A cute slogan used by the milk companies in advertising was: “Milk… It does a body Good!” Cute and trendy slogan but not a necessarily correct one because some people suffer health problems from drinking milk. Oh! you say? Interesting thing to know since when it comes to foods one person’s food is another person’s poison.
Truth is milk is nature’s food for babies simply because they don’t have teeth and advanced digestive systems to handle regular food. When they can eat like the rest of the family there is really no further need for milk. Fact is milk is for babies and not adults. More importantly, cow’s milk is for calves; goat’s milk is for baby goats; mother’s milk is for human babies. We don’t see grown animals still nursing off their mothers.
What about my calcium? I can already hear this thought running in our mind. Let me ask you this: “Where does the cow get the calcium that ends up in the milk; does it come from their bones?” No, it comes from the grass they eat all day long. I am not saying you need to start eating grass, but you do have plenty of foods that are green and others that are rich in calcium.
Scientific studies have shown an assortment of detrimental health effects directly linked to milk consumption. And the most surprising link is that not only do we barely absorb the calcium in cow’s milk, especially from pasteurized milk; but to make matters worse, it actually increases calcium loss from the bones. That means there are studies that show that high milk drinking populations have a higher risk of fractures. Ironic isn’t it?!
Better to get the Calcium from vegetables than from milk; because there is also a lot of fiber or roughage that comes with vegetables that you do need. Along with Ca++ are many many other micro-nutrients not found in milk, so you can say using milk as a substitute for good diet of vegetables is denying the body from a full complement of other vitamins and minerals.
I thought it strange when I heard a young man tell me he is not a goat, when I suggested he eat less rice and more vegetables. That kind of thinking is severely mislead, unproductive and unhealthy to say the least. Visitors to the Philippines will notice and comment on how much rice and how little gulay (vegetables) everybody eats. So it’s no surprise to see a lot of low calcium situations.
That being said, milk is a whole food; meaning it has 40% carbohydrates, 30% fats and 30% protein. These are the correct food combining ratios our bodies need to maintain a healthy body. Problem, as noted above, is that we cannot survive and stay healthy on just milk. As adults, do we still need to drink milk? the short answer is NO! Will it hurt you if you do? That depends in your personal constitution. Should growing children still drink milk? Based on the information listed above the answer is still, no.
Lastly, many people are lactose intolerant, so milk will cause them digestive problems. Many people develop allergies to the proteins (Casein) in milk. FYI, milk has also been associated with these diseases: cancer, ovarian and prostate cancer, acne, and even as an early aging pro-inflammatory agent.
Well that’s a lot to swallow! Think about it. The things that often do us the must harm are the things that we believe to be true but in fact are not true. Milk could be classified as one of those things.
Yours in Health,
docMIKE
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