Is Milk Good for You? An Evidence Check on a Century-Old Question

There’s a good chance you can still picture it: the squat carton on a school lunch tray, the paper straw, the teacher reminding everyone that milk builds strong bones. Few foods have been marketed to us that early, that often, and with that much confidence. The milk-mustache ads of the 1990s didn’t invent the idea — they just put a celebrity face on something Americans had been told for generations.

Then the pendulum swung. Wellness influencers began calling milk inflammatory, unnatural, even harmful, with roughly the same certainty the old campaigns had shown. Somewhere between “nature’s perfect food” and “poison for adults” sits the actual research, which is more interesting than either camp admits.

So let’s do what a century of slogans never did: read the evidence carefully, separate what’s well established from what’s still being argued in nutrition journals, and give you an honest answer you can use at the grocery store.

How milk became the default health drink in the first place

Milk’s reputation wasn’t built by nutrition science alone. In the early twentieth century, when childhood undernutrition and rickets were common, milk genuinely solved problems: it delivered calories, protein, calcium, and riboflavin in a form kids would actually consume. Fortifying it with vitamin D, which began in the United States in the 1930s, helped drive rickets from a common childhood disease to a rarity. Public health officials and the dairy industry both had reasons to promote it, and school milk programs cemented the habit.

Here’s the part worth sitting with: milk earned its halo in an era of scarcity. The nutritional question of 1925 was “how do we get enough into growing children?” The question of today, in high-income countries, is usually “how does this food fit into a diet that already has plenty of calories?” Those are different questions, and the answers differ too.

That history explains why milk guidance can feel contradictory. Dietary guidelines written with children, teens, and lower-income populations in mind still emphasize dairy as an efficient nutrient source. Researchers studying chronic disease in well-fed adults find something more neutral: milk is one reasonable option among many, not a requirement. Both views are defensible. Neither supports the extremes you’ll see online. Keep that scarcity-versus-abundance frame in mind as we go through the specific claims, because it resolves most of the apparent contradictions.

What's actually in a glass of milk?

Strip away the branding and milk is an unusually dense nutrient package. One 8-ounce cup of cow’s milk provides about 8 grams of complete protein — comparable to a large egg and a half — along with roughly 300 milligrams of calcium, which is about a quarter of what most adults need in a day, according to the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. It also carries meaningful amounts of potassium, phosphorus, iodine, riboflavin, and vitamin B12, plus vitamins A and D when fortified, which nearly all U.S. milk is.

The protein deserves a closer look. Milk protein is about 80 percent casein and 20 percent whey, both of which contain all nine essential amino acids and are efficiently used for muscle maintenance. That’s one reason milk shows up so often in research on preserving muscle in older adults.

What varies is the fat, and with it the calories. Whole milk runs about 150 calories per cup with roughly 4.5 grams of saturated fat; skim milk delivers nearly identical protein and calcium for about 80 to 90 calories and almost no saturated fat. The vitamins and minerals barely change across fat levels because most are dissolved in the watery portion, and fat-soluble vitamins A and D are added back to reduced-fat versions.

The other notable ingredient is lactose, milk’s natural sugar — about 12 grams per cup. It isn’t added sugar and doesn’t count against added-sugar limits, but it matters enormously for digestion, as we’ll see shortly.

Is it good to drink milk every day?

For most people who digest it comfortably, a daily glass or two of milk is a perfectly reasonable habit — and for some groups, a genuinely useful one. Children and teenagers building peak bone mass, older adults trying to hold onto muscle and bone, and anyone who struggles to eat enough protein all get real value from milk’s nutrient density. It’s hard to name another single food that delivers protein, calcium, iodine, and B12 that cheaply and conveniently.

What daily milk is not is mandatory. Large observational studies following hundreds of thousands of adults, summarized in reviews discussed by Harvard Health, have found that people who drink milk daily are not meaningfully healthier or longer-lived than people who drink little or none — provided the non-drinkers get those nutrients elsewhere. Milk drinking in adulthood is associated with neither the dramatic benefits its promoters claim nor the dangers its critics allege, across most outcomes researchers have measured.

There’s one practical caution: milk displaces other things. A teenager drinking four glasses a day may crowd out dietary variety; an adult adding three daily glasses of whole milk adds roughly 450 calories that have to fit somewhere. And what milk replaces matters as much as the milk itself. Swapping sugary soda for milk is a clear upgrade. Replacing water with it, calorie for calorie, is more of a trade-off.

