Drinking milk isn’t a necessity
As a child, I remember my drink of choice was milk. I was never denied a glass of milk. It was considered a healthy alternative to sodas and juices with added sugars. Only white milk though. That was the milk with no added sugar or chocolate flavoring, or so we all thought.
As many of you know, I am lactose intolerant. Quite literally, one day my body was just decided “nope, we can’t do this lactose thing anymore” and I became SO sick. It was a struggle for months, and I was so confused with no idea what was happening to my body. I was being tested for diabetes, celiac, crohn’s disease and anything else my doctor felt was a potential cause for my symptoms. Finally, I figured it out. Onset of my symptoms only occurred after consuming a glass of milk, or yogurt (two things which I would incorporate into my diet daily). The problem was easily solved and life goes on pretty normally.
I remember asking my doctor why I suddenly had become lactose intolerant. For me it made zero sense. I knew people who were also lactose intolerant, but no one who had just suddenly become intolerant, most people had been intolerant since they were children. I certainly did not think that I had literally been consuming so many milk products that my body suddenly turned against digesting it (as a few people have suggested was my problem...). My doctor simply stated “It just happens sometimes. We’re not technically supposed to drink milk after infancy, and some people just cannot do it.”.
Humm...okay...but how and why does this happen?
After reading a little online I was getting mixed ideas about the cause of lactose intolerance, and also getting pretty frustrated determining legitimate sources of information from bogus ones. I was obviously still curious. One day I stumbled across the novel Got Milked By Alissa Hamilton and finally, I found some answers.
Just to be clear, I am not 100% against milk. For me, this book was a tool that I could use to answer the questions I had about my body and about what was happening to my body for it to suddenly make milk and every single milk product my mortal enemy.
Lets just say this novel was a total eye opener!
Alissa Hamilton argues that milk is not this super food that we all believe it to be. It’s actually depleting our bodies of calcium, rather than being a great source of calcium. She also proves that milk decreases the amount of iron our hemoglobin can readily absorb. Hemoglobin is also the oxygen binding component of our blood. Low iron = decrease in oxygen uptake = decreased energy and numerous other issue I won’t elaborate on. Iron is kind of a big deal. Iron deficiency, related to milk consumption, is so common in young children that the condition has been coined as a child being “milk sick”. Just one example of how our society and the information available to us has been manipulated by governing health bodies and dairy marketing campaigns. The dairy industry is a massive, mulit million dollar lucrative business. If they can convince people that milk is a great source of calcium, which is hard to find in other forms, then people will be more willing to purchase milk and consider it a daily necessity. The truth is that calcium is readily available in many other forms; collard greens (232 mg/100g), broccoli (118mg/100g), kale (205mg/100g), arugula (160mg/100g), butternut squash (48mg/100g), sweet potato (38mg/100g), and carrots (33mg/100g) just to name a handful.
Alissa made an interesting connection for lactose intolerance that truly made sense to me. Consider North American culture -we are a mix of beautiful backgrounds. There are have Europeans, Africans, Asians, Indigenous people, just to name a brief few. When examining lactose intolerance it has been found that those of African, Asian and Indigenous descent are more likely to be lactose intolerant then those of European descent. Why? Well, in European countries where the crops would not always flourish, people needed a source of nutritional value to help them survive. They began to create things like milk, butter, cream and cheese from cow’s milk when other food was scarce. Those who could not digest the lactose in these foods became very ill and sick, eventually dying. Those who could digest it, who’s gut produced lactase to break down the lactose, were able to survive and produce offspring. Natural selection! Today, many people of European descent have the ability to digest lactose, while others are lactose intolerant. It kind of makes sense right?
On a slightly different note:
We consume cow’s milk. Cow’s milk is meant for calves the same way that human breast milk is meant for babies. Naturally, milk from a mammal is meant to help the young achieve the necessary nutrients to grow. Once the mammal reaches a certain age, or size, milk is no longer required and nutritional needs are met in other ways via food ingestion and digestion. Typically, once a calf is weaned off of its mothers milk, it will never consume milk again in its lifetime. This is the same for every mammal, except humans. We drink the milk of cow’s. Why? We have been convinced that we require milk for calcium. Cow’s milk is meant for growing calves which are roughly 100 lbs at birth and grow 8x larger by the time they finish consuming their mothers milk...that’s a ton of growing! As humans we don’t need that, our children don’t require the extra growth hormones. Why are we drinking milk that is not meant for us?
Is it not twisted and odd? I think so. If anything this book has definitely given me another perspective on the whole milk think. Now I feel like I have grounds for a great discussion with someone on this topic.
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
turnnoffyourmind
prguitarman
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