Right from our childhood, we have seen our mothers give us a glass of cow milk before leaving for school or before bed. Its Milk is a good source of protein and calcium, as well as nutrients including vitamin B12 and iodine.
Milk also contains magnesium, which is important for bone development and muscle function, and whey and casein, which have been found to play a role in lowering blood pressure.
In fact, UK’s National Health Service recommends children between the age of one and three must consume 350 milligrams of calcium a day, which just over half a pint of milk would provide, for healthy bone development. But when it comes to adults, research as to whether cow’s milk helps to keep our bones healthy is conflicting.
Thanks to the dairy industry’s, massive PR machine, cow’s milk has long been touted as the go-to source for calcium. But look past the spin and it’s easy to see that milk does a body bad. If you’ve “got milk” (and cheese, yoghurt, and ice cream), you’ve likely got a host of health problems awaiting you, too. So why is milk bad for you and your cows?
In this article, we will be discussing some different attributes of milk that are not beneficial for you.
1. Broken bones
Despite the hype, cow’s milk robs our bones of calcium. It may sound surprising but it is true. Animal proteins tend to produce acid when they are broken down, and calcium is an excellent acid neutralizer, so you can see where this is going.
To neutralize and flush out the acids, our bodies have to use the calcium that the milk contains—as well as some from our stores. So every glass of milk we drink leaches calcium from our bones.
That is why medical research shows that people who consume the most cow’s milk have significantly higher fracture rates than those who drink little to no cow’s milk. And if you are eating large amounts of cheese? Then let me warn you. You are throwing in a heaping helping of saturated fat, sodium, and cholesterol on top of that.
2. Lactose component in the milk
The lactose in cow’s milk can be difficult for some people to digest, resulting in nausea, cramps, gas, bloating, and diarrhoea. Difficulty with dairy digestion can develop later in life and result in progressively worsening symptoms.
A single serving of milk can contain as much as 24 mg of heart-harming cholesterol. A single ounce of queso packs 30 mg. But no plant food contains any cholesterol whatsoever.
A different beast than lactose intolerance, milk allergies can cause potentially strong and dangerous reactions (usually in young children), such as vomiting or anaphylaxis.
3. Antibiotics
Cows are often pumped full of antibiotics to keep them alive and produce milk in filthy factory farm conditions. We can thank this rampant overuse of them for the surge in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. When humans are infected by these superbugs, antibiotics at best have decreased effectiveness and at worst are powerless.
4. Fats aren’t always good for you
A single serving of whole milk can contain more than 20 per cent of the recommended daily allowance of saturated fat. If you consume three servings of whole milk, you’re already at 60 per cent for the day—even before eating any food. Cheese is even worse: Harvard reports that pizza and cheese are the biggest food sources of saturated fat in the American diet.
Despite industry claims, a study of more than 12,000 children showed that the more milk they drank, the more weight they gained—and skim and 1 per cent milk appeared to lead to more weight gain than drinking 2 per cent or whole milk. The study also found that replacing soda with milk did not lead to weight loss.
5. Sodium in cow milk
Cheese can contain up to 400 mg of sodium per ounce. Varieties including halloumi, imported blue, feta, and Edam (as well as processed cheeses) are so loaded with sodium that they’re saltier than seawater.
Besides humans (and companion animals who are fed by humans), no species drinks milk beyond their natural age of weaning or drinks the milk of another species.
Cow’s milk is suited to the nutritional needs of calves, who have four stomachs and gain hundreds of pounds in a matter of months—sometimes weighing more than 1,000 pounds before they’re 2 years old.
Cow’s milk does not suit the nutritional needs of humans, so it’s no wonder that consuming it and its derivatives causes us so many problems.
