Kathy Freston wants me to stop eating yogurt
Through my “day job” as an editor at W, I’ve become friendly with Kathy Freston, an Oprah fave and bestselling author of Quantum Wellness: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Health and Happiness. An incredibly stylish vegan, Kathy always has great tips to share about the latest and greatest cruelty-free fashion. And she really knows her wellness stuff. So when I recently decided to cut down on my dairy intake as part of my slow drift toward veganism, I tapped Kathy’s knowledge once again. Et voila, as the French say…
Me: What are some relatively easy ways of replacing the nutritional goodies (calcium, vitamins, nutrients, etc.) that I like to imagine I’m getting from my oh-so-delicious, thick-as-it-gets Greek yogurt?
Kathy: Well, in short, calcium comes from “beans and greens,” so that’s a quick eat-right mantra to keep in mind. It can also come from fortified soymilk. As for vitamin D, you’ve got sunlight for that. And if you’re living in sunshine-deprived part of the country, a daily supplement — any common multi-vitamin, really — will shore up those levels. My point is that it’s actually not hard at all to recoup whatever you might lose, nutritionally, by reducing your dairy intake. But here’s what’s also great: You’ll be cutting way back on saturated fat.
By the way, after consulting with Dr. Neal Barnard, founder of The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, I’ve learned that kids past the age of two can easily and healthfully shift to exactly the same diet as their parents. So luckily for health-conscious mamas, soy yogurts have emerged on market shelves. They come in a wide variety of flavors and have a nutritional value very similar to cow’s milk yogurt —including active cultures— and are much better tolerated. Many kids are lactose-intolerant and frankly, why would we want to feed our kids milk from another species? You don’t see baby zebras drinking the milk from giraffes, do you?