For calcium, pick milk over marketing
CMAJ 1997;157:1020
Dr. Walter P. Bobechko ("Calcium supplementation for the nation," CMAJ 1997;156:1269 [full text]) suggests that calcium be added to juices and beverages to prevent osteoporosis, as is done in the US. To those of us who have studied the dietary trends in the US for a long time, and tend to view them with a great deal of suspicion, this idea appears to be little more than a marketing gimmick, like the food industry's "no cholesterol" scam, which frightened millions of consumers away from fresh (low-profit) farm foods and convinced them that manufactured (high-profit) replacements, particularly "fortified" products, are actually healthier.
Adding calcium to a product that does not normally contain it, or very much of it, does not necessarily increase the product's overall nutritional value. Calcium is best obtained from whole milk and other full-fat dairy foods. These foods provide the companion nutrients (vitamins and fatty acids) needed for the calcium to be absorbed, retained and fully utilized. Low-fat and fat-free dairy products are not "healthier" than unaltered products; many are worthless.
The defatted products tend to be lacking in taste as well; hence the massive increase in soft drink sales as milk consumption has plummeted in recent years. Dental health surveys in our schools are already finding more cavities (which predicts an even greater increase in osteoporosis in the future), not because there is no calcium in our orange juice, but because there is no fat in our milk.
Should our federal government be striving to harmonize health policies with those of the US, where half of the population is obese, where coronary artery disease is still the number-one killer, where diabetes is called an epidemic, and where cancer rates are the highest in the world and still climbing? I think not.
Thomas Anderson, PhD
Summerland, BC
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