Milk, Is It Good or Is It Bad?
By mrakobesie
@mrakobesie (1246)
United States
August 17, 2009 8:42am CST
For a very long time everyone was saying how good milk is, how healthy it is for our health. There are comercials on TV saying how healthy it is to drink milk. When you see these comercials do you view it as public servise? raising awareness? Or do you view it as an advertisement sponsered by companies that produce milk and dairy products?
Here is what some doctors think. Frank Oski, M.D., author of Don't Drink Your Milk! is the Director of the Department of Pediatrics of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Physician-in-Chief of the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 19 medical textbooks and has written 290 medical manuscripts.
In the first chapter of his book, Dr. Oski states, "The fact is: the drinking of cow milk has been linked to iron-deficiency anemia in infants and children; it has been named as the cause of cramps and diarrhea in much of the world's population, and the cause of multiple forms of allergy as well; and the possibility has been raised that it may play a central role in the origins of atherosclerosis and heart attacks."
Dr. Oski comments, "Being against cow milk is equated with being un-American," but still he notes, "Among physicians, so much concern has been voiced about the potential hazards of cow milk that the Committee on Nutrition of the prestigious American Academy of Pediatrics, the institutional voice of practicing pediatricians, released a report entitled, "Should Milk Drinking by Children Be Discouraged?' Although the Academy's answer to this question has (as of this writing) been a qualified 'maybe,' the fact that the question was raised at all is testimony to the growing concern about this product, which for so long was viewed as sacred as the proverbial goodness of mother and apple pie."
Hundreds of doctors agree with him and note that after they advise patients to eliminate dairy these patient's health improves, they have less flus, asthmas, headaches and many other diseases.
Another outspoken critic of cow's milk is Dr. William Ellis, a retired osteopathic physician and surgeon in Arlington, Texas, who has researched the effects of dairy products for 42 years. Dr. Ellis is listed in Marquis' Who's Who in the East, Leaders of American Science, the Dictionary of International Biography and Two Thousand Men of Achievement. Dr. Ellis says dairy products are "simply no good for humans... There is overwhelming evidence that milk and milk products are harmful to many people, both adults and infants. Milk is a contributing factor in constipation, chronic fatigue, arthritis, headaches, muscle cramps, obesity, allergies and heart problems."
In Washington D.C. based pediatrician Dr. Russell Bunai was asked what single change in the American diet would produce the greatest health benefit, his answer was, "Eliminating dairy products."
Dr. Christiane Northrup, a gynecologist in Yarmouth, Maine, states, "Dairy is a tremendous mucus producer and a burden on the respiratory, digestive and immune systems." Dr. Northrup says when patients "eliminate dairy products for an extended period and eat a balanced diet, they suffer less from colds and sinus infections."
So how can all these medical statements be explained in light of what we have been taught all of our life about milk? Remember "Milk is the Perfect Food"... "Milk is a Natural"... "Everybody Needs Milk." Are we talking about the same food here?
Is cow's milk really natural for us? we are humans after all, not cows, milk that is natural for us is human breast milk. How many animals other then humans drink milk after they grow out of breast milk?
I must say i used to love milk, i could drink a few glasses every day, but was i healthy while drinking milk? I did have asthma after all. I haven't had any darry in over half a year and my asthma is gone, even now in the hottest days of the summer i feel great, i can breeth, before i had to use my inhailer on days like that and even inhailers didn't always help. I think all these doctors who are against milk have some very good information that should be shared with the world, I know it helped me.
To drink milk or not is something everyone has to choose for himself. Interestingly though people who choose to drink milk do it for health reasons because milk is healthy, those who choose not to drink milk do it for health reasons too, because milk isn't healthy. So who do we belive when it comes to our health?
4 people like this
6 responses
@kykidd (6812)
• United States
17 Aug 09
That is so sad. I love my milk. I have always drank a lot of milk, and I like the Vitamin D whole milk too. I really don't even care too much for the 2% or less because it tastes so much like it is watered down.