Daily milk: fine, often helpful, never obligatory. That’s what the evidence supports.

Should adults stop drinking milk?

You’ve probably heard the argument: humans are the only species that drinks another species’ milk into adulthood, so it must be unnatural. It’s a catchy line, but “unnatural” isn’t a nutritional category — cooking food is unnatural too. The better question is whether adult milk drinking causes harm, and for most adults the answer from mainstream evidence is no.

The biological backstory is genuinely fascinating. All human infants produce lactase, the enzyme that digests milk sugar. In most of the world’s population — an estimated two-thirds of adults globally, per MedlinePlus — lactase production drops sharply after early childhood. But in populations with long histories of dairy herding, particularly Northern European and some African and Middle Eastern groups, a genetic variant keeps lactase switched on for life. Lactase persistence is one of the strongest examples of recent human evolution ever documented. So adult milk drinking isn’t unnatural for everyone; it’s a trait some populations literally evolved.

Should adults who tolerate milk keep drinking it? If they enjoy it and it fits their diet, yes, there’s no compelling reason to stop. Should adults who feel bloated and uncomfortable after milk force it down for the calcium? Absolutely not — leafy greens, canned fish with bones, tofu set with calcium, fortified foods, and lactose-free dairy cover the same ground.

The honest position: stopping milk is neither a health upgrade nor a health risk in itself. It’s a food choice, and it deserves to be treated with that level of calm.

Does milk really build strong bones?

This is milk’s flagship claim, and the evidence behind it is more nuanced than the slogans. The mechanism is real: bone is built largely from calcium and phosphorus, milk supplies both generously, and adequate calcium plus vitamin D during childhood and adolescence is genuinely important for reaching peak bone mass. On that point, pediatric nutrition research is consistent, which is why guidance from the NHS and U.S. dietary guidelines emphasizes dairy or fortified alternatives for young people.

The adult story is where the marketing outran the data. If milk strongly protected bones, countries with the highest milk consumption should have the lowest hip fracture rates. They don’t — Scandinavian countries drink among the most milk in the world and have among the highest fracture rates, a pattern shaped by many confounders (latitude, vitamin D status, body size, genetics) but still inconvenient for the simple story. Large cohort studies, including analyses discussed by Harvard Health, have generally found that adults who drink more milk do not have meaningfully fewer hip fractures than adults who drink less.

What should you take from that? Not that milk is useless for bones — calcium deficiency clearly harms them, and milk is an efficient way to avoid deficiency. Rather, that beyond adequacy, more milk doesn’t buy more bone. Bone health in adulthood depends at least as much on weight-bearing exercise, vitamin D status, not smoking, and muscle strength as on any beverage. Milk is one tool for getting enough calcium. It was never the whole toolbox.

Is milk bad for your heart?

Milk fat is mostly saturated, and saturated fat raises LDL cholesterol — that chain of reasoning put whole milk on cardiology’s watch list decades ago, and it’s why the American Heart Association and most dietary guidelines still recommend fat-free or low-fat dairy. That advice remains the mainstream position, and it rests on a well-established mechanism.

The newer research complicates the picture without overturning it. Over the past fifteen years, large observational studies and meta-analyses have generally found that dairy consumption overall is associated with neutral effects on heart disease risk — neither clearly protective nor clearly harmful. Fermented dairy, especially yogurt, tends to show the most favorable associations. One hypothesis is that dairy’s “food matrix” — its calcium, protein, and membrane structures — changes how its saturated fat behaves compared with the same fat eaten as butter. It’s a plausible idea with growing support, but it hasn’t been proven in long-term trials, and honest scientists say so.

Two practical points cut through the debate. First, comparisons matter: whole milk looks fine next to processed meat or sugary drinks, and less good next to olive oil, nuts, or fish as a fat source. Second, dose matters: a splash of whole milk in coffee is nutritionally trivial; a liter a day is not.

If you have high LDL cholesterol or established heart disease, leaning toward low-fat dairy remains the cautious, guideline-consistent choice. For everyone else, milk fat in modest amounts is unlikely to be a major factor either way — your overall dietary pattern will swamp it.

Whole, 2%, or skim: does the fat level matter?

