Virtually everyone has been congested at least one time in their lives while many of us have experienced that body’s production of mucus more often.

Growing up, I developed bronchitis twice a year at the changing of the seasons. I would have a constant cough that lasted for 2 solid weeks and then a persistent to lingering cough for another 2-4 weeks. On one occasion, we had moved to a different state and I saw a doctor not familiar with my history. When he heard me coughing and saw the intensity and duration of the coughing spell, his first diagnosis was whooping cough. Then my mom handed him a copy of my medical records and he relented that it was another case of bronchitis and put me on an antibiotic and cough medicine.

Every time I came down with bronchitis, my mom would make me stop having anything dairy. That was when I developed a taste for dry cereal in the morning. At school, I wasn’t allowed to drink milk with my lunch, per my mom and the school nurse. The worse part was, it also meant no ice cream.

Most all of my life, I’ve heard that drinking milk helps produce more mucus, which in turn makes colds, flu, bronchitis and other respiratory infections worse. When my daughters developed bronchitis, we cut out the milk. When my wife gets really congested with her sinuses, she tries to cut out as much milk and dairy as possible. Every doctor we ever had for us or the kids, always said to cut out all dairy when we had any kind of congestion.

Have we been doing the right thing or not? Is it a myth or fact (mandate) that milk makes the body produce more mucus?

According to a recent report:

“The myth is so persistent that some parents have stopped giving milk to children with chronic respiratory conditions, such as asthma and cystic fibrosis, out of concern that drinking milk might make it harder for their children to breathe.”

“But the milk-mucus connection is simply a myth, said review author Dr. Ian Balfour-Lynn, a pediatric pulmonologist at Royal Brompton Hospital in London. And when people take this myth as true medical advice, it could have serious consequences: Not giving milk to children can make it challenging for them to get enough calcium, vitamins and calories, Balfour-Lynn said. Children who don’t drink enough milk are also more prone to fractures and shorter stature, studies show.”

“It’s unclear exactly when the milk myth got started. It’s possible that it came from Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), a philosopher and doctor who wrote that milk causes “a stuffing in the head.” Moreover, traditional Chinese medical texts have linked dairy consumption with “a humidifying effect and thicker phlegm,” Balfour-Lynn wrote in the review, which was published online yesterday (Sept. 6) in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.”

So, parents, milk is not the evil mucus maker we all thought it was.

However, don’t rely on just milk for calcium for your kids or yourselves. Yes, milk contains lots of calcium, but it’s not all available to use. If you drink raw milk, which all of the medical world says not to, you will get lots of calcium that your body can use. When milk is commercially processed, a significant portion of the calcium is altered making it virtually useless to the human body.

Therefore, its important to eat other calcium rich foods such as yogurt, cheese, eggs, leafy green veggies, spinach, broccoli, kelp (seaweed), okra, sardines, soybeans, white (Navy, kidney, great northern, cannellini and baby lima) beans, kefir (especially good for lactose intolerance), oranges, rainbow trout, salmon, figs, almonds, kale, tofu, rapini, Chinese cabbage, amaranth grain, sesame seeds, chia seeds, edamame, sweet potato, butternut squash, sunflower seeds, rhubarb, green beans and black-eyed peas.