As we pointed out in the previous installment of this series, drinking cow’s milk is not only unnecessary, but it is also getting increasingly unsafe due to farming practices. There is no good reason why fully grown men and women need to consume milk, let alone milk from another species. This habit is only prevalent in the human race and goes beyond logic! In addition, evidence shows that nearly all cows (unless raised by you or a farm you know well) are full of toxins such as pesticides, antibiotics and hormones.

Further, cow’s milk is allowed to have a legal amount of blood and pus cells in it. The Dairy Industry has developed a somatic (pus) cell count process, which means, the higher the cells, the higher quantity of pus in milk. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows 750 million pus cells in every liter of milk (that’s the highest permitted upper limit of milk pus cell concentration in the world, nearly twice the international standard of allowable pus cells). How does so much pus get into the milk? Cows are given hormones to trigger maximum milk generation, which makes them more prone to a painful udder infection called mastitis. When the cows are milked, pus, blood and bacteria from the infection flows right along with the milk. For further information, feel free to read the Milk Safety report published by the FDA in 2009.

While pasteurization (heating/boiling) reduces the number of viable microorganisms, it does not negate the effects of toxins produced by mastitis pathogens. In addition, it ends up greatly diminishing the overall nutritional value of milk by causing the loss of up to 60% of vitamins A, C, D and E, while Vitamins B6 and B12 are completely destroyed. Pasteurization also destroys beneficial enzymes, antibodies and hormones, one of which is lipase (an enzyme which is required to break down fat) which in turn impairs fat metabolism and the ability to efficiently absorb fat soluble vitamins A and D.

Homogenization on the other hand makes milk “stable” so that it lasts longer on supermarket shelves to boost sales, although the process creates milk that is less suitable for humans.

You may like the taste and feel healthy and fine consuming dairy products. Good for you, but remember that the intended purpose of milk (for any species) is to promote rapid cell growth to aid the survival of a growing baby. Once, the baby has fully grown, no more growth hormones are needed. So what do you suppose happens to the hormones that enter our adult bodies via dairy products when the primary biological purpose of cow’s milk or any milk is to cause growth? Something has to grow somewhere, right? This over-stimulation of hormones can grow into cancers, acne, tumors and causes various hormonal imbalances in our bodies. The most powerful of these hormones is called insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1). When cow’s milk is fed to people, IGF-1 levels also increases which is linked to human cancer development and growth. Cow’s milk is also loaded with more than needed estrogen because in modern milking practices cows are continuously milked throughout pregnancy and as gestation progresses the estrogen content of milk increases. Well-recognized consequences of excess estrogen are cancers of the breast, uterus, and prostate.

So in the end, we are basically left with a nutrient-less, bacteria and hormone-infused cocktail — YUM!

Do you still want to consume milk from another species, when numerous healthy  alternatives are widely available in today’s world? Alternatives have been mentioned in our previous installment of the “Want Milk?” Series.

In our next and last installment in the “Want Milk?” series we will be tackling the biggest myth when it comes to cow’s milk, CALCIUM. Watch this space!

Image Source: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3