1. Head to the Dairy Case
There are a number of reasons to choose dairy foods. Perhaps your diet is deficient in calcium or protein, or maybe you've read recent studies that have found increasing your dairy intake while trying to lose weight can help you drop the pounds faster. If you want to boost your dairy intake, head to the dairy case of your local supermarket. Even if you don't like to drink milk, a number of other dairy products are easy to add to your diet, such as string cheese, low-fat cream cheese, yogurt, ricotta cheese, cottage cheese and cheese cubes. Most are available in single-serving sizes, making it easy to pop a few into a purse or lunch bag to have on hand at snack times and for meals.
2. Read Labels
If you want to add more dairy to your diet, read the ingredients lists of packaged foods. You'll find that surprising numbers of items contain milk solids, dehydrated cheese, whey, milk proteins and other dairy-derived sources. However, if you need to increase your dairy intake significantly, you may want to focus on dairy foods that require refrigeration.
3. Discover Goat and Sheep's Milk Products
Not all dairy products come from cows. In fact, authentic mozzarella cheese is made from the milk of water buffaloes! If you want to eat more dairy products but find yourself bored with traditional options such as cheddar and jack cheeses and cow's milk, experiment with goat cheese (chevre), sheep's milk cheese and other exotic options. Most stores carry these cheeses in their specialty cheese section, which is often near the deli rather than on the dairy aisle where the more traditional cheeses are kept.
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