People seem to eat so much dairy product in the form of milk, cheese, yoghurt, butter etc. which is naturally designed for growing babies that I wonder if it is really good for the health of adults.

I have a slight intolerance for dairy though it doesn't stop me eating any of the above products occasionally.

Would the health of the nation be affected adversly if consumption of dairy were dramatically reduced?

Absolutley, and I put a dummy in when I'm tempted to chew gum, It stops my jaw aching so much !!!!!

There is lots of research that shows adults who eat more dairy are actually less overweight than those that don't.

I thought you ment the stuff in jars at first. Used to taste it when my boys had it, YUK. Had to start them on solids when they were 6 weeks old as milk alone wasn't enough.

So did I! And I nearly wrote that Farley's Rusks used to be very nice! I would be careful with kid's yoghurts. I get very annoyed when I get the kids their yoghurts because of the high percentage of sugar in them. I am very anti sweeteners and artificial additives so I go for organic yogurts mainly, but find the sugar is far too much. I've tried making my own but not having much success at the moment. Must give it another go soon.

hi roger, sorry to tell you this mate but dairy products are not human baby food. cows milk is designed to feed a calf! a lot of of people have problems with cows milk. soya milk is a great alternative, goats cheese is lovely! worth checking that there is added calcium in the soya milk. farleys rusks are the greatest!!

Do you still eat them.

hi Jackie, i'm about to start, my little girl is 12 weeks old so i'll be stocking up x

re - making yogurt - i have a yogurt making machine which always seems to turn  out fine. From lakeland - not the one that needs sachets - stick a bit of live yogurt in witha litre of milk, switch on and leave foe eight hous and hey presto - altering the time makes it a bit thicker or thinner. I use longlifr skimmed milk as this means I don't have to boil the milk first and its really simple. I can't remember why ordinary needs boiling though. I had some dairy intolerance once due to colitis and used lactaid tablets for a while but fine again now. I think is the high fat content in dairy that causes some people probs - personally I love Rachel's dairy yogurts etc (although sadly they sold out to a bigger copmany not so long back just like Green & Blacks, Body Shop, Ben &Jerrys (not that i eat it anymore!)etc etc. Never could get on with soya milk in tea but fine with the morning weetabix!

hi helen, the sweetened soya milk is nice with cereals. i find it goes a bit funny in coffee though.

... it's the heat - it curdles it.

Have you tried unsweetened soya milk Paul? I find it tastes nicer than sweetened - Alpro do a "light" version that I use on my porridge.

Hi Jacki

In addition to Helen's tip on a yogurt maker, although it would mean additional washing up, you could stretch those kids' yogurts by using just one and mixing it with a good natural yogurt like Yeo Valley and then filling into two small plastic containers. I am imagining that you give the kids the yogurts to take to school. Or just real fruit and how ever much honey you think is OK plus the natural yogurt on top for them to mix up. Yeh, I know it takes time for kids to get used to a new taste.

Of course, not sure how 'cool' this is in the playground.

B

hi Fona, yes i've tried a few different ones, i like them all, i drink dairy as well. i like a bit of variety x

Barbara, that is such a brilliant idea - I hadn't thought of doing that! We've got some small containers in the cupboard so can do it. They may wonder why it's not in the pot, I'll have to think how I can explain that to them...

Barbara, I forgot to say thanks for the water bottle - it really did make me sort myself out again.

Sprinkle a bit of museil on to the pots and then drizzle a bit of honey into each, Delicious, they'll love it !!

That sounds really nice Andrew. They probably won't like the museli but maybe weetabix or currants will do the trick. Me, I quite fancy the idea of honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground coriander, currants, ginger and a sprinkling of the Tesco omega seed mix. Jeannie recommended the seeds on the Ab Fab forum.

You might even find you can get them to eat plain natural yougurt in this way. I didn't think I'd like the museli but it really ges well with the yogurt and of course there's currants in that. They can only say they don;t like it !!

Andrew, we had low fat Greek yoghurt for tea and I put a teaspoon of runny (Welsh) honey on the top - the kids loved it!! Thanks for the idea. I opted out on the honey for diet reasons (weigh in tomorrow) and instead had some blueberries and a banana which was delicious.

BTW I think I once had museli with yoghurt instead of milk and really enjoyed it. Of course I used to only like Alpen due to its high sugar content!! Prefer my porridge these days.