Hey guys, this is a blog I had to write for my biology class. It’s not really all that entertaining, and it’s really REALLY biased, but enjoy anyway. Haha.

Milk; “it does a body good.” But does it really? You can’t always believe what the television states, no matter how convincing or catchy the commercial. The truths of the dairy industry, the real facts, aren’t as black and white as you may have been lead to believe. What if I told you that drinking milk can cause all types of health problems and diseases?(1 and 2) If I said you can get all the nutrients you may think you’re getting from milk from other sources?(5) If I told you that drinking milk actually has little benefit for bone density, and sometimes can even hurt your bones?(5) Although these claims may go against what you’ve been taught in the past, new research and experiments have suggested that milk may not be so user-friendly after all.

You’ve probably always been told that milk is good for you, milk builds strong bones, that you should get three glasses of milk a day, right? I’m not saying that people who drink milk are unhealthy, or that drinking milk greatly affects the health of a human. I’m sure a lot of people over 60 years old would attest to the fact that they’ve been drinking milk their entire life and have not suffered from extreme illness. However, you may be surprised to learn that milk really isn’t the perfectly healthy drink that it’s been promoted as. As mentioned before, milk can cause a wide variety of diseases and health conditions.(1) I’m sure one thing that comes to your mind is lactose intolerance; and you’d be right. A great amount of the human population is lactose intolerant, some with varying degrees of this illness that haven’t even been diagnosed.(3) But there are many other health problems that you may have never associated with the consumption of dairy products. To begin with, drinking milk is linked to many different types of cancer; including pancreatic, prostate, breast, and ovarian cancer.(1) The consumption of casein, found in milk, is also shown to speed up the development of these kinds of cancer.(3) In addition to that, milk is shown to cause rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes, and heart problems.(3) Surprised? Skeptical? I can understand any skepticism; you’ve probably been told all your life that milk is great for you; and it is, in moderation, but recent science has shown that consuming too much milk can have a negative effect on health.

So, you may still be skeptical. That’s fine; I might not believe it either if someone started throwing facts at me without explanation. So, let’s start by explaining how milk causes heart problems. The source of heart problems caused by consumption of milk can be traced to homogenization. This is the process in which milk is forced very quickly through very small spaces to break it into smaller particles so that it doesn’t separate into milk and cream.(4) The problem is that these small particles are then small enough to penetrate the walls of arteries, entering the blood stream and eventually causing heart problems.(4) Doesn’t sound very appetizing, does it? Then there’s casein. Casein is a chalky substance found in milk that’s extremely hard for humans to digest.(3) In fact, casein is so tough that it’s used to make glue. Imagine that. I’ve mentioned casein earlier; it’s shown to speed up the growth of cancer cells. Additionally, a germ in milk was linked to 80% of all rheumatoid arthritis cases,(3) the high amounts of saturated fat and cholesterol in dairy products can cause obesity and diabetes,(5) and thanks to new scientific research, osteoporosis and multiple sclerosis can now be linked to the consumption of animal products.(4)

Convinced yet? Maybe? I mentioned earlier that drinking milk hardly affects bone density at all.(3 and 5) Although this may be a surprising fact, it’s true. When milk is pasteurized, it’s heated to a very high temperature to try to rid of bacteria and harmful microorganisms.(3) However, these temperatures cause the molecules of the milk to become fragile, which prevents many of the nutrients in natural milk from being absorbed by humans.(3) In addition to providing miniscule nutrition, pasteurized milk doesn’t guarantee the elimination of all viruses and bacteria.(3) What a waste! The truth of the matter, no matter how disgusting it may seem, is that unpasteurized milk from healthy cows is a much better alternative to pasteurized milk. Along with the pasteurization taking away much of the nutrition from milk, things like raw turnip greens, watercress, cooked turnips, and seeds contain more calcium than dairy products to begin with.(2) Other vitamins in milk, such as vitamin D, can be obtained from other sources like grains, fruit, and exposure to the sun.(5) So if other, healthier alternatives to dairy products are available, why risk developing the health problems listed above?

If you haven’t assumed that I’m a vegetarian already, and I thank you for keeping an open mind, I’ll tell you now that I am. In fact, I hope to some day to go vegan. It makes little sense to me why humans use animals like we do if the product really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Trust me, I’m not trying to “brain wash” you; I’m only trying to share facts that people may not know so they can form their own opinions. These are true studies being done all over the world in which many different people have reached the same conclusion; milk isn’t a necessary part of anyone’s diet and can potentially do more harm than good. Along with all the other reasons why not to drink milk, don’t you find it strange that we’re the only organism to drink milk as adults. And that milk isn’t even from our own species. Another animal doing something like that would be looked at as unbelievable, so why are humans any different?

The sources I used to collect facts for this post:

1. http://www.naturalnews.com/026778_cancer_pancreatic_cancer_meat.html

2. http://www.jyi.org/volumes/volume6/issue3/features/lee_and_wei.html

3. http://www.vegetarianusa.com/feature_articles/kitchen/milk.html

4. http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/9973/1/Negative-Effects-of-Dairy-Products.html

5. http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/dairy.html

Thanks for reading

Megan