I guess everything I love is killing me, like the song by Alan Jackson. Thank you for sharing this article, and thank you for your response in my discussion earlier. Have a beautiful day!
2 people like this
@mrakobesie (1246)
• United States
17 Aug 09
I never understood 2% milk, it even looks blueish. I switched to rice milk and sometimes get hemp milk. Rice milk is too thin though and hemp milk very thick, so i often mix them together to get the consistancy i like. I think i'm getting addicted to chochlate hemp milk lol it tases so good and is actually very healthy.
someone once said that everything that feels good is ether unhealthy, immoral or causes obesity lol.
1 person likes this
@danrunsfast614 (1396)
• United States
17 Aug 09
Wow. This is very interesting to hear. I had heard some people thought cow milk wasn't the best, but this is much more than that. I'm going to have to do more research on it. I pretty much just assumed milk is good. End of story. I guess maybe not. Thanks for the informative post! Happy Mylotting!
2 people like this
@mrakobesie (1246)
• United States
17 Aug 09
Any time :) I also always though milk was good, but then i started looking more into alternative medicine and noticed that some dieases are treated with dairy free diet, so i started looking into it and this is what i found. scarry to be honest... I don't know about goat milk, i heard it was much better then cow milk, but haven't researched it more yet...
1 person likes this
@peavey (16936)
• United States
18 Aug 09
You could say all of that about a lot of foods. Most doctors still recommend milk for calcium, protein and Vitamin D, but... cooked milk just doesn't deliver. When you cook (pasteurize) it, you kill enzymes and coagulate the protein so that it's hard for our bodies to digest. Also, I've heard that when milk is homogenized, the molecules break down into such small particles that they're passed through the intestine walls without being digested properly.
I love milk, butter, cottage cheese, buttermilk, etc., but I won't buy it pasteurized or homogenized.
Milk is a food with a long history, just like fermented foods or milled grains. It has saved people from starving and helped infants survive when nothing else was available. It would be silly to throw out the baby with the bath water; cow's milk has its place in our diet. Modern methods of treatment have made it much less useful, though... could it be that's why it seems to cause iron deficiency and allergies?
1 person likes this
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@mrakobesie (1246)
• United States
19 Aug 09
yes, for some reason goat milk is very hard to find, especially raw. I have seen raw goat cheese though, but not raw milk :(Have seen concentrated goat milk, but it's not the same :(
@Hatley (163776)
• Garden Grove, California
19 Aug 09
hi I believe my own body.I get calcium and phosphorus and
nutrition from my one percent milk. My bones are okay and
'when I drink two glasses of milk I do not have leg cramps.'
I can lose weight better if I have my milk.I am not allergic
to it.if we are allergic to any food then that food is not'
good for us while it might be great for other people.
'meantime I will have milk on my cereal and to hell with'all the tons of garbage printed about milk and every other food that is'
good for us.
@mrakobesie (1246)
• United States
19 Aug 09
It's up to all of us to choose what to eat, no one can make us eat what we think isn't good for us as well as no one can stop us from eating what we think to healthy. As for me i have noticed that i feel much better now as i don't drink milk. I actually lost weight too, 20 lb after i stoped drinking milk, I replaced milk with other alternatives and it worked much better for me.
@dlr297 (5409)
• United States
18 Aug 09
I believe that milk is good for you if you drink it raw, But in most places you can not get it like that any more, When they start pasteurizing, and homogenizing it is when they kill all the good things that are in the milk most people drink.
And that goes for anything else that we eat the more processes that it is put through the worst that it is for us.
1 person likes this
@mrakobesie (1246)
• United States
18 Aug 09
Raw is always the best way, raw and organic. When they feed cows all these chemicals it ends up in the milk. From the information i read yesterday, one of the proteins in milk, whey protein, in not well digested and can cause problems if it build up.
@mrakobesie (1246)
• United States
18 Aug 09
yes, i like the taste too :) but i switched to rice and hemp milk now, they taste great and are really healthy. It works for me, but it costs more then cow milk :(
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