Walk down the dairy aisle and you’re really choosing one variable: how much milk fat stays in the bottle. Everything else — protein, calcium, potassium, B12 — is essentially identical across whole, 2%, 1%, and skim, since fat-soluble vitamins are added back to the reduced-fat versions.

For decades, skim was treated as the unambiguous winner, and for people watching calories or LDL cholesterol, it still has a clear case: same nutrients, roughly half the calories of whole. But the assumption that skim is automatically “healthier” for everyone has softened. Some observational studies have found that people who consume whole-fat dairy are no heavier — occasionally slightly leaner — than skim drinkers, possibly because fat improves satiety, or possibly because of confounding (people who choose skim may already be managing weight or cholesterol problems). Researchers genuinely disagree here, and randomized trials long enough to settle it don’t exist.

A sensible way to decide:

• Managing LDL cholesterol or total calories? Skim or 1% gives you milk’s nutrients with the least saturated fat, consistent with American Heart Association guidance.
• Feeding young children ages 1 to 2? Whole milk is generally recommended; toddlers need the fat and calories for brain development.
• Generally healthy adult who prefers whole milk’s taste? A cup or so daily fits comfortably in most diets, if you account for the extra calories.

The fat-level decision is a legitimate one — just a smaller one than the aisle’s dozen options imply. Don’t let it distract from the choices, like added-sugar intake and vegetable consumption, that move the needle far more.

Does milk cause cancer? What the research actually shows

Few milk claims travel faster online than the cancer ones, in both directions — milk as carcinogen, milk as protector. The research supports neither headline, but it does show two genuine, opposite-direction signals worth knowing.

For colorectal cancer, the evidence leans mildly favorable. Multiple large analyses have associated higher dairy and calcium intake with modestly lower colorectal cancer risk, plausibly because calcium binds irritating compounds in the gut and may slow abnormal cell growth in the colon lining. Major cancer-research bodies rate this evidence as probable rather than proven, and no one suggests milk as a cancer-prevention strategy on its own.

For prostate cancer, the signal runs the other way. Some cohort studies have linked very high dairy intake — typically well above two servings a day — with a modestly elevated risk of prostate cancer, with proposed mechanisms involving calcium’s effect on vitamin D metabolism and milk’s ability to raise insulin-like growth factor 1. Other studies find no association, and the overall evidence is classified as limited and inconsistent, not established.

For breast cancer and most other cancers, large reviews have found no convincing association with milk in either direction.

What does a careful reader do with mixed, modest signals like these? Exactly what the epidemiologists themselves do: avoid extremes. Moderate milk intake — the one-to-two-cups-a-day range most guidelines describe — sits comfortably inside the zone where no cancer signal, positive or negative, is strong. It’s the very high intakes, five or six glasses daily, where open questions remain, and there’s no nutritional reason to drink that much anyway.

Why can't some people digest milk? Lactose intolerance, explained

If milk leaves you bloated, gassy, or sprinting for the bathroom, you’re not broken — statistically, you’re the global norm. An estimated 65 percent or more of the world’s adults have reduced lactase activity after childhood, according to MedlinePlus, with rates varying dramatically by ancestry: relatively low in people of Northern European descent, and much higher — often a majority — among people of East Asian, West African, Arab, Jewish, Greek, and Italian descent.

The mechanism is straightforward. Lactose, milk’s natural sugar, must be split by the enzyme lactase in the small intestine before it can be absorbed. When lactase is scarce, undigested lactose travels to the colon, where bacteria ferment it — producing gas, drawing in water, and causing the familiar cramping, bloating, and loose stools, typically 30 minutes to 2 hours after eating dairy, as Mayo Clinic describes.

Two facts make living with it much easier. First, lactose intolerance is a spectrum, not a switch. Most affected people can handle small amounts — a splash in coffee, milk in baked goods — and research suggests many tolerate up to about a cup taken with a meal. Second, not all dairy is equal. Hard aged cheeses like cheddar and Parmesan contain almost no lactose; yogurt’s live cultures pre-digest much of theirs; and lactose-free milk is simply regular milk with the lactase enzyme already added, nutritionally identical to the original.

So an intolerance diagnosis rarely means a dairy-free life. It means learning your personal threshold and choosing formats your gut handles well.

