I have been trying to figure out this whole milk dilemma, I believe from reading The China Study and Dr Campbell’s research that its the protein in the milk that is the big problem. But after reading this article, there is so much more wrong with our milk supply. The safest bet, if you haven’t yet, is it to switch to soy, rice, or ALMOND milk.
My sweet cousin emailed me an article from the Harvard University Gazette -published in 2006. It is mind blowing to me that information like this can be found all over if you just do the research. The dairy industry spends millions a year on advertising to keep us believing how good this creamy white mucus filled substance is for our bodies. YUCK! It’s hard for me to believe that I spent 28 years of my life, eating what advertiser sold to me was “good for you”. I remember being pregnant with my second child and forcing myself to drink at least one glass of milk a day for all the added vitamin and calcium benefits. Lucky for me I have never liked milk, but what a joke that doctors are making sure we drink it as well. I felt like I was a bad mom for not taking care of the tiny growing baby inside me, because I didn’t have my 3-a-day! yikes!
Take the time do the research. You are in charge of your family and your health!
A few of my favorites parts from the article:
| Ganmaa Davaasambuu, a Mongolia-trained medical doctor, a Japan-trained Ph.D. in environmental health, and a current fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study: ‘The milk we drink today may not be nature’s perfect food. |
Hormones in milk can be dangerous
By Corydon Ireland
Harvard News Office
Ganmaa’s topic was lunch-appropriate: the suspected role of cow’s milk, cheese, and other dairy products in hormone-dependent cancers. (Those include cancers of the testes, prostate, and breast.)
“Among the routes of human exposure to estrogens, we are mostly concerned about cow’s milk, which contains considerable amounts of female sex hormones,” Ganmaa told her audience. Dairy, she added, accounts for 60 percent to 80 percent of estrogens consumed.
Milk from a cow in the late stage of pregnancy contains up to 33 times as much of a signature estrogen compound (estrone sulfate) than milk from a non-pregnant cow.
In a study of modern milk in Japan, Ganmaa found that it contained 10 times more progesterone, another hormone, than raw milk from Mongolia.
In traditional herding societies like Mongolia, cows are milked for human consumption only five months a year, said Ganmaa, and, if pregnant, only in the early stages. Consequently, levels of hormones in the milk are much lower.
“The milk we drink today is quite unlike the milk our ancestors were drinking” without apparent harm for 2,000 years, she said. “The milk we drink today may not be nature’s perfect food.”
Later in the article,
Cancer rates linked to dairy can change quickly, said Ganmaa. In the past 50 years in Japan, she said, rising rates of dairy consumption are linked with rising death rates from prostate cancer – from near zero per 100,000 five decades ago to 7 per 100,000 today.
Butter, meat, eggs, milk, and cheese are implicated in higher rates of hormone-dependent cancers in general, she said. Breast cancer has been linked particularly to consumption of milk and cheese.
In another study, rats fed milk show a higher incidence of cancer and develop a higher number of tumors than those who drank water, said Ganmaa.”
she continues later,
“But steps can be taken now to reduce the amount of hormones in milk, said Ganmaa. Because hormones reside in milk fat, drinking skim milk is one option. Getting calcium from green leafy vegetables is another.”
Read entire article here
Source: WFM 1-10