Many experts in the medical field say that as far as they are concerned, there’s no debating the danger of drinking milk. There’s simply no evidence that milk is more beneficial than it is harmful.

We’ve (yes, I was duped too) all swallowed the BS ads by the dairy industry for so long and went along with the crazy idea that milk was good for us. It quite possibly is the biggest fleecing of America we’ve ever seen. Certainly a cultural phenomenon (of which there are, unfortunately, far too many).

Yes, milk does cause osteoporosis because it causes calcium deposits in the muscle which gives one agony. There is no Vitamin D benefit since it does not come naturally in milk and can be added to just about any liquid.

Also check out David Rakel’s book, “Integrative Medicine”, published by Saunders 2003 ( chapter 67, p. 545) because of the point that, “Dairy Products increase
prostrate cancer by 8 fold”

And to the argument that you need the milk cultures: simiply not true.

The brand of soy milk Silk by White Wave (and owned by a large dairy conglomerate; which Peet’s Coffee recently switched to and Starbucks now also uses) adds carrageenan to make it to make it smooth and thicker like milk. The problem with carrageenan has a high level of phosfo lipid which is not an
ideal balance in lipids. It’s also not recommended for pregnant women (like there are some pregnant women out there) because a decent number of people are allergic to it.

I will try and get some more evidence posted for you, and better yet, have some of the experts who study this to post their evidence and thoughts.

Of course, demands for proof go both ways, so what proof do you have that milk does not cause osteoporosis?

1) Above I say that the Chinese eat very little soy products. What I should have said is that they eat very little UNFERMENTED soy products – soy sauce and miso undergo a long fermentation, which also destroys phytates and trypsin inhibitors.

2) An interesting side note is that is is possibly to live very healthily (is that a word) on milk alone. In fact, around the turn of the century, a common cure-for-what-ails-you was the milk diet, where the patient ate only milk for several weeks. This was said to cure almost anything. Conversely, subsisting on (unfortified) soy milk alone would leave with a severe lack of vitamins A, D and B12 and Omega 3 fatty acids.

3) I also feel that the dairy council is full of crap, but that doesn’t necessarily make them wrong. Remember that the soy promoters also have an agenda (soy being americas largest crop and largest export) and are probably also prone to half-truths. Always check your sources and look at the primary sources first.

4) It could be that the least healthy milk is skim. Skim milk has a lot of protein and almost no fat, real vitamin A or real Vitamin D. Traditional cultures would never eat lean protein, which is essentially what skim milk is. It is well known, that the vitamin D, and maybe Vitamin A and Omega 3 fatty acids are needed for proper mineral absorption. Furthermore, over the last century we’ve bred for cows that produce less and less milkfat. Maybe what we need is to get rid of the skim and all drink whole milk.

5) Saturated fat and cholesterol have never been linked to heart disease. Please do not comment on this without reading “The Oiling of America”, which Brad posted above. I’ve seen the primary data.

Brad Marshall

The Pro-Soy people argue this:

Benefits of Soy:
- prevents cancer
- loaded with phytochemicals
- ecologically friendly
- asians eat it and they have less cancer/heart disease

Disadvantages of Milk:
- high in fat
- causes osteoperosis, heart disease and cancer
- wasteful to feed cows grain
- milk is for baby cows

The Pro-Milk people argue this:

Advatages of milk:
- many traditional cultures rely on the milk (or fermented milk) as THE dietary staple and are suprememly healthy (much more so than us)
- Has REAL vitamin’s A(retinol) and D (D2) which are not found in soy milk
- the only common dietary source of short and medium chain fats, which possibly increase energy and boost imune function

Disadvanatges of Soymilk:
- loaded with phytochemicals, most of which are estrogenic and therefore potentially cancer-causing
- loaded with phytate, which blocks mineral absorption
- loaded with trypsin inhibitors, which inhibit protein digestion
- usually loaded with sugar, which increases your chances of getting diabetes

The fact is that there is very little (read: almost none) peer-reviewed scientific literature to compare these claims with. What is clear is that in most of the studies which say milk is bad are done on pasteurized, homogenized, fortified milk, not REAL milk from grazing cows. There has probably not been a scientific study done on raw milk since the first half of this century. The best evidence we have is from traditional societies which consume very large amounts of raw milk products from grazing animals and have excellent bone and teeth structure and few modern diseases. For an example of this see The Masai or Dinkas in Africa, the ancient Swiss or any number of goat/sheep herding societies in Eurasia.

Of course, there are no traditional cultures which consume large amounts of soy milk. Soy consumption is very low (about a teaspoon a day in 1980) in China. The only country where moderate amounts of soy (of any kind) is consumed is Japan. Yes, they are reasonably healthy, but there are of course lots of other factors involved, including large amounts of seafood consumption. A fact of soy milk is that the way in which American soy milk is made is entirely different from traditional asian methods. The traditional method of making soy milk is to grind the beans in water, then slowly bring the liquid to a boil three times. Each time the liquid is boiled, the scum is removed. After this, the product is cooled and you have soymilk. This process removes and denatures much of the phytates and trypsin inhibitors in question. In america, we simply grind the beans in water, add sugar and manufactured vitamins, then sell it. The asian version of soy milk is probably fine for you, although it doesn’t contain nearly the amount of fat suluble vitamins of cow’s milk. Is the American version fine for you? Only time and OBJECTIVE studies will tell.

So, I think the jury is still out on this debate. I didn’t even get into the ecology of it….

Brad Marshall

It increases risk of diabetes when children drink it, and of course causes all sorts of allergies when infants have it.

It’s crazy to think that not having milk is now considered the odd thing, when having it is what’s not natural.

You get far too much protein and fat in milk.
Having that much can cause all sorts of problems, including osteoporosis and cancer.