Milk allergy vs. lactose intolerance — and when to see a doctor

People use “allergic to milk” and “lactose intolerant” interchangeably, but they’re different conditions with very different stakes. Lactose intolerance is a digestive enzyme shortfall: uncomfortable, never dangerous. Milk allergy is an immune-system reaction to milk proteins — usually casein or whey — and it can be serious. It’s most common in infants and young children, many of whom outgrow it, and it can cause hives, vomiting, wheezing, and in rare cases anaphylaxis, a life-threatening emergency. Someone with a true milk allergy must avoid all dairy, including lactose-free products, because the problem is the protein, not the sugar.

Timing and symptoms offer clues: allergy reactions often begin within minutes and can involve skin or breathing; intolerance symptoms are digestive and typically appear 30 minutes to 2 hours after eating. But clues aren’t diagnoses, and self-diagnosis leads many people to restrict their diets unnecessarily — or to miss something that isn’t dairy-related at all.

When to see a doctor:

• Any reaction involving hives, swelling of the lips or face, wheezing, or trouble breathing after dairy — seek emergency care immediately if breathing is affected.
• Digestive symptoms that persist even after you remove dairy, since conditions like celiac disease and irritable bowel syndrome can mimic lactose intolerance.
• Symptoms in an infant or young child, including rashes, blood in stool, or poor weight gain — never restrict a child’s diet without professional guidance.
• Unintended weight loss, persistent diarrhea, or blood in stool at any age, which warrant evaluation regardless of suspected cause.

A clinician can sort this out with a careful history and, when needed, breath tests or supervised allergy testing. It’s a quick appointment that can save you years of unnecessary avoidance — or catch something that matters.

How much milk should you drink in a day?

Here’s a fact that surprises people: official answers to this question differ by country, and the differences are revealing. U.S. dietary guidelines suggest adults consume about three cup-equivalents of dairy daily — milk, yogurt, or cheese combined. The NHS in the United Kingdom recommends including some dairy or fortified alternatives but sets no specific amount. Several other countries land somewhere between. When expert committees looking at the same evidence reach different numbers, that tells you the evidence supports a range, not a magic figure.

The more useful anchor is calcium. Most adults need around 1,000 milligrams a day, rising to 1,200 for women over 50 and everyone over 70, per the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. A cup of milk covers roughly a quarter of that. So the honest answer to “how much milk?” is: however much it takes, combined with the rest of your diet, to reach adequate calcium — which for many people is one to two cups, and for people eating lots of yogurt, cheese, greens, tofu, or fortified foods may be zero.

A reasonable framework by life stage:

• Toddlers (1–2 years): whole milk is a recommended staple after weaning.
• Children and teens: the highest-value years for dairy, during peak bone building; two to three servings of dairy or fortified alternatives daily is typical guidance.
• Adults: zero to three servings all defensible, depending on the rest of the plate.
• Adults over 65: milk’s easy protein and calcium regain value as appetites shrink and muscle loss accelerates.

Anything beyond about three daily servings adds calories without adding evidence-backed benefit.

Are plant milks healthier than dairy milk?

The refrigerated aisle now devotes as much space to oat, almond, and soy as to cow’s milk, and the marketing implies the plant versions are upgrades. Nutritionally, they’re not upgrades or downgrades — they’re different products that happen to share a color, and the differences are bigger than most shoppers realize.

Per 8-oz cup (unsweetened)	Protein	Calories (approx.)	Notes
Cow’s milk (2%)	8 g	120	Naturally rich in calcium, B12, iodine, potassium
Soy milk	6–8 g	80–100	Closest plant match; usually fortified
Oat milk	2–3 g	90–120	Creamy; more carbohydrate; check for added sugar
Almond milk	1 g	30–40	Very low calorie; minimal protein
Rice milk	<1 g	110–120	Lowest allergy risk; lowest protein

Protein is the headline difference: soy is the only common plant milk that approaches dairy, which is why pediatric guidance treats fortified soy as the standard dairy substitute for children. Almond and rice milks are, protein-wise, closer to flavored water.

Fortification is the second issue. Cow’s milk carries its calcium and B12 naturally; plant milks only match it when manufacturers add those nutrients, and unsweetened or organic versions sometimes skip fortification. Shake the carton, too — added calcium settles at the bottom. And watch labels for added sugar, which some flavored plant milks carry in soda-adjacent amounts.

