I know this is an old thread but consider it a bump.

We have recently learnt a lot about dairy and its so called 'good' - 3 of the 6 of us have issues tolerating dairy so last year we decided enough was enough. While on our dietary reform we also decided to do away with meat and only occaisionally have fish.

We rarely eat any processed foods, have a huge amount of legumes, nuts and whole grains compared to before and eat and drink plenty of soy. The concern with soy is for under 2 year olds it cannot be used as a milk substitute i.e. Babies cannot drink full bottles of Soya milk in replacement if breast milk or formula bottles (*Soy milk based formulas are made for dairy intolerant bottle fed bubs*)

Far from losing weight our main concern (Daddy!) has put on a bit of healthy weight. looks 5 years younger at least and has not had any major depressive episodes since the dietary change. Our 2 children (both of whom have always been in the underweight category) are tolerating ALL food far better than before and the younger one has started gaining weight slowly (about 1.5kg in 4 months for the 2.5yr old) the 11yr old has not gained weight but is feeling healthier and not complaining of stomach pain, which was previously so accute it lead to many tests including an endoscopy.

I have lost more than 10kg since changing our diet which for a very obese person has been very encouraging, even with a back injury (meaning limited to no movement) I continued to lose weight.

We found a lot of conflicting opinion on the net about getting rid of dairy but two things I found very good were the new "Healthy Eating Plate" by Harvard school of Public Health - Healthy Eating Plate - The Nutrition Source - Harvard School of Public Health It states "Limit milk/dairy" and is not included 'on' the plate as such.

And by far the most convincing and researched info we came across was by Amazing Discoveries and it is a (long) video called Udderly Amazing - 304 - Udderly Amazing - Amazing Discoveries TV If you need to justify your dairy rejection to anyone this is the way to back it up, it is worth the long watch. They have quite a few health videos available.

All of the kids eat so much better, they are healthier, happier and surprise me more and more everyday. I used to LOVE my full fat latte and never thought I would give it up but I now love a decaf SOY latte and can't even stand the smell of the fatty milk coffees. Our kids eat all the veges we can buy, they try anything, of course we had resistance at the beginning, I remember a big girl crying over the insistance that soya milk be tried on cereal! But they took barely any time to adjust and we are all reaping the benefits.

Sarah