I was looking in my fridge the other day and although I just wanted a glass of something cold and a snack, I suddenly became confused and suspicious. As I reached for the juice, I wondered: Is it pure? Does it have any artificial coloring? Perhaps I should just grab a can of pop. Uh oh, too much sugar. What about a slice of cheese? Constipation! I know, I’ll just have a glass of milk, nature’s perfect food. But wait! Didn’t I read something about milk being not so perfect anymore? (“What’s the matter with milk?” ) “Milk, What a Surprise,” is the tag line from the National Fluid Milk Processors, the add agency for America’s Dairy Industry.
The point of that phrase is obvious: Milk Mustaches are stylish. Milk makes you strong and beautiful. Models, actors, actresses, sports stars, and singers like Britney Spears all have campaigned for milk. When you look up all you see are their broad smiles with milk mustaches with the catch phrase, “Got Milk?” These campaigns give us the impression that Americans need milk. Americans love milk. Rumor ahs it that by drinking milk can to be beneficial to your health.
It has been said that by drinking milk, you reduce your risk of osteoporosis, hypertension, and colon cancer. It has also been shown that milk reduces the risk of kidney stones. “A recent epidemiological study of more than 81, 000 women with no history of kidney stones links intake of nonfat milk with decreased risk of colon cancer.” (“Newer Knowledge of Dairy Foods”) Today, there are so many different types of different milk that satisfy consumers taste, nutrition, and health. These milks vary in fat content and lactose content.
Some have different types of vitamins or even calcium. There is whole milk, which contains about 3. 25% milk fat and 8. 25% solids-not-fat. It is optional to add vitamins A and D. Low fat milk contains 0.
5, 1. 5, or 2% milk fat and about 8. 25% solids-not-fat. Fat free milk, also called skim milk, contains less than 0. 5% milk fat and about 8. 25% solids-not-fat.
Vitamin A has to be added but it is optional to add Vitamin D. “Milk is made up of 87. 4% water and 12. 6% milk solids (3. 7% fat, 8. 9% milk solids-not-fat).
The milk solids-not-fat contain protein (3. 4%), lactose (4. 8%), and minerals (0. 7%).” (Newer Knowledge of Dairy Foods, 5) There are also many types of specialty milks, which are what I like to call fake milk. One type is reduced lactose milk. In this type of milk, a lot of the lactose content in milk is extracted.
This milk is made at a processing plant by adding the liquid enzyme lactase to pasteurized milk and storing it for 24 hours. After that is done, it has to go through many more processes so that it has 99. 9% of its lactose hydrolyzed. That is when milk is considered lactose free. (Oski, 1) Then there are imitation and substitute milks. According to the U.
S. Food and Drug Administration, this type of milk does not meet the nutritional standard of real milk. That is why it is called imitation milk. There is also organic milk. Organic milk comes from cows that have been fed and raised without the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, antibiotics, and hormones. (Newer Knowledge Of Dairy Foods, 2) There are so many more, but my thought is, if so much is being done to natural milk, why is it still considered milk? Although store bought milk is totally fake, there are other negative aspects to milk.
Milk can get you sick. Not sick with something simple like a cold, but sick as in deadly sick. There are eight great reasons to eliminate milk from your diet. Jennifer Keller, a nutritionist from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine confirms that theory.
have been shown to cause chronic ear infection in kids. Milk has also been shown to cause children to have asthma. Not only has it been shown to give men prostate cancer but it also can cause ovarian cancer in women. Although milk companies say that milk prevents osteoporosis, is has not been clinically proven. Its amazing that a major company can endorse something so deadly. Milk is overly praised for preventing osteoporosis, but clinical research shows otherwise.
The Harvard Nurses’ Health Study followed 75, 000 women for 12 years. The study showed that drinking milk did not protect these women from fracture risk. Other studies were done like the one above and they all had the same end result. Milk plays a big role in contributing cholesterol and fat to your diet. When your diet is high in fat you increase your risk of getting cardiovascular disease.
The consumption of milk has been linked to a lot of cancers, such as ovarian cancer. “The milk sugar lactose is broken down in the body into another sugar, glactose. In turn, glactose is broken down further enzymes… when dairy product consumption exceeds the enzyme capacity to break down glactose, it can build up in the blood and may affect a woman’s ovaries.” (What’s Wong with Dairy Products, 1) Lactose intolerance is a very common problem. It affects approximately 95 percent of Asian Americans, 74 percent of Native Americans, 70 percent of African Americans, 53 percent of Mexican Americans, and 15 percent of Caucasians.
