Nutrition

Diary products: 25 Reasons to avoid them

Thursday 23^rd April 2009 - 21:42

In the Western world we believe that milk is good for health: it contains a lot of calcium that is good for bones and proteins to grow. But this dogma is not shared by all health professionals, neither in all countries.

In the Eastern world they are not used to drink milk, at least, this habit hasn’t traditionally existed until the dairy industry went there and tried to convince them to do so.

Recently a lot of research has been done to find out about the origin of Western civilization diseases: obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, etc, diseases that have a very low rate in Eastern countries. There are several theories that incriminate the bad quality of our nutrition: too much fat, too much sugar, too much refined food, and a new one: too much milk. Milk is said also to be the cause of respiratory problems in children.

Photo by nkzs

Naturopathy, homeopathy and other therapists of the alternative medicine consider that milk and diary products are not healthy. Several researches and recent stats confirm this theory.

In Chinese medicine milk is humid and cold. If we eat too much diary products we are going to get our body wet and cold. Some people have not enough body fire and that’s going to make them frozen, on the other side, some other people that have too much fire will help them. This artificial raising of wet cold induce respiratory problems, like rhinitis, repeated rhinopharyngitis, gynaecologic problems and a extreme sensibility to cold and wet weather.

In Naturopathy, there are a lot of reasons for not consuming diary products, following you can find some of them:

Industrial process

1.- Our common sense tells us that milk is for babies and in the nature adult individuals never feed milk of their females and much less from other species. Once is milked, it begins to be spoiled very fast. So diary industry has to submit milk to a set of industrial processes: pasteurization, homogenization, frozen, sterilization, uperization, drying, aseptic, long conservation, addition of pesticides, addition of herbicides, antibiotic treatment, and other process that destroy the quality of milk.

Breast Milk

2.- Milk is not just milk. The milk of every species of mammal is unique and specifically tailored to the requirements of that animal. For example, cows' milk is very much richer in
protein than human milk. Three to four times as much. It has five to seven times the mineral content. However, it is markedly deficient in essential fatty acids when compared to human mothers' milk. Mothers' milk has six to ten times as much of the essential fatty acids, especially linoleic acid.. It simply is not designed for humans.

3.- A huge study showed that human breast milk in over 14,000 women had contamination by pesticides. Further, it seems that the sources of the pesticides are meat and dairy products. These pesticides are concentrated in fat and that's what's in these products.

4.- There are dozens of studies describing the prompt appearance of cows' milk allergy in children being exclusively breast-fed. The cows' milk allergens simply appear in the mother's milk and are transmitted to the infant: “Cow's Milk as a Cause of Infantile Colic Breast-Fed Infants”. Lancet 2 (1978): 437; “Dietary Protein-Induced Colitis in Breast- Fed Infants”, J. Pediatr. I01 (1982): 906; “The Question of the Elimination of Foreign Protein in Women's Milk” , J. Immunology 19 (1930): 15

Fat

5.- In the fatty acids of the milk, 62% are saturated fat, 30% are monounsaturated fat and 4% are polyunsaturated fat (the rest are different lipids). It has 2.5% to 6.4% of trans fatty acids, and 360 mg of cholesterol per 100 gr. The saturated fat causes obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular and inflammatory problems.

Antibiotiques, hormones, pesticides

6.- Any lactating mammal excretes toxins through her milk. This includes antibiotics, pesticides, chemicals and hormones.

7.- Fifty years ago an average cow produced 2,000 pounds of milk per year. Today the top producers give 50,000 pounds! How was this accomplished? Drugs, up to 52 antibiotics, 59 active hormones, forced feeding plans and specialized breeding. The latest high-tech onslaught on the poor cow is bovine growth hormone or BGH. This genetically engineered drug is supposed to stimulate milk production but, according to Monsanto, the hormone's manufacturer, does not affect the milk or meat. Other countries than USA have banned BGH because of safety concerns. BGH treatment produces an increase in IGF-1 in cow's milk. IGF-1 stimulates bone growth, but promotes the growth of cancer {Yu H. "Role of the insulin-like growth factor family in cancer development and progression."J Natl Cancer Inst. 2000 Sep 20; 92(18): 1472-89. }

A related problem is that it causes a marked increase (50 to 70 per cent) in mastitis. This, then, requires antibiotic therapy, and the residues of the antibiotics, appear in the milk. An article from France tells us that when a cow receives penicillin, that penicillin appears in the milk for from 4 to 7 milkings. Antibiotics, once in our intestine, destroy our intestinal flora and weaken our immune system.

Pus

8.- All cows' milk contains blood. The inspectors are simply asked to keep it under certain limits. The USDA allows milk to contain from one to one and a half million white blood cells per millilitre. White cells are the components of pus. It seems that cows are forever getting infections, because the growth hormone, around the udder that require ointments and antibiotics. Some studies correlate pus with teenager’s acne.

