My wife and I both take calcium supplements, in my case two tablets of calcium citrate with vitamin D in the morning and two sometime later in the day. (Lynnette takes two and then three).  Each has 630 milligrams of calcium and 500 IU of vitamin D.  I haven't had a bone density test; hers was slightly on the low side originally and has improved more recently. We're both small-boned and in our late sixties, so the supplements make sense.

How about dairy products? Well Lynnette has no problem with drinking milk and usually has a small glass of it daily + pours some on her cereal.  I'm lactose-intolerant, i.e, lactase deficient, so I use soy milk on my cereal and often eat a bowl of cereal at two of my three meals, especially if I'm on my diet. Today, I weighed 148.4 pounds, so I'm at or even slightly below my goal weight, and can eat a bigger lunch if I want to (we're invited out for a bison dinner, so I may not).

There was an interesting article on lactose-intolerance in The Wall Street Journal recently (Health & Wellness Thursday, February 16, 2010, page D3. Dr. Eric Sibley, a Professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, is quoted as saying while most people lose the ability to produce lactase in large quantities as they grow up, a majority still secrete some lactase.

For those who still can produce lactase, stopping diary ingestion entirely is counter- productive. Our gut bacteria can be trained, apparently, to tolerate more dairy if exposed to it on a regular basis. On the other hand, if you stop consuming all dairy products when you first diagnose yourself as lactose-intolerant, your bowel bacteria get less efficient in their lactose handling.

Some dairy products, cheese and ice cream among them, have been processed and, as a result, tend to contain less lactose. Other foods have lactose added to them (some cookies in particular).

Dr. Sibley said most of us who are lactose-intolerant can drink one or two glasses of milk a day without symptoms. We all need calcium, so it makes sense to have some cheese and milk regularly and perhaps even a little ice cream as a special treat occasionally.

A few people have a true allergy to milk that's not caused by lactose; instead of gas and bloating, they develop abdominal pain and may have bloody stools after drinking milk. Those folk can't safely follow Dr. Sibley's advice for the rest of us. As for me, I may attempt to retrain my gut bacteria to do their best with lactose-containing products; I'll go have a small glass of milk right now.

The Wall Street Journal had three health-related articles today 2-15-2010). Since I'm lactose-intolerant I read one on that subject first and may blog about it in the future. One had nothing to do with diets, but dealt instead with winter asthma. The third article was titled "Why Some Foods Are Riskier Today." That one really got my full attention. It talked about food-borne illnesses which affect 76 million people a year in America (and that's only the ones that get reported). Most are not severe, but nearly a third of a million lead to hospitalization and 5,000 of those affected die.

Well some of the apparent recent increase in these food-related cases may be due to better detection and reporting; lots are due to three major causes: new "bugs" that can lead to sickness;  consumers desire for raw foods which have not been treated to remove bacteria and food imported from areas of the world whose food-safety regulations aren't as stringent.

Many of us want to have the wide variety of food items year round that we can buy from local sources only in season. This may increase our menu choices, but also can lead to consumption of dangerously tainted vegetables and other foods. Over the past three years my wife and I have become more and more "locovores," people who basically eat things produced in our area. That does limit when we can have mangoes or rambutans or other fruits and vegetables, but it also supports local agriculture and, at the same time, makes our diets safer.

I've also given up on my formerly nearly rare hamburgers and purchased grass-finished (non-feedlot) bison, lamb and beef from local and regional growers. Our dairy products come from a farm about eight miles northwest of us.

I see this as a trend in our area. There are more farmer's markets, more opportunities to purchase locally grown/raised foods, more awareness of the risks of our mass-production food industry.

They may cost a bit more, but frequently the taste is better and clearly the risk is lower. it's worth the small amount more that I pay. An often added benefit is being able to buy heirloom tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables that we don't usually see in the supermarket.  To whatever extent is possible for you, I'd suggest becoming a locovore; it's a habit you'll find healthy and tasty.