Date : 03 Jan 2016

Milk has been a part of the human diet for hundreds and thousands of years. It naturally contains a variety of vitamins and minerals required for good health. Hence, milk is considered a complete food.

• Cows are revered like mothers in India. As a mother feeds a newborn her milk, likewise the cow provides people milk to drink.
• Milk should never be heated for long. Boiling milk makes it easily digestible due to the change in enzyme structure.


• Thin people should drink full-fat milk and overweight people should try for fat-free milk.
• Half a liter of milk is more nutritious than 250 grams of meat and three eggs. Milk is a complete food and has all necessary nutrients to sustain life.

 Facts about milk fat

• Milk is a healthy, low-fat drink.
• Whole milk contains fewer than 4% fat.
• Semi skim milk contains fewer than 2% fat.
• Skim milk is almost fat-free; it has a fat content between 0.1 - 0.3%

A glass (200 ml) of milk provides 37% of an adult’s daily calcium requirement. To get the same amount of calcium as a glass of milk, one has to consume more than 11 portions of spinach.

The Best Time to Drink Milk
The early morning is the best time to drink milk. Milk is digested with the sun's heat. Ideally, milk should be consumed three hours before going to bed. Never go to sleep immediately after drinking milk. Drinking very hot milk at night can cause night pollutions.

How to Drink Milk
The best milk is fresh milk that has just been milked from a cow. If this is not possible, milk should be boiled and warm milk should be drunk. Never boil milk for long periods of time, as the nutrients get destroyed. Milk should be whisked to froth and drunken slowly in sips.
Milk that has just been milked from a cow or buffalo is slightly warm and is as sterile as a mother's milk. Nowadays, it's more difficult to get hold of fresh milk like this as most people live in cities and get milk in bottles, jars, tetra packs, poly packs. Before, every home in every village had a cow or buffalo and drinking fresh milk was more probable.

 Sweetness in Milk
Adding sugar to milk generates mucus. Most of the time, sugar is added to milk before drinking. Calcium present in milk is destroyed by adding sugar. Therefore, sugar should not be added to milk. Milk has a natural sweetness to it. One will realize this number of days after drinking milk with no added sugar, as one is used to drinking sweet milk.

If you still feel the need to sweeten the milk, try adding honey, fruit juices, glucose, sugarcane juice or Munakka (large sultanas or currants). One could add candy sugar or brown sugar too and this milk is said to remove the tri doshas of vaat, pitt, and cough as per Ayurveda.

To Digest Milk Faster
Drinking milk causes gas and bloating in some people as they are not able to digest it. To counter this, one can add honey which prevents gas formation and makes it easier and faster to digest milk. Adding either orange juice or sweet lime juice can help with digesting the milk more quickly. One could also add a few crushed almonds, cashews, or raisins to milk for quicker digestion as well. Sucking on a lemon after drinking milk also helps.
If milk causes gas, one could add pieces of ginger or ginger powder and some raisins and boil and then drink this milk.