Does Dairy Do a Body Good?

We’ve been told for years by the milk industry that we should be drinking milk to get our daily calcium supply for strong bones and teeth.

I don’t know about you, but this powerful message resonated in my home growing up because my mom always insisted that my brother and I drink lots of milk.  After all, my mom, like a lot of moms, wanted her children to be healthy.

But, is milk really good for us?

The answer is YES and NO! 

There is plenty of mounting evidence to support that consuming conventional dairy is VERY harmful to your health. 

For one, conventional dairy farmers raise their cattle in very unsafe, unsanitary conditions:

• Cows are pumped with hormones to increase milk production.
• They’re fed garbage like chemically-laden, soy-based grains and items that are not even food like cardboard, saw dust, plastic and even road kill.
• They’re often confined to tight spaces, unable to roam freely only to sit in their own waste day in and day out. 
• And when these animals get sick (as to be expected under such circumstances) they’re injected with antibiotics. 

What kind of milk do you think a sick cow produces?  All you have to do is go to your local chain grocery store to find out!

Another cause for alarm with conventional dairy is that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) basically allows conventional farmers to get away with these reduced standards of cleanliness by using pasteurization (heating the milk to very high temperatures to “kill” potentially harmful bacteria.) 

The problem with this: the heat kills all important enzymes and damages vitamins and amino acids (the building blocks of protein.)  By definition, milk is officially pasteurized when no enzymes are present.  The enzymes in milk help you break down and utilize its nutrients.  For example, the enzyme phosphatase is essential for calcium absorption, but it is destroyed by pasteurization.  So, drinking pasteurized milk may lead to osteoporosis (Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.)

Pasteurization may have been justified back in 1908 when milk-borne diseases like tuberculosis spread through the milk supply due to unsanitary conditions.  But we now know that the modern milking mechanisms we have today, along with efficient packaging and distribution, make pasteurization unnecessary.    

Unpasteurized or “raw” milk naturally contains lactic acid-producing bacteria that actually protect it from pathogens (disease-causing organisms.)  Of course, this beneficial bacteria is completely destroyed by pasteurization, thereby leaving the milk defenseless against bad bacteria potentially contaminating the supply.

For those of you who think drinking pasteurized milk is safer than raw, organic milk, here’s an interesting statistic to consider:  Of the MANY outbreaks of salmonella from contaminated milk, ALL have occurred in pasteurized milk! (Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.)  So, pasteurization is not a guarantee for cleanliness.