Dairy and Health

Do we need dairy products to be healthy?

All of our lives we were taught that we needed to drink milk in order to have strong bones and teeth. So we gulped the hell out of that shit. We wanted to be healthy and strong! That’s a no-brainer. Or so we were taught.

Nowadays, there are people questioning this age-old lesson. What are we really getting from drinking milk and consuming the myriad of dairy products? Is it necessary for humans to drink the milk of another animal (be it cow, goat, etc)?

The Dairy Industry would like for us to think so…

We all remember “Milk: it does a body good.” Everyone has seen the “Got Milk?” ads (unless you’ve been living under a rock) which began when I was only in 3^rd grade; and most people have seen the latest “Milk your Diet”/“24 Ounces in 24 Hours” campaign. All of these campaigns push milk as necessary for healthy bone and teeth function as the provider of essential calcium. The Dairy Industry also claims that consuming dairy products (to meet daily calcium intake requirements) prevents osteoporosis, are good for the heart, and that milk isn’t bad for cholesterol (1). They spend a lot of money on large-scale advertising campaigns every year to tell all of us how necessary dairy is in our lives. They’ve spent $200 million on the “Milk Your Diet” campaign alone since 2003; compare this to the $2 million the US has spent on the “5 a Day” fruit/veg campaign and you get the picture (2). They’ve spent countless millions promoting the food pyramid and other dairy propaganda to schools (I’m sure all of you can remember getting your carton of milk in kindergarten and in the lunch line—in fact, it’s “required by law as part of the federally assisted meal plan” and it must be served with school lunch, according to USDA guidelines (3)).

You didn’t think anything of it. No one did. We also didn’t think anything of the fact that these dairy industries had a vested interest in making sure that everyone believed that they needed dairy—because they are in the business of selling dairy.

Such is the nature of indoctrination. Drinking milk (and consuming dairy products in general, for that matter) is a very powerfully ingrained habit. We were kids and we trusted our teachers and our parents. They grew up consuming dairy products and were told how necessary they were.

How necessary is dairy?

The Dairy Industry wants us all to believe that we need calcium for healthy and strong bones and teeth. This is true! But dairy is not the only source of dietary calcium. Just like the Meat Industry has led us all to believe that meat is the only source of complete proteins, the Dairy Industry has successfully hoodwinked us all into thinking that the calcium in dairy products is superior somehow. For example, in their “Milk Your Diet” campaign, they tout the weight-loss benefits of milk and dairy calcium (as opposed to supplemental calcium in studies—there was no mention of other sources of calcium, like vegetable calcium) as part of a low-calorie diet. (Riding the coattails of the success of various fad diets?) They’re even calling it a part of their “Campaign for Healthy Weight”.

The Good … and the Bad

What’s in it?

Well there’s got to be something good in milk for people to be so adamant about its necessity, right? Well, sort of.

On their website, www.whymilk.com, one can read the Industry’s “Key Vitamins and Minerals in Milk” fact-sheet, in which they list what is in milk: Calcium, Protein, Vitamins A, D & B12, Potassium, Riboflavin, Niacin and Phosphorus (what they don’t mention is that milk is usually fortified with Vitamin D, but that’s a non-sequitur), and these are all touted as beneficial nutrients that can all be found in this “wonder-drink”. Indeed, they are all important and necessary nutrients. I’ll briefly discuss calcium for now, since all of these nutrients could constitute an entire post of their own.

Calcium is a mineral—it comes from the ground. Cows get their calcium from grass. And in case you didn’t know, most dairy cows in the US are not even fed grass; they’re fed grains supplemented with calcium. I’m sorry but that seems a little backwards to me. We’re ostensibly supposed to drink cow’s milk for its calcium, but cows get theirs from grass. I’m not saying we should all eat grass, but wouldn’t it make a little more sense if we went to the source and got the calcium ourselves without the middleman, er, cow? (And in case you were wondering, the cows you see grazing are usually beef cattle, so don’t try to argue).

Ok, so what else is in milk? Lactose is a sugar found in milk. I was aware that many (some say up to 85% of) humans are lactose intolerant, but I never made the connection that maybe this was somehow significant. I never thought that humans were intolerant to lactose for a reason, and I likened it to other food allergies. There is, in fact, a scientific reason for this intolerance: lactase. Lactase is an enzyme that babies make in order to digest lactose. Children stop making this enzyme by the time they are 5 years old, at which point they should be completely weaned off of their mother’s milk. In other words, as adults, we lack the physiological capability to effectively digest lactose—which is found in all dairy products (unless it has been chemically removed somehow, as in the case of “lactose-free” milks) (4). Lactase breaks lactose down into glucose and galactose, which are digestible to humans. But when lactose isn’t broken down, it causes the symptoms of lactose intolerance.

I can’t give the exact date that I really sat down and thought it through, but one day I realized, cows milk (and goats’ milk, and any other milk that humans consume, aside from human breast milk, for that matter) was not designed for human consumption. A cow makes milk for her baby (just like any other mammal), and that milk is loaded with the essential nutrients and hormones and antibodies that baby cows need. Not baby humans. And definitely not adult humans. We are the only species that drinks the milk of another species. And we are also the only species that drinks milk as adults. Doesn’t this seem weird to anyone else?

