31
   

SAY NO TO MILK

 
 
ehBeth
 
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 10:30 am
Mark Bittman says there's no good reason to drink it.

Are you a milk drinker? milk avoider? milk don't-care-r?

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/got-milk-you-dont-need-it/?src=me&ref=general
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Type: Discussion • Score: 31 • Views: 17,605 • Replies: 140

 
ehBeth
 
  1  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 10:31 am
@ehBeth,
Quote:
Got Milk? You Don’t Need It
By MARK BITTMAN

Mark Bittman on food and all things related.

.Tags:
Dairy Products, heartburn, lactose intolerance, Milk

.
Drinking milk is as American as Mom and apple pie. Until not long ago, Americans were encouraged not only by the lobbying group called the American Dairy Association but by parents, doctors and teachers to drink four 8-ounce glasses of milk, “nature’s perfect food,” every day. That’s two pounds! We don’t consume two pounds a day of anything else; even our per capita soda consumption is “only” a pound a day.

Today the Department of Agriculture’s recommendation for dairy is a mere three cups daily — still 1½ pounds by weight — for every man, woman and child over age 9. This in a country where as many as 50 million people are lactose intolerant, including 90 percent of all Asian-Americans and 75 percent of all African-Americans, Mexican-Americans and Jews. The myplate.gov site helpfully suggests that those people drink lactose-free beverages. (To its credit, it now counts soy milk as “dairy.”)

There’s no mention of water, which is truly nature’s perfect beverage; the site simply encourages us to switch to low-fat milk. But, says Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, “Sugar — in the form of lactose — contributes about 55 percent of skim milk’s calories, giving it ounce for ounce the same calorie load as soda.”
ehBeth
 
  1  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 10:31 am
@ehBeth,
Quote:
O.K., dairy products contain nutrients, and for those who like them, a serving or two daily is probably fine. (Worth noting: they’re far more easily digested as yogurt or cheese than as fluid milk.) But in addition to intolerance, there’s a milk allergy — the second most common food allergy after peanuts, affecting an estimated 1.3 million children — that can be life-threatening.

Other conditions are not easily classified, and I have one of those. When I was growing up, drinking milk at every meal, I had a chronic upset stomach. (Channeling my inner Woody Allen, I’ll note that I was therefore treated as a neurotic, which, in fairness, I was anyway.) In adolescence, this became chronic heartburn, trendily known as GERD or acid reflux, and that led to a lifelong Tums habit (favorite flavor: wintergreen) and an adult dependence on Prevacid, a proton-pump inhibitor. Which, my gastroenterologist assured me, is benign. (Wrong.)

Fortunately my long-term general practitioner, Sidney M. Baker, author of “Detoxification and Healing,” insisted that I make every attempt to break the Prevacid addiction. Thus followed a seven-year period of trials of various “cures,” including licorice pills, lemon juice, antibiotics, famotidine (Pepcid) and almost anything else that might give my poor, sore esophagus some relief. At some point, Dr. Baker suggested that despite my omnivorous diet I consider a “vacation” from various foods.


ehBeth
 
  1  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 10:32 am
@ehBeth,
Quote:
So, three months ago, I decided to give up dairy products as a test. Twenty-four hours later, my heartburn was gone. Never, it seems, to return. In fact, I can devour linguine puttanesca (with anchovies) and go to bed an hour later; fellow heartburn sufferers will be impressed. Perhaps equally impressive is that I mentioned this to a friend who had the same problem, tried the same approach, and had the same results. Presto! No dairy, no heartburn! (A third had no success. Hey, it’s not a controlled double-blind experiment, but there is no downside to trying it.)

Conditions like mine are barely on the radar. Although treating heartburn is a business worth more than $10 billion a year, the solution may be as simple as laying off dairy. (Which, need I point out, is free.) What’s clear is that the widespread existence of lactose intolerance, says Dr. Baker, is “a pretty good sign that we’ve evolved to drink human milk when we’re babies but have no need for the milk of any animals. And no matter what you call a chronic dairy problem — milk allergy, milk intolerance, lactose intolerance — the action is the same: avoid all foods derived from milk for at least five days and see what happens.”

Adds Dr. Barnard, “It’s worth noting that milk and other dairy products are our biggest source of saturated fat, and there are very credible links between dairy consumption and both Type 1 diabetes and the most dangerous form of prostate cancer.” Then, of course, there are our 9 million dairy cows, most of whom live tortured, miserable lives while making a significant contribution to greenhouse gases.

ehBeth
 
  1  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 10:32 am
@ehBeth,
Quote:
But what about the bucolic cow on the family farm? What about bone density and osteoporosis? What about Mom, and apple pie?

Mom: Don’t know about yours, but mine’s doing pretty well. Apple pie (best made with one crust, plenty of apples) will be fine.

But the bucolic cow and family farm barely exist: “Given the Kafkaesque federal milk marketing order system, it’s impossible for anyone to make a living producing and selling milk,” says Anne Mendelson, author of “Milk.” “The exceptions are the very largest dairy farms, factory operations with anything from 10,000 to 30,000 cows, which can exploit the system, and the few small farmers who can opt out of it and sell directly to an assured market, and who can afford the luxury of treating the animals decently.”

Osteoporosis? You don’t need milk, or large amounts of calcium, for bone integrity. In fact, the rate of fractures is highest in milk-drinking countries, and it turns out that the keys to bone strength are lifelong exercise and vitamin D, which you can get from sunshine. Most humans never tasted fresh milk from any source other than their mother for almost all of human history, and fresh cow’s milk could not be routinely available to urbanites without industrial production. The federal government not only supports the milk industry by spending more money on dairy than any other item in the school lunch program, but by contributing free propaganda as well as subsidies amounting to well over $4 billion in the last 10 years.

