Soy vs. Whole milk

[njkarin]

So I recently became a vegetarian and I am working on becoming vegan (getting there!), my husband is switching over to a vegetarian diet and I currently feed my toddler (20 months) a vegetarian diet but include milk and occasionally some cheese, although we're getting away from dairy cheese.

The more I read about the benefits of eliminating all animal products (both from a health and an ethical standpoint) the more I want to stop giving my son whole milk and start giving him soy milk. However, I am coming across two main challenges preventing me from switching completely...

1. It has been so ingrained in my head that children need to drink whole milk that I'm almost afraid to stop giving it to him (although it was not a problem for me to stop drinking it).

2. I've read contradictory studies regarding soy and hormones, especially in boys. On the one hand, I've heard soy is fine. On the other I've heard that it can affect sperm development in boys and men if it is consumed in large amounts (but what constitutes "large" is never made clear).

Can anyone share their knowledge on this subject?

[ParisApril]

I like to feed my family foods that have not been altered or processed. Raw, whole milk comes to my house 100% intact and unadulterated. Soy must go through many, many steps in order to become a milk.

[bandgeek]

At 20 months I wouldn't worry so much about getting fatty milk in him. He can get fat elsewhere in his diet. Is he still nursing at all? Even once or twice a day is plenty. If he's not though, I would just get good fats in his diet and not rely on milk.

I don't like the idea of soy OR cow's milk. We drink almond milk, which doesn't have a lot of fat or protein, but it's not a large part of our diet either. I like putting ground flax seed in cereal and baked goods, cooking with good oils, and eating things naturally high in fat like avacado and nuts.

I don't use much soy because I do notice hormone problems myself. I don't need research to tell me that I shouldn't eat a lot of it. I do eat SOME, but I won't drink soy milk everyday. I have an occasional veggie burger or soy ice cream.

[theoldmommers]

I agree with ParisApril, but then I also read all the negative stuff about dairy (Fuhrman, Barnard). I keep going back and forth with my DS. One month I go with the local raw whole milk, the next soymilk. It's so tough! Having said that my DS is older and only gets one cup of soymilk a day in soy phase and eats no other processed soy products.

I think the vegan wisdom on this is that babies should be nursed as long as possible and after that milk is not needed. All nutritional calcium is supposed to come from a balanced wholefood plant based diet. How many of us are managing that though?

Just commiserating, really .

[lilyka]

If you don't want to do soy (and I wouldn't) or dairy (I wouldn't) then I would go to almond milk. We were not vegetarians at the time but none of my children ever drank whole milk. honestly after a couple of tries with dd #1 we said screw it to milk all together. They nursed until they were two at least once a day and I figured that was enough "milk". We weren't anti dairy but I didn't see any reason to put milk in a cup for them. They just got dairy other ways like cheese and yogurt. and drank water and occaisionally juice.

[Ahimsa]

You might want to try the So Delicious coconut milk beverage.

http://www.turtlemountain.com/produc..._beverage.html

[sagewinna]

I have a soy milk machine and I make soymilk from soaked organic soy beans. I used rice milk for some years. We use it for cooking and baking and the once in a while bowl of cold cereal, but the kids drink water mostly or herbal tea.

My son is 16, my older dd is 12 and there is NO hormonal problem here. lol we are not sensative to it I guess, or don't ingest enough of it to influence their health.