Aside from the weird factor, how about the gross factor. People don’t realize there is something else lurking in cows’ milk: somatic cells (5). In other words, pus from cow udders, leaking from infections stemming from the use of bovine growth hormones. These growth hormones cause dairy cows to produce more milk than they are really equipped to produce or store, resulting in engorged udders. These udders are usually dragged on the ground (through fecal matter, mind you), causing painful infections know as mastitis. The pus from these infections contains bacteria, including paratuberculosis bacteria, which many researchers believe to be the cause of Crohn’s Disease. In order to attempt to combat the amount of somatic cells that end up in the milk supply, farmers give cows large doses of antibiotics—which also end up in milk.

Another thing that is artificially given to cows is rBGH, recombinant bovine growth hormone. This hormone causes the concentration of Insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) in cow’s milk. This is a problem because IGF-Is in cows and humans are identical. Research has shown that these growth factors stimulate the proliferation of various types of cancer. There is also a link between rBGH treated milk and early puberty/early menopause. Milk treated with rBGH is indistinguishable from real milk, and it is also not required to be labeled that it contains rBGH (6).

And cows are also frequently given steroids to bulk them up.

Tasty tasty

As for taste, I won’t lie, I consumed dairy almost my entire life and I loved the hell out of it. Cheese, milk, butter (butter was my favorite food, no lie), yogurt, cream cheese, ice cream, cottage cheese, etc etc. I loved all of it. It tastes good.

There’s a scientific reason for that. Casein, one of the proteins found in milk, has been shown to be an addictive substance. (Cheese, especially so, since it is more concentrated with casein). Casein breaks down into casomorphines, which are similar to morphine (they have an opiate effect). These types of substances are found in all milks in order to encourage young to return for more milk. There is also the idea that high-fat foods, “comfort foods”, like dairy products/cheese, are also extremely addicting (7).

Connections between dairy and diseases (of affluence)

Lactose intolerance causes diarrhea, nausea, abdominal cramps, bloating and gas (8).

Other intestinal maladies are strongly correlated with consumption of cow’s milk, such as Chron’s Disease (9) and IBS (10).

But consumption of cow’s milk is also linked to a host of other diseases, including anemia, breast cancer, diabetes, early puberty, heartburn, heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, kidney stones, lymphoma, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, (early) menopause, migraines, Multiple Sclerosis, obesity, osteoporosis, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, sinus problems, stroke, testicular cancer, tuberculosis, uterine cancer and even acne (11; 12; 13; 14).

The Big Calcium Question

So, where do we get our calcium from, then, if not from milk? Like I mentioned before, cow’s get their calcium from grass. Dark, leafy vegetables are excellent sources of calcium. This is a table of the calcium content of various (vegan) foods: Calcium Table. As you can see, there are many sources of non-dairy calcium.

You might have noticed that the chart included the amount of calcium in certain serving sizes. So, another question is, how much calcium is enough? The World Health Organization says they recommend 400-500mg of calcium per day. However, Japan and Korea both recommend 600mg/day and the US government recommends 1000mg for adults (1200 for those over 51). Who is correct? Why does the US government recommend so much more (more than twice the daily recommendation of the WHO)? Since in the US the primary source of calcium is dairy calcium, a higher amount is necessary due to the calcium-leaching affects of the protein found in dairy. Without getting too technical, animal protein causes an increase in the acid quality in blood. Calcium is used to neutralize the blood, and it is leached from the bones to do so (this is a cause of osteoporosis, by the way) (15). So in other words, the US Government recommends more calcium because the American diet is so heavy in animal proteins, resulting in a need for more calcium to replace that lost by acid-causing animal protein. (Another silly cycle, if you ask me. Why not just avoid the animal proteins altogether, then you don’t have to worry about getting twice as much calcium as you actually need?)

Ok, now what?

Well, now that we all know just how lame, er, unhealthy, consuming dairy products is, the next logical step is to stop consuming them! Unless you like to live dangerously or something. In which case, I would recommend doing something that wouldn’t potentially cause you to suffer from a debilitating disease when you get old.

How many people do you know with any of the diseases I mentioned above? How many people do you know who do not have high cholesterol or high blood pressure? Or are overweight? Personally, my mom has MS, her mom has diabetes and her dad died from a heart attack. Is dairy really the common thread? I really think so.

Sources:

(1): http://www.vegansociety.com/html/people/health/dairyproducts.php

(2): http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Practical/Health/dairyads.htm

(3): http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44863-2002Apr13?language=printer

(4): http://www.compassionatecooks.com/podcast.htm – calcium podcast 3/17/2006 – Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

(5): http://www.milksucks.com/pus.asp

(6): http://www.notmilk.com/g.html

(7): http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1594/is_2_15/ai_n6126307

(8): http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/lactose-intolerance/DS00530/DSECTION=2

(9): http://www.notmilk.com/c.html

(10): http://www.notmilk.com/forum/487.html

(11): http://www.notmilk.com/