There’s nothing un-American about re-evaluating those commitments with an eye toward sensibility. Meanwhile, pass the water.

Please visit my blog and join me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.

0 Replies
 
Joe Nation
 
  2  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 10:36 am
My girlfriend is allergic to milk protein so ......no cheese, no milk byproducts, no yogurt, cream cheese NOR any bread, muffin, bun, cake, cinnamon roll which is made with milk.

Butter, surprisingly enough, is all fat, so no milk protein in that, slather all the butter you want on that no-milk-in-here-French Baguette.

I thought I was going to really miss cooking with cheese and milk, but I don't.

Joe(most Asian foods don't have any of either in them.)Nation
Cycloptichorn
 
  4  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 10:38 am
I don't drink milk. Stopped doing it when I started reading about the massive amount of money the industry pays for studies that show you need to drink their product.

Cycloptichorn
0 Replies
 
Linkat
 
  2  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 10:43 am
@ehBeth,
well this is good news for me. I've hated milk my entire life. So much so that I would secretly throw it in the trash at school and/or hide the milk carton in my lunch box to be thrown away on my walk home.

I can tolerate chocolate milk, but drinking milk makes me feel like puking. The only time I can remember ever drinking milk without issue was right after giving birth. I was so hungry, I ate everything and even drank down the milk.
0 Replies
 
Rockhead
 
  2  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 10:47 am
@Joe Nation,
hmmmmm.

I have no personal fight with milk, I miss it terribly. cheese even moreso...

I may try some real butter and see if I get sick, Joe.

I have an acceptable butter substitute, but it's not butter. and it's more expensive than butter...
Region Philbis
 
  2  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 10:52 am

not fond of drinking it unless i have something sweet with it.

blending it into a fruit smoothie is da bomb...
0 Replies
 
Ceili
 
  2  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 10:52 am
@Joe Nation,
Most of my family are allergic to milk. A few years ago, my cousin was in incredible pain, losing weight and so on. The doctors had explored all leads and still couldn't diagnose the problem. The were to put her under the knife for exploratory surgery. My aunt (an RN) went to the nearest chemist for a few things and started up a conversation with a woman, telling her of the impeding surgery and why. The woman asked about milk products. Sure enough, the cancelled the operation and took her off milk. She's not had a day with the pain since.
0 Replies
 
Setanta
 
  2  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 11:06 am
I read somewhere once't that French bread is just yeast, salt and flour. The same source said that Italian bread is just the same, 'cept no salt. I could live on bread and butter if i got a meatloaf sammich here and there.
Mame
 
  2  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 11:09 am
@ehBeth,
I don't avoid milk products but I don't buy them often. I use it in cooking and for cereal. I once in a while eat ice cream, cottage cheese, other cheeses, and yoghurt, but I'm not a big fan of milk. I also disagree with everything the authorities recommend because a) of the lobbying, and b) I do what my body wants. I haven't had a glass of milk in over 40 years.

0 Replies
 
tsarstepan
 
  6  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 11:11 am
@ehBeth,
Mark Bittman can give himself soy milk enema if he so chooses.

I am an avid milker drinker. I can go through a gallon of skim milk in 7 to 10 days.
0 Replies
 
boomerang
 
  3  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 11:25 am
@ehBeth,
I like milk! I'm so glad that none of us have a problem drinking it.

We buy milk from a dairy less than 10 miles from our house. It is family owned and has been around for almost 100 years. They really just process the milk at the dairy these days, buying the milk from several, small, area dairy farmers. There's only a few stores that sell it, luckily we live near one.
0 Replies
 
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 11:32 am
Quote:
If religion is the opiate of the masses, then surely paranoia must be the treasure trove of the downtrodden, a way to discover in the coincidences of a mostly bleak life a golden map of connections where everything sparkles with meaning. Not that there aren’t enough opiates and amphetamines floating around Martin Millar’s “Milk, Sulphate, and Alby Starvation” to keep the masses fairly happy, too.

First published in Britain in 1987, when Millar wasn’t yet 30, the book is finally appearing in its first American edition — a development not only welcome but ages overdue.

The sometime narrator, Alby Starvation, is a down-on-his-luck amphetamine runner whose main triumphs in life thus far have been to amass a large collection of comics and to cure himself of the ailments brought on by a serious milk allergy. As word of his cure spreads and others also quit drinking milk, it’s easy to see how the Milk Marketing Board would decide to send a Brazilian-­trained hit woman to kill him.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/books/review/Krusoe-t.html
0 Replies
 
Butrflynet
 
  2  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 11:41 am
I use about a gallon of it a month, the non-fat stuff for baking, cooking and cold cereal. Can't stand the taste of the higher fat levels in milk, probably because I was raised on the non-fat stuff.

I probably eat more yogurt and cottage cheese than milk. Love that stuff.
0 Replies
 
ehBeth
 
  2  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 11:43 am
I'm a milk don't care-r. I had a brief episode in my late teens when I drank litres of milk each day - sometimes a litre in what was really one giant gulp.

Now I don't drink milk at all (probably only a few cups a year, distributed into hundreds of cups of tea), but I love cheese and yogurt.

I didn't realize how high-calorie skim milk is. No need to cut out the soda if milk's got that much sugar in it.
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 11:54 am
@ehBeth,
Thanks for that link, ehBeth. (I'm still reading all the comments)
0 Replies
 
Lash
 
  1  
Reply Mon 9 Jul, 2012 12:01 pm
@ehBeth,
I'm lactose intolerant. It hurts me, so I stopped drinking it when I was in my early 20s. I use Lactaid occasionally when I'm dying for some cereal. I heard cow's milk isn't good for people about a decade or so ago - and illogical. Moot point for me though.
 

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