Drinking milk does not always give you all of the Vitamin D that you need in your diet. Some samples have been figured to have 500 times the indicated level of Vitamin D, while others had little or none at all. (What’s Wrong with Dairy Products, 3) “Too much Vitamin D can be toxic and may result in excess calcium levels in the blood and urine, increased aluminum absorption in the body, and calcium deposits in soft tissue.” (What’s Wrong with Dairy Products, 3) Usually, synthetic hormones are used in dairy cows to increase the production of milk. Because the cow is producing more milk than they are supposed to, the cow develops mastitis, which is the inflammation of the mammary glands. The treatment for that is antibiotics and the antibiotics gets into the milk. Pesticides and other drugs are also frequently found in milk.
It has been found that milk sparks an auto-immune reaction, which is believed to be what destroys the insulin-producing cell of the pancreas. Insulin dependent diabetes is linked to drinking milk. (What’s Wrong With Dairy Products, 2) Proteins, sugar, fat and saturated fat in milk have been shown to be dangerous for children because those are the leading causes for chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. It has been recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics that children under a year old not be given cows milk because the child may suffer from iron deficiency because cows milk is low in iron. There is also a concern that the child may develop colic.
Many allergies have been linked to drinking milk. Milk also has been shown to cause constipation in children. (What’s Wrong With Dairy Products, 4). Milk has also been shown to cause certain types of cancer like breast cancer and ovarian cancer. An example of the effects on milk on cancer comes from Your Life in Your Hands by Jane Plant. In this book, Jane Plant, the Chief Scientist of the British Geological Survey, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She went into remission five times already and was getting the symptoms of her cancer back the fifth time. Because the cancer was not healing, the doctors told her of the possible reasons she may have cancer. The factors involved in breast cancer are a genetic predisposition, total lifetime exposure to the female hormone estrogen, total animal fat consumption, personality type, and stress. (Plant, 6) After being told that, she quickly went over all of these factors. First, she thought about her genetic predisposition.
She came to the realization that this did not apply to her because none of her family members suffered with any type of cancer. When she thought about the estrogen factor, she realized that it’s “more likely that estrogen promotes breast cancer only when another more fundamental factor, or factors, has caused the body’s chemistry to malfunction.” (same, 69) Her fat intake was fairly low because for the majority of her life, she ate healthy. So that factor did not apply to her. “American psychotherapist Lawrence LeSh an has suggested that the type of person who internalizes stress is more likely to suffer from cancer.” (same, 69) Plant said that yes, she suffered from stress, but not more than the average person. So that couldn’t be the reason, or else everyone would have cancer. After going through all of the factors, she realized that none of them really applied to her.
She “felt that, somewhere there had to be another factor,” (same, 70) that she had to find. Then something happened, Plant’s husband went to China and brought her back herbal suppositories that were supposed to help with her cancer. When she got the suppositories, she thought they must work because; a lot less people have cancer in China than in America. So she began to think Why? After studying Chinese habits, a light went off in her head, “The Chinese don’t eat dairy products!” (same, 78) So after realizing that, she decided to try giving up all dairy products. That included cheese, butter, milk, yogurt, and anything else containing milk. The results were remarkable: Within days, the lump started to shrink.
About two weeks after my second chemotherapy session and one week after I gave up dairy products, the lump in my neck started to itch, and then it began to soften and to reduce in size. The line on the graph, which had shown no change, was now pointing downward as the tumor got smaller. And very significantly, I noted that instead of declining exponentially [… ] as cancer is meant to do, the tumor’s decrease in size plotted on a straight line headed off the bottom of the graph, indicating a cure, not just suppression or remission of the tumor. (Plant, 81-82) It is amazing that a substance so natural as milk was the cause of her cancer. After all of this, I have realized that milk is not nature’s “perfect drink” after all.
When you think you are drinking the natural milk, you ” re drinking chemically altered stuff. Not only is the milk you ” re drinking totally fake, there is a chance that what you ” re drinking can make you sick enough to die. Now you tell me, is drinking milk really worth risking your health and life for? I think not. Works Cited De Grad pre, Elaine. “Building Strong Bones.” Ontario Milk Producers (November 2002).
18 Nov, 2002 Keller, Jennifer. Telephone interview. 18 November 2002. Newer Knowledge of Dairy Foods.
Illinois: National Dairy Council, 2000. Oski, Frank. Don’t Drink Your Milk. Argus Pub Inc, 1998.
Physicians Committee fro Responsible Medicine. What’s Wrong with Dairy Products. Washington, DC: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, 2001. Plant, Jane. Your Life in Your Hands: Understanding, Preventing and Overcoming Breast Cancer. New York: St.
Martins Press, 2000. “What’s the matter with milk?” LexisNexis Academic. 7 July 2002. The William and Anna Newman Library of Baruch College.
30 October 2002.