Milk

It's not easy! Here's the lowdown on Real Milk and Almost Real Milk products.

In the last two years, IGF-I has been identified as the key factor in the growth and proliferation of various cancers including prostate cancer (Science - January, 1998), breast cancer (The Lancet - May, 1998), and lung cancer (Journal Of The National Cancer Institute - January, 1999). However, scientists at the Food and Drug Administration have previously (incorrectly) argued that this powerful growth hormone in milk did not survive digestion and cannot alter human blood chemistry. Now that the evidence is in, the scientific community has proof of how wrong government regulators were in approving the genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH). Milk from cows treated with rbGH contains increased levels of IGF-I.

Is it good for you or isn't it?  I've seen enormous benefit for many patients in my practice, and I strongly recommend it for a number of reasons.  There's a lot of confusion around this subject because many confuse organic milk with raw milk. Of course, raw milk is going to be superior almost every time.  If I were to blindly believe that raw milk was good for me personally and continue to drink it, I would probably be on renal dialysis, which is not a pretty picture.

Don’t waste your money on "organic" milk anymore. This is a waste of your resources. Redirect your energy to find real raw milk sources. Ideally, you can find a local farmer who will be willing to sell this to you. If you find one you will want to encourage him to consider restricting grains from the cow’s feed to improve the quality of the milk.

I was happy to see a published story that documents how some families have become aware of the health benefits of raw milk and are switching to it, despite the warnings of public health officials who are ignorant about the serious damage that pasteurization does to the quality of the milk.

The path that transforms healthy milk products into allergens and carcinogens begins with modern feeding methods that substitute high-protein, soy-based feeds for fresh green grass and breeding methods to produce cows with abnormally large pituitary glands so that they produce three times more milk than the old fashioned scrub cow. These cows need antibiotics to keep them well.

One day my husband announced that he wanted to buy a cow so that we could drink raw (non-pasteurized) milk. Now this wouldn’t be a new animal for our farm, since we live in New York City. Hmmm. And, isn’t pasteurization a good thing? The debate about raw milk versus pasteurized is a heated one, and comprises the second part of our series on milk. Here’s what I found about raw milk (and whether or not we bought the cow).

An increasing number of dairy companies, hoping to cash in on the popularity of natural foods, are selling milk that is not organic, but is free of the genetically engineered growth hormone rBST, also called Posilac. rBST increases the amount of milk cows produce, but it can result in cows being treated with extra antibiotics due to udder inflammation, and can produce milk with higher amounts of a different hormone, which has been linked to cancer.

For many, milk is nearly as fundamental as water—the definition of “wholesome” in a glass. The choice has traditionally been simple: whole or skim? But as the scientific and political debates about different kinds of milk increase, so do the options. The choices are confounding. In this first of a series of three on milk, find out the one sure thing we recommend about milk.

The real issue concerning organic food, however, is not necessarily obtaining it, but rather what constitutes a food as "organic." While some believe "organic" means small farms, others feel the only way to fill the demand for organic food is by applying industrial farming practices to organic production.