I was in the doctor’s office the other day waiting an hour for my five minute appointment and was trying to make time pass by reading the health magazines, of course.
I could not help but notice how in almost every single one of these magazines was a “ Milk does your body good” picture with a famous persons mustache on it. It made me think about how much I think milk is truly disgusting and wondered if all these people actually drink milk, much less is it actually that good for you.
So here, I am to state the facts about milk. I mean honestly, when it comes down to the facts it made me feel much better about not drinking.
The USDA tells kids to drink an average of three glasses of milk per day. Per capita, the US drinks nine times more milk than China. On average, we drink 593 pounds of milk per year compared to only 428 pounds of vegetables per year. Here is the thing though; drinking milk from cows is not natural.
We are the only species that actually drinks more milk from a different species than our own. Consider this, four percent of adults have food allergies and a huge percentage of adults, thirty three percent to be exact, are lactose intolerant. Cows milk is also the number one cause of food allergies among infants and children.
Seventy five percent of African American, Mexican American, Native Americans and Jewish adults are lactose intolerant and a whooping ninety percent of Asian Americans are lactose intolerant. As well as seventy five percent of adults have a decrease in lactose activity and only forty percent of adults can maintain the ability to digest lactose after childhood. It can take your body an average of thirty minutes until those intolerant effects of lactose occur. By that time, most people probably do not think about relating those effects to the milk.
Only 13.1 percent of American adults do not drink milk, consider me one of them. Unless I have a big ole piece of chocolate cake or some warm brownies, milk does not touch my mouth. There are around 62,200,000 million people who are drinking milk without even knowing their body cannot digest it properly.
Unfortunately, the worst part about this whole milk does your body good deal is that cows get the worse end of it. In 1970, one cow produced 9,700 pounds of milk in a year. Today, due to hormones, one cow produces 19,000 pounds of milk per year. That is a massive difference.
Have you ever been to the mall or anywhere out in public and thought about how young boys and girls are devolping so quickly? I have an eight-year-old girl who I know is developing much faster than I did at that age. Well, many of the items that come from the farms have added growth hormones, so unless your buying organic, which most people can not afford, then your children are digesting a direct link to growth hormones.
So basically, cows doped on growth hormones produce more milk per year and those hormones are in the milk you drink. The growth hormone contains IGF-1 (insulin growth factor-1) which humans already have. Increased IGF-1 is linked to early puberty in girls and men with increased levels of IGF-1 are four times more likely to get prostate cancer. Women who upped their lactose intake equal to one glass of milk per day were thirteen percent more likely to get ovarian cancer.
In a study of twenty countries, high milk consumption meant higher rates of Type 1 diabetes and heart disease. One serving of 2 percent milk has the same saturated fat counts as a serving of French fries. Therefore, if you are going to drink milk to lose weight you might as well go to McDonalds and order some yummy fries as well.
You see, milk obviously does contain many important vitamins but there are other ways to get those vitamins. It is very easy to buy a calcium chew; and you can always head outside to get a good dose of vitamin D.
I just needed to write this article because we are always being told how great milk is for us when in reality that is not the case. Next time you reach for a bowl of cereal, do your self a favor and eat it dry. Your body and the cows will thank you!
Sources: www.huffingtonpost.com, www.foodallergies.org, www.iwastesomuchtimeontheinternet.com