Lactose

9.- Lactose is the principal carbohydrate of milk. It seems that nature provides new-borns with the enzymatic equipment to metabolize lactose, but this ability often extinguishes by age 4 or 5 years. At least half of the adult humans on this earth are lactose intolerant. It was not until the relatively recent introduction of dairy herding and the ability to "borrow" milk from another group of mammals that the survival advantage of preserving lactase (the enzyme that allows us to digest lactose) became evident. Certain racial groups, namely blacks are up to 90% lactose intolerant as adults. Caucasians are 20 to 40% lactose intolerant. Orientals are
midway between the above two groups.

Casein

10.- Eighty percent of milk protein consists of casein, the same glue used to adhere a label to a bottle of beer and holds together wood in furniture. Casein is a foreign protein and your body reacts to its presence by creating an antibody. That antibody-antigen reaction creates histamines. Then mucus and phlegm are produced. Mucus congests internal body organs. A person lives his or her life with a gallon of mucus clogging the kidney, spleen, pancreas, tracheal-bronchial tree, lungs, thymus, etc.

Allergy

11.- Many children are milk-allergic but don’t know it. Reactions include runny noses, wheezing, coughing, ear infections, rashes and stomach upsets. When milk is withdrawn from their diet, symptoms improve or clear altogether, and reintroducing it leads to relapse in the majority. The chief culprits appear to be lactose and bovine protein.

Migraines

12.- Fifteen hours after ingesting a favourite dairy product, you might get one of those "Excedrin headaches" that keeps pounding and pounding so that there is no relief for many hours. Casein is an allergenic substance that causes the production of histamines resulting in mucus. For some people, the result is clogged sinuses. Blood becomes thicker as ventricles swell with substances battling foreign invading dairy proteins. Pressure on brain membranes--dura, arachnoid, pia--temporarily make life intolerable for migraine sufferers. "Dairy products may play a major role in the development of allergies, asthma, sleep difficulties, and migraine headaches." Pediatrics 1989;84(4):595-603

Ice creams and dioxin

13.- The level of dioxin in a single serving of the Ben & Jerry's World's Best Vanilla Ice Cream tested was almost 200 times greater than the "virtually safe [daily] dose" determined by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Calcium and osteoporosis

14.- "Dietary protein increases production of acid in the blood which can be neutralized by calcium mobilized from the skeleton." {American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1995;61,4}
A 1994 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Remer T, Am J Clin Nutr 1994;59:1356-61) found that animal proteins cause calcium to be leached from the bones and excreted in the urine.

"Consumption of dairy products, particularly at age 20 years, were associated with an increased risk of hip fractures... metabolism of dietary protein causes increased urinary excretion of calcium." {American Journal of Epidemiology 1994;139}

“The primary cause of osteoporosis is the high-protein diet most Americans consume today. As one leading researcher in this area” said, '[Eating a high-protein diet is like pouring acid rain on your bones.'--Dr. John McDougall The McDougall Program for Women (2000)

Animal protein, unlike plant protein, increases the acid load in the body. An increased acid load means that our blood and tissues become more acidic. The body does not like this acidic environment and begins to fight it. In order to neutralize the acid, the body uses calcium, which acts as a very effective base. This calcium, however, must come from somewhere. It ends up being pulled from the bones, and the calcium loss weakens them, putting them at greater risk for fracture.

15.- In Asian countries, for example, where consumption of dairy foods is low (and where women tend to be thin and small-boned, universally accepted risk factors for osteoporosis), fracture rates are much lower than they are in the United States and in Scandinavian countries, where consumption of dairy products is considerably higher. A study performed by researchers that work for the American diary industry, (National Diary Council) was giving to a group of women in menopause 8 cups of 25 cl of milk per day during 2 years. In another hand, another group of women in menopause didn’t drink any cup of milk during the same time. The drinking milk group consumed 1.400 mg of calcium per day and, at the end of the study, lose twice more bone mass than the non drinking milk group. The researchers said: “ the daily drink of milk makes increase a 30% the consummation of proteins, that can explain the damage in bones”.

16.- Another observation that may be helpful to our analysis is to note the absence of any recorded dietary deficiencies of calcium among people living on a natural diet without milk.
Eskimos have an exceptionally high protein intake estimated at 25 percent of total calories. They also have a high calcium intake at 2,500 mg/day. Their osteoporosis is among the worst in the world. The other instructive group is the Bantus of South Africa. They have a 12 percent protein diet, mostly plant protein, and only 200 to 350 mg/day of calcium, about half our women's intake. The women have virtually no osteoporosis despite bearing six or more children and nursing them for prolonged periods! When African women immigrate to the United States, do they develop osteoporosis? The answer is yes, but not quite are much as Caucasian or Asian women. Thus, there is a genetic difference that is modified by diet.

