On Drinking Cows Milk

I had a friend email me today and asked me a sincere question with regards to giving her children cow's milk. She is reading a book called The China Study (great book but very frank about animal proteins) and she is now wondering if she should be giving her children cow's milk to drink.

I will explain my opinion on cow's milk, dairy, and drinking water.

I feel that humans are not designed to drink cow's milk or to use dairy. We are designed to nurse our children on their mother's milk and then be weaned to solid foods and pure water, not go from the breast to cow's milk. There is much science, to support my beliefs on this subject and one only has to google "is cow's milk good for you?" to see immediately that this is a hot topic and that there are many sites that will support the drinking of water over milk. There is also a huge (millions and millions of dollars worth) campaign yearly that educates us and our children to drink cow's milk...that would be the Dairyman's Association.

We live in a world and culture where never using any dairy is quite a task to accomplish. My friend is truly searching for answers and is concerned about her children and wants to ensure that they will ingest all the protein and nutrients that their little bodies need to be healthy and strong. I will use my family and my two youngest daughters as examples. We adopted out two youngest children, both girls. I was already nursing our youngest son who was 5 months old when we got Addy, so I chose to nurse her. I nursed them both for a year (I know I deserve a metal!) and then at one year old I moved them to solid food and water. I would have nursed longer if I only had one baby, but two and going a year was pretty monumental. After nursing, I did not move them to cow's milk, I moved them to water. I had read lots of information and I felt that they would be healthier not drinking cow's milk and just drinking water. This ended up being correct. (in another blog I will discuss juice in babies bottles...not good for the teeth or future teeth.)

Now my last daughter was not nursed at all, no breast milk there and so she had formula for about 10 months and was then put on solid food and water. She has never (to my knowledge) ever drank a glass of cow's milk in her 5 year old little life. She is tall, thin, healthy, and ENERGETIC. She loves all vegetables, loves beans, and nuts, and she has healthy teeth.

We don't eat much dairy. I did confess in an earlier post my love of ice-cream which we try to eat only one time per month. So my children do get some sugary dairy-goo in the form of ice-cream every few weeks or less. Sophie (our youngest daughter) never would think to ask for a glass of milk. It is not a part of her life or culture. She does drink water all day though in her own Dora cup.

I am not for juice, or pop, or smoothies either for that matter. I believe that food is best chewed, for many reasons, some physiological, some emotional. I also feel that juice is too much fructose at one time. We eat lots of fruit around here. Pop is obvious: no nutritional value at all, plus it proves negative on our health.

Cow's milk is for calves. In all studies, and in all countries where milk is drank often and in large quantities osteoporosis develops. I won't give a deep science lesson in full here, but these statistics are due to the way the milk is processed in the body and the way the bones leach out calcium to assist in the digestion of milk. The body actually ends up with less protein and calcium when the milk/dairy product is processed in the body than when it started out. We end up with a deficit of calcium in our body after eating dairy. This is why hip fractures are so prevalent in places in the world where milk is drank a lot.

I know this is a sobering and not too fun thought. Our culture uses dairy in just about every dish we eat or prepare. Most people love the taste of cow's milk. We drink it daily and we give it to our children because we love them and we are trying to keep their little bones healthy and strong. Sadly, this is not the case, milk does not provide the calcium our bodies need that will keep our bones strong. I did not want to believe this at all at first. I read many books on this subject and I was finally convinced it is true. I have proved it within the walls of my own family. I have eight children, and my last two have not had cow's milk to drink in their lives at all. We have been living without milk in our lives for over a decade now and we are fine. Please note that cow's milk does not naturally have vitamin D in it, this is added in the processing of it prior to giving it to the public.

The Dairyman's Association is huge and powerful and their advertising campaigns are very convincing. It does not matter though, the science stands firm, that we don't need to drink or use dairy in our diets to be healthy and have strong bones. Using dairy actually does the opposite of what we hope to accomplish, it weakens our bones.

So you might ask: "Where do we get the protein and calcium we need for our bodies if we don't use dairy products?" Great question! The answer may surprise you as it did me...PLANTS! This is where elephants, cows for that matter, and gorillas get their calcium and protein sources from. If we eat salads, dark green leafy vegetables, and nuts and seeds, we will have plenty of calcium and protein in our diets and our bodies will thank us for it!

To learn more on this subject I invite you to read:
The China Study by Dr. T. Collin Campbell
Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman His website is:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/
Also check out the articles on the website called notmilk.com

Some of the articles on notmilk.com come across a bit harsh, so I just watch what I read. I did learn a great deal of good information about the drinking or not drinking of milk though there on this site so it was worth it for me.

I hope this post helps your family at least think about milk in a new light. Our culture really does revolve in a large part around our eating. Changing something in our diet is hard. Best of luck. I am out there trying to eat healthy too.

Yours,
Chris