I have spent 30 years in the field of advertising and marketing, and so I know the power of advertising. One of the most successful marketing campaigns over the past 50 years has been that of the dairy industry. They have convinced us that drinking milk is essential to our health. However, the more research I do, the more I realize that this is totally untrue! Casein, the protein found in milk and other dairy products is in fact detrimental to our health. Did you know that:
- 75% of the people on the planet don’t consume any dairy products because they are lactose intolerant and they are doing just fine.
- The Japanese consume much lower levels of dairy than we do, yet they maintain a higher life expectancy and better health than the United States.
- Calcium can be found in non-dairy foods such as spinach, kale, broccoli, tofu, soybeans, almonds and molasses, and these foods provide more calcium per calorie than milk.
- As for cow’s milk’s role in building strong bones, that the countries with the highest dairy consumption also have the highest rates of osteoporosis
- Dairy consumption has been linked to cancer, diabetes, autism and schizophrenia, and many autoimmune disorders including Multiple Sclerosis.
- The fat and hormones in dairy have been strongly linked with a variety of hormone-related illnesses in humans, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, and acne.
- Most of the milk in the US is produced on large factory farms, where cows are kept in unhealthy conditions, and fed hormones and antibiotics, we need to pasteurize the milk so we don’t get sick, but this process destroys many of the nutrients
- And lastly dairy cows suffer immensely in dairy farms/factories, and they also account for huge amounts of CO2 emissions, land degradation, water consumption, and water contamination
I strongly recommend that you read The China Study and read or watchForks Over Knives for more information.
For more information and references please refer to my earlier post on this subject.