17.- The calcium in cow's milk is basically useless because it has insufficient magnesium content . Cows milk has three times the calcium as does human breast milk. No matter, neither are very usable because in order to be absorbed and used their must be an equal quantity of magnesium (as exists in the greens that cows eat to get all the calcium they need for their big bones). Milk has only enough magnesium to absorb around 11% (33mg per cup) of calcium.

Heart attack

18.- Two recent publications resulting from Framingham data indicate a positive correlation between cardiovascular disease mortality and blood serum levels of homocysteine. Bostom AG, et. al, “Nonfasting plasma total homocysteine levels and all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality in elderly Framingham men and women”. Arch Intern Med 1999;159:1077-1080. Bostom A.G., et. al, “Nonfasting plasma total homocysteine levels and stroke incidence in elderly persons: the Framingham Study”. Ann Intern Med 131[5], 352-355, 1999.

Japan

19.- While milk and dairy consumption increased by twenty-one times in Japan, from 1950 to 1975, cerebral vascular disease (strokes) increased 38 percent, heart disease increased 35 percent, breast cancer rates increased 77 percent, colon cancer increased 77 percent. Lung cancer increased by three hundred percent.

In 1950 the average Japanese girl had her first menstrual cycle at the age of 15.2 years. Twenty five years later, after a daily intake of estrogen and progesterone from milk, the average Japanese girl was ovulating at the age of 12.2 years, three years younger.

Cancer

20.- Ovarian cancer was associated with milk consumption by workers at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, New York. Drinking more than one glass of whole milk or equivalent daily gave a woman a 3.1 times risk over non-milk users.

21.- Another important study, this from the Harvard Medical School, analyzed data from 27 countries mainly from the 1970s. Again a significant positive correlation is revealed between ovarian cancer and per capita milk consumption. These investigators feel that the lactose component of milk is the responsible fraction, and the digestion of this is facilitated by the persistence of the ability to digest the lactose (lactose persistence) - a little different emphasis,
but the same conclusion. This study was reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology 130 (5): 904-10 Nov. 1989.

22.- The beverage habits of 569 lung cancer patients and 569 controls again at Roswell Park were studied in the International Journal of Cancer, April 15, 1989. Persons drinking whole milk 3 or more times daily had a 2-fold increase in lung cancer risk when compared to those never drinking whole milk.

Organic milk

23.- The healthiest milk from the healthiest cow is naturally loaded with lactoferrins, immunoglobulins, and growth hormones. Horizon's organic milk contains animal fat and cholesterol, dioxins, and bacteria. The amount of somatic cells (pus) in organic milk is lower than milk from non-organic cows, but it's still dead white blood cells and dead bacteria. Organic milk contains just a little bit less of the same hormones.

Diabetes

24.- Early exposure to milk proteins is accepted as the cause of diabetes. REPORT ON DIABETES AND MILK CONSUMPTION WED, 23 JUNE, 1999. The theory is that milk proteins in the cow's milk may trigger the child's immune system to attack it, along with similar looking BETA-cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Exposure to cow's milk protein early in life, when the intestinal tract is immature, sometimes results in the milk protein entering the blood stream where antibodies to this foreign substance, cow's milk, are made by the immune system. Unfortunately, these same antibodies also attack the insulin- producing cells of the pancreas. By glassful of milk after spoonful of ice cream, over a period of about 5 to 7 years, the child destroys his or her own pancreas.

Children deseases: Constipation, Rhinitis and Otitis

25.- The causal effects of cow's milk were clearly demonstrated in a study of 65 severely constipated children published in the New England Journal of Medicine. These boys and girls complained of only one bowel movement every 3 to 15 days and many didn't even respond to strong laxatives (lactulose and mineral oil). Forty-four of the 65 (68%) found relief of their constipation when taken off the cow's milk. Evidence of inflammation of the bowel was found on biopsy, and anal fissures and pain were commonly associated with the constipation "elimination of the cow's milk solved these problems." When cow's milk was reintroduced into their diet 8 to 12 months later, all of the children developed constipation within 5 to 10 days.

The multitude of snotty-nosed kids frequently visiting the pediatrician's office for ear infections also can be due to consuming the foreign proteins intended for calves. (22-25) In addition, these same children are likely to suffer from gastroesophageal reflux, asthma and/or eczema from their unnatural habit of drinking cow's milk.

Calcium Sources

To answer the obvious question, "Well, where do you get your calcium?" The answer is: "From exactly the same place the cow gets the calcium, from green things that grow in the ground," mainly from leafy vegetables. Carnivorous animals also do quite nicely without leafy plants. It seems that all of earth's mammals do well if they live in harmony with their genetic programming and natural food. Only humans living an affluent life style have osteoporosis.

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