Choose whichever suits your ethics, digestion, and taste. Just read the panel, because “plant-based” describes an ingredient source, not a health guarantee.

What about raw milk and other trending milk claims?

A quick tour through claims you’ll meet online, held up against the evidence.

Raw (unpasteurized) milk. Advocates say pasteurization destroys nutrients and enzymes; the evidence says pasteurization’s nutritional cost is trivial while its safety benefit is enormous. Raw milk can carry Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria, and Campylobacter, and the CDC documents outbreaks tied to it regularly, with children, pregnant women, and older adults at highest risk of severe illness. No claimed benefit of raw milk has held up in controlled research well enough to justify that risk. Pasteurized milk is the evidence-based choice, full stop.

“Milk is inflammatory.” This claim collapses under actual data. Systematic reviews of controlled trials have found dairy consumption has neutral to mildly anti-inflammatory effects on measured markers in most people. Those with a true milk allergy are the exception — for them, milk genuinely provokes an immune response — but extrapolating that to everyone misreads the science.

“Milk causes acne.” Here there’s a modest signal worth acknowledging: some observational studies have linked milk, particularly skim, with acne in teenagers, possibly through hormonal pathways. The evidence is limited and inconsistent — enough for a teen with stubborn acne to discuss a trial of reduction with a dermatologist, not enough to indict milk broadly.

“Milk produces mucus.” Blinded studies have repeatedly failed to show milk increases mucus production, though its texture can create a coating sensation people interpret that way. Perception is real; the physiology isn’t.

The pattern across all four: milk attracts strong claims, and the truth is almost always milder than the headline.

The pros and cons of drinking milk, honestly weighed

Set the slogans aside and milk’s ledger looks like this.

What milk genuinely offers:

• An efficient, inexpensive package of complete protein, calcium, iodine, potassium, riboflavin, and B12 — nutrients many diets run short on.
• Real value during peak bone-building years and again in older adulthood, when protein needs rise and appetites often fall.
• Convenience: no preparation, wide availability, and easy incorporation into meals people already eat.
• A strong safety record at moderate intakes across decades of large-scale research.

What counts against it:

• Most of the world’s adults digest it poorly, and the discomfort is real even if harmless.
• Its signature promise — fracture prevention in adults — is not well supported beyond simple calcium adequacy.
• Whole-milk versions carry saturated fat and calories that matter for people managing LDL cholesterol or weight.
• Very high intakes raise unresolved questions, including the modest prostate cancer signal in some studies.
• Milk allergy, though mostly a pediatric issue, makes dairy genuinely unsafe for a small group.

Notice what’s not on either list: miracle benefits or hidden poisons. The strongest evidence-based statement about milk is also the least dramatic one — it’s a nutritious food that most people can take or leave. In an information environment that rewards extreme claims, that kind of boring truth is worth defending. Environmental and ethical considerations may also weigh into your decision; those are legitimate factors, just separate from the health question this article set out to answer.

So — is milk good for you? A verdict, with the caveats attached

After a century of slogans and counter-slogans, here’s where the evidence lands: milk is good for many people, in moderate amounts, in the context of an otherwise sound diet — and unnecessary for anyone who prefers to get its nutrients elsewhere. Every qualifier in that sentence is doing real work.

If we’re allowed an editorial opinion, it’s this: the most damaging thing about the milk debate isn’t either side’s claims — it’s the framing that any single food can make or break your health. The research is unambiguous that dietary patterns, not individual items, drive outcomes. A diet built on vegetables, whole grains, legumes, fish, and nuts is excellent with milk in it and excellent without. A diet built on ultra-processed food isn’t rescued by three virtuous glasses a day.

Practical translation. Enjoy milk if you tolerate and like it; one to two cups daily sits well within the evidence. Lean toward lower-fat versions if LDL cholesterol is a concern. If dairy disagrees with you, use lactose-free milk, yogurt, aged cheese, or fortified alternatives — and if you skip dairy entirely, be deliberate about calcium, B12, and iodine, checking labels on plant milks for fortification and protein. Give children and teens particular attention, since their bone-building window doesn’t come back. And if milk seems to cause symptoms, get them properly evaluated rather than guessing.

The century-old question turns out to have a grown-up answer: not “good” or “bad,” but “fine, useful for some, optional for all.” That won’t fit on a lunch-tray carton. It has the advantage of being true.

