-up article, I will discuss the various types of milk and why cow’s milk is most highly recommended after infancy.

Health and Happiness,

Varsha

Cows provide to us one of the healthiest substances for our body…milk. When they provide us with so much nutrition, is it right to put cows behind bars? My answer is no. In order to mass produce milk, many farmers confine the cows and treat them inhumanely. According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) “California’s dairy cows are crammed into huge lots, where they live covered in mud and their own feces for most of their miserable lives.”

My question to you is how can milk that comes from unhealthy cows actually be good for you. We have all heard someone in our lives say that food that is made with love always tastes good. Well, there is no love here…there is only sorrow, stress, and chemicals in this milk. That is why everyone should drink organic milk. Organic milk comes from free-range cows that are allowed to graze and feed upon fresh grass. Cows that produce organic milk are the happy cows that we like to smile at.

Although there are many companies out there that sell organic milk, one in particular that I use is Horizon Organic. Their dairy products are available all over the country in whole food grocery stores and local markets.

For more information on PETA and their efforts towards animal rights, please visit www.peta.org

PETA has also put together a site on information about cows, specifically in the state of California. Their website is www.unhappycows.com

For more information about Organic foods and products, please visit the Organic Consumers Association at www.organicconsumers.org

While doing my research for this article, I came across this site, which discusses USDA’s take on “grass-fed” cows. I thought that you might find this interesting.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_2002.cfm

Everyday, more and more people are going organic. So if you have not yet done so, please do join the organic movement and support not only natural, real food, but also support the ethical and moral treatment of animals. Remember, animals also have needs and feelings.

Varsha

I am positive that either you or someone you know is lactose intolerant. Lactose is a type of sugar found in all dairy products. Being lactose intolerant is the inability to digest and metabolize lactose. Some people truly are lactose intolerant, but most people are just allergic to the GMO milk. Many of my clients come to me saying that they are lactose intolerant, but in a matter of a few weeks, they realize that they are not lactose intolerant. They are allergic to the non-organic milk and other dairy products. Many of my “lactose intolerant” clients drink organic milk. It’s all a matter of making a few slight adjustments.

But what if you really are lactose intolerant and cannot have dairy products? Many people struggle with getting enough calcium and therefore resort to calcium supplements, which is not ideal for your physiology. Many other foods contain calcium. Some vegetables which contain calcium are spinach, turnips, broccoli, peas, brussel sprouts, and bokchoy. Other foods are salmon, tofu, sardines, beans, sesame seeds, and almonds.

If you are eating proper, balanced meals, then you do not have to worry about where you will get your calcium from. Calcium is most needed in maintaining strong, healthy bones. Getting plenty of calcium in your diet and with proper exercise can prevent osteoporosis. In fact, studies show that women you consume the same amount of calcium in their diet have a higher bone density than those who consume that same amount of calcium as a supplement.

It is possible to overcome being lactose intolerant. In most cases, it is about strengthening your digestion. With a strong enough digestion, you can digest anything you consume. Most people have become lactose intolerant due to all the unnecessary chemicals and hormones that are in the non-organic milk. Organic milk is much richer in nutrients, higher in antioxidants, and it tastes much better.

Ayurveda has always promoted milk for great health. Some of the most prominent benefits of drinking milk, especially cow’s milk is that it instantly nourishes all the tissues of the physiology and acts as a rejuvenate. Cow’s milk is also rich in protein, carbohydrates, calcium, phosphorus, iron, vitamins A, B12, and C. With all the nutrients milk has to offer, it will also give you more strength, energy, and increase Ojas (immunity) in your physiology. If you feel that you are not able to digest milk well, boil it first and then drink it. Boiling milk allows the milk to become lighter and therefore it is more easily digestible.

Enjoy your milk!

Varsha