Should You Drink More Milk?
by Clayton South
Milk. If you’re like most people, you’ve been raised on cow’s milk and probably continue to think that it’s a healthy food that forms the center of a bodybuilding diet. Milk is inexpensive, tasty, and rich in vitamins, minerals and muscle-building protein. It is, simply, “nature’s perfect food.”
In fact, you can see it now: the herds of cows grazing on acres of open pastures, eating green grasses, roaming free and relaxing as the evening sun sets in the sky. It’s the ultimate picture of natural perfection, and it’s the picture that you see on the side of your milk carton every morning at breakfast.
If only this picture were true.
Now picture the truth: see cows being injected with milk-producing drugs that give them udder infections that require antibiotic treatment. Also picture this: you’re sitting at your kitchen table, with your family, drinking contaminated liquid milk and watching your children do the same.
If you believe the picturesque utopian fantasy described in the opening paragraphs of this article, then what I’m about to tell you will forever smash your long held views on cow’s milk. Because, here’s the truth: much of the cows “milk” that’s produced today isn’t really milk at all, but is a toxic concoction – a toxic soup – of harmful chemicals that will destroy your health and the health of your family.
Read on if you want to know what you’re really drinking every time you sit down for a nice cold glass of “milk.” I guarantee that your views on milk will be forever changed.
This is your milk on drugs
Milk production used to be time consuming and labor intensive, but today’s farmer can collect more milk in less time than ever before. But, machines are not the chief reason that milk production is at an all-time high – drugs are.
Today’s milk producing cattle are like some of today’s bodybuilders: chemically assisted. In fact, today’s cattle are routinely injected with rBGH – recombinant bovine growth hormone – to increase milk production. Today’s cattle aren’t animals any longer – they are walking chemical factories.
Unfortunately, the drugs that are injected into these animals survive the pasteurization process, and they end up in your body when you drink the milk produced by these cows. Worst of all, these drugs have side-effects that can destroy your health.
The rBGH routinely injected into these cows is not used without consequence for the cow, or for those who consume the cow’s milk. In fact, while use of this drug increases milk production by 500%1 via the stimulation of IGF-1 production, the injected cows routinely succumb to various bovine diseases like udder infections, which require antibiotic treatment to control. These antibiotics, and the infectious white blood cells are leaked into the produced milk, and survive the pasteurization process.
Eventually these contaminants find their way into your stomach and the stomachs of those you love when you drink contaminated milk.
The Consequences of IFG-1 and other hormones as contaminants
rBGH is injected into cows in order to elevate IGF-1 levels and increase milk production. Human and bovine IGF-1 is chemically identical.2 This is important to note because when IGF-1 levels are elevated in injected cows, IGF-1 is secreted into the milk you drink. This IGF-1 also survives the pasteurization process.3 This means that your IGF-1 levels become elevated when you drink milk from a cow that’s been injected with rBGH.
But, hold on. Before you buy thirty gallons of infected and contaminated milk in the hopes of building more muscle mass, you need to know that elevated IGF-1 levels in adults is linked to many cancers and tumors.4,5,6,7,8,9 Even children are not immune from the cancers associated with elevated IGF-1 levels, as elevated levels can contribute to childhood bone cancers.10
So, while the injection of cows with hormones and antibiotics is good news for major pharmaceutical companies and dairy farmers, it’s clearly not good news for you or your family.
Drink more milk?
The hard scientific evidence so far presented challenges the sanity of calls to drink more milk. Recent figures show that 20% of all US produced dairy cow milk is contaminated12 so the obvious question is: why would anyone want to consume liquid milk when it’s dangerous?
The medical profession and the dairy industry have for years said that drinking milk is needed to prevent protein and calcium deficiencies, thereby preventing sarcopenia and osteoporosis in old age. Are these claims truthful?
Consider these points:
The majority of the world’s population does not consume bovine milk – it makes them ill.
Many people around the world don’t drink bovine milk and they don’t suffer from calcium deficiency or osteoporosis. Human consumption of bovine milk is relatively new. Our ancestors did not consume cow’s milk and early human fossil evidence shows no signs of osteoporosis or bone fractures.
Milk is not the best source of protein and calcium – other foods are better.
Most people on earth don’t drink cow’s milk. Osteoporosis and sarcopenia rates were very low in ancient times and they continue to be low in countries where milk consumption is rare. Osteoporosis and sarcopenia are rampant only in countries that consume cow’s milk in great amounts.
The myth that milk is a good source of calcium continues to be perpetuated by the dairy industry, but science shows that while liquid milk is rich in calcium, excessive dairy intake interferes with calcium absorption. What’s more, the calcium to phosphorus ratio of liquid milk is poor, making calcium absorption minimal at best.
So, it is clear that cow’s milk is contaminated and is not a good, safe, source of protein or calcium. What, then, is the answer to getting enough protein and calcium? The answer to that will come later in this article – for now a critical distinction needs to be made between liquid milk and milk proteins.
Liquid Milk VS. Proteins
While liquid milk is not an ideal protein source, liquid milk does contain milk proteins (edible acid casein) that have beneficial health effects, provided that you do not have a milk protein allergy. This milk casein protein is composed of twenty-one amino acids.
Milk proteins are used widely in nutritional supplements. The isolation of milk casein protein from liquid milk for use in protein powders – and hence the term milk protein isolate – is achieved by letting liquid milk sour and removing the protein curds that form on the liquids surface.
Once removed, the curds are dissolved into a hydroxide solution and later dried. This process completes the removal and purification process and allows for the proteins to be water soluble – a process known otherwise as instantization.
The distinction between milk proteins and liquid milk is critical, because while the liquid from which milk proteins derive can be contaminated, once purified, isolated milk proteins are NOT contaminated.
The separation and purification process above described breaks down milk proteins into amino acids that are not hormonally contaminated, and this is why using milk proteins in protein powder is safe, and drinking liquid milk is not!
Your Milk Alternatives
It’s not difficult to get enough daily protein and calcium.
Ancient man hunted big game animals like bison and mammoths for meat, and routinely ate green plants. In fact, green, leafy vegetables are nature’s best source of calcium and, unlike liquid milk, leafy vegetables contain vital cancer fighting antioxidants.
You can always supplement with a natural calcium product if eating green vegetables doesn’t appeal to you. Natural calcium is better absorbed than artificial calcium, so you won’t have to take as much to see beneficial effect.
Milk proteins can be safely obtained from protein powders, but other sources of protein exist also. Uncontaminated fish, uncontaminated meats and uncontaminated vegetables are all excellent sources of protein. However, eating uncontaminated foods will involve eating organic foods – foods grown using old farming methods. While it’s technically true that no nutritive (micro and macro nutrient) differences exist between commercial and organic foods, there is one major difference that the food industry doesn’t mention: when you eat organic you’re not eating pesticides and contaminants that can destroy your health.
If you must drink milk and feed it to your family, consider using contaminant-free alternatives like rice and soy milk in moderation. Do so in moderation because all soy products contain natural phytoestrogens that can slightly elevate estrogen levels.
Soy protein will not harm your bodybuilding gains within the context of a high-protein diet. In fact, a bit of soy can enhance your health by inhibiting cancer growth.13
Final Thoughts…
Today’s contaminated cow’s milk can do more harm than good to your health. The bad news is that the situation is unlikely to change because modern farming practices and pharmaceutical drugs are here to stay.
While cow’s milk is no longer a healthy food choice, the good news is that you can still use milk proteins from quality protein powders to build muscle and enhance health, and you can obtain enough protein and calcium from uncontaminated sources like organic foods and nutritional supplements.