Frequently asked questions

Is it good to drink milk every day?

For people who digest it comfortably, one to two cups of milk daily is a safe, nutrient-dense habit backed by decades of research showing no harm at moderate intakes. It’s most valuable for children, teens, and older adults. It isn’t required, though — large studies find adults who skip milk are just as healthy when they get calcium, protein, and B12 from other foods.

Should adults stop drinking milk?

No — there’s no evidence that healthy adults who tolerate milk benefit from quitting it. Mainstream research shows moderate adult milk consumption is neither clearly protective nor harmful for most outcomes. Adults who feel bloated or unwell after dairy shouldn’t force it down, since equivalent nutrients are available from lactose-free dairy, fortified soy milk, tofu, leafy greens, and canned fish with bones. Comfort and preference can legitimately decide this one.

How much milk should you drink in a day?

There’s no single required amount. U.S. guidelines suggest about three cup-equivalents of total dairy daily, while the UK’s NHS sets no specific figure. A practical target is calcium adequacy — roughly 1,000 milligrams for most adults — of which one cup of milk supplies about a quarter. One to two cups daily fits most diets well, and more than three servings adds calories without documented extra benefit.

What are the main pros and cons of drinking milk?

Pros: milk is an inexpensive, convenient source of complete protein, calcium, iodine, potassium, and B12, especially valuable during bone-building youth and in older age. Cons: most of the world’s adults digest lactose poorly, whole-milk versions add saturated fat relevant to cholesterol management, adult fracture prevention is weaker than advertised, and very high intakes raise unresolved research questions. For most people, moderate intake captures the benefits and avoids the concerns.

Is whole milk or skim milk healthier?

It depends on your goals. Skim delivers virtually identical protein, calcium, and vitamins with about half the calories and almost no saturated fat, making it the cautious pick for people managing LDL cholesterol or weight — and the choice the American Heart Association recommends. Some studies suggest whole-fat dairy isn’t linked to weight gain, but that evidence is observational and debated. Toddlers ages one to two should generally get whole milk.

Does milk really strengthen bones in adults?

Only up to the point of calcium adequacy. Milk reliably helps children and teens build peak bone mass, but large studies of adults have not found that higher milk intake prevents hip fractures. Once you’re getting enough calcium and vitamin D from any source, extra milk doesn’t buy extra bone. Weight-bearing exercise, adequate vitamin D, muscle strength, and not smoking matter at least as much for adult bone health.

Is milk inflammatory?

The evidence says no for most people. Systematic reviews of controlled trials have found dairy consumption has neutral to mildly favorable effects on measured inflammatory markers in people without milk allergy. The exception is true milk allergy, an immune reaction to milk proteins that genuinely triggers inflammation — but it affects a small minority, mostly young children. The popular claim that milk is broadly inflammatory isn’t supported by mainstream research.

How can I tell lactose intolerance from a milk allergy?

Lactose intolerance causes digestive symptoms — bloating, gas, cramps, diarrhea — typically 30 minutes to 2 hours after dairy, and is uncomfortable but not dangerous. Milk allergy is an immune reaction that often starts within minutes and can involve hives, swelling, vomiting, or wheezing; severe reactions are emergencies. Only a clinician can confirm which you have, using breath tests or supervised allergy testing, so see a doctor rather than self-diagnosing.

Are plant milks a good substitute for cow's milk?

They can be, if you choose carefully. Fortified soy milk is the closest nutritional match, with 6 to 8 grams of protein per cup versus dairy’s 8. Almond, oat, and rice milks contain far less protein — often 1 to 3 grams — and only supply calcium and B12 when fortified. Check labels for fortification and added sugar, shake the carton so settled calcium mixes in, and don’t assume plant-based means healthier.

Is raw milk healthier than pasteurized milk?

No. Claims that pasteurization destroys important nutrients haven’t held up in research — the nutritional differences are trivial. Meanwhile, raw milk can carry Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria, and Campylobacter, and the CDC documents illness outbreaks linked to it regularly. Children, pregnant women, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems face the highest risk of severe illness. Pasteurized milk offers essentially the same nutrition without the infection risk.

References

• NHS — Milk and dairy in your diet
• MedlinePlus — Lactose Intolerance

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult a qualified doctor about your individual situation.