Dairy products kicked off my interest in the human diet and years of dietary and evolutionary research. As a relatively new food – we will get to this in a moment – and one that is so common in westernised diets, it is clearly an important one to discuss.
Until my early twenties, I was a strong believer that dairy milk was an important part of the human diet, after all, how else was I going to get all my calcium needs met? In fact, my beliefs about milk became convictions when I thought back at how, as a younger child, I had been allergic to milk and that this must have been the cause of my numerous broken bones even though I had “overcome” the allergy and reintroduced milk into my diet.
Now, with a significantly more informed about our nutritional requirements, evolutionary history, and the negative impact of many contemporary foods I can see quite clearly that I suffered a few broken bones not because I was missing out on my “milk requirements” but because (a) active children do occasionally break bones and (b) my diet – which included a fair quantity of fizzy soft drinks, wheat, salt and refined sugar – did not include nearly enough fruits and calcium-rich vegetables.
My interest in the link between dairy and disease started when I was 22 years old. I had just left my doctor’s office with a new appointment slip. I was scheduled to have my tonsils removed. I had been suffering for most of my teens and early 20’s with severe allergies, sinus troubles, post-nasal drip which culminated in relentless throat infections. It took only one short glance down my throat for the ears-nose-throat specialist to order the offending tonsils out. While I agreed to the surgery – I was certainly not going to argue with a specialist – I was somewhat reluctant and concerned. However they got there – whether created by God or evolution – I was certain that they were meant to be there. Still, the specialist had ordered them out of my throat and into a specimen jar and who was I to argue?
It was around this time that I met my good friend, Tim Ames who was trying to sell me tickets to a motivational seminar in Vancouver, Canada. Tim was a vibrant young man with a great deal of energy – like most good sales people. He convinced me to attend the program and suggested that I pay special attention to the third day.
On the third day I discovered that the motivational part of the program was over and we were now learning about health – after all, how can you be motivated if you are not healthy?
One of the major recommendations of the program was to eliminate dairy products from my diet. It was ridiculous and there was no way I was going to do it. Milk, I thought at the time, was not simply important to our diets but vital. After all, why would the schools give it to us for free? Why would our health teacher tell us to drink it? Why would the television keep telling us that, “Milk. It does a body good.”?
Tim intervened again. I had told him about my upcoming surgery which was only 6 weeks away and he implored me to try giving up dairy just until then. After the surgery, he joked, I could have as much ice cream as I wanted.
It was not immediately easy – I ate cereal for breakfast, cheese on my pizza and ice cream with alarming regularity so it was going to be a big change. Still, I did it. Three weeks later I noticed that for only the second time since before puberty I had a clear complexion. I had suffered with fairy serious acne – cystic at times – for several years and now my face was clear. Strangely, the only other time I had cleared my complexion was when I was prescribed some very powerful pills. The warnings on the bottle included bold print that any sexual intercourse should involve at least two methods of birth control and that should a pregnancy occur, early termination of the pregnancy was required. This was, it turned out, because the pills were known for creating the most heinous birth defects. These pills did manage to clear up my acne for a while but when I gave them up it came straight back. Coincidentally, while on these pills, I was forbidden to have any dairy products at all.
The absence of acne on my face was not only better for my self-esteem – for those who have not suffered with it, it might be hard to imagine the relief of a clear face – but also meant a great deal less pain. The cystic acne I experienced was quite often rather painful. And now it was gone.
Also around this same time, I woke up and realised that I and slept really well. (I often did not because of my sinus problems.) I then realised that I had slept so well because I was breathing clearly through my nose – this was a surprise. I rarely slept well without the aid of decongestants or nasal sprays. I was amazed when it lasted all day, that night, and then for the next several days.
After four weeks of clear breathing I answered a call at my office; my doctor’s receptionist was calling to confirm my surgery. I didn’t know what to say; for weeks now I had experienced clear sinuses and no throat problems. I was scared to do so, but I cancelled the surgery, explaining that I was no longer suffering. In retrospect, I find it interesting that the surgeon never called me to find out why. He could have been interested in either why he lost a customer or I how cured myself; I guess he wasn’t.
Another coincidental side effect was that I had lost 30 pounds – but as yet I had not credited any of this to the absence of dairy from my diet. Further, I had – since early childhood, suffered with painful abdominal cramps and painful trips to the loo. They were so common on my mother’s side of the family (du Toit) that they referred to them as the du Toit Cramps. What I had not yet noticed was that I had not experienced any cramps in weeks. I realised this one night after dinner at a girlfriend’s house.
For desert she made apple pie and Hagen Daas® ice cream – my favourite dessert. I ate it with glee – the first dairy product I had eaten in 6 weeks. And within a few hours I experienced the return, with a vengeance, of the du Toit cramps. I now realised that I had not had them for weeks. I was sold – it all came together for me. My allergies were gone, my face cleared up, my throat was neither painful or itchy, my stomach pains were gone and I had lost 30 pounds – all in 6 weeks.
So, I was clearly not meant to have milk. This worried me a great deal. Was I unusual? Did I have some strange defect that others of my species did not? Would I survive into old age bearing in mind how weak my bones were likely to get as I got older? I decided that I would either need to overcome my problems with dairy products – perhaps there was some medicine I could take? – or I may have to resort to taking calcium supplements. I decided to learn all I could about the subject.
And so my fascination with dairy and its impact on human health began. I read about and studied milk in earnest. In time I determined that there are four main areas to consider – in no particular order — when debating the human consumption of dairy products:
1) Human Dietary Evolution (biochemistry/human digestion)
2) Milk as a source of Calcium
3) Animal Rights
Human History and Evolution
To answer questions about dairy consumption I felt that it would be interesting to know – although I did not yet understand how important this issue would become as my studies progressed – when humans first started to consume dairy products.
Exactly when and how we started to use dairy products is still not precisely known. I have read theories that suggest that it may have been as long as 11,000 years ago (domestication of cows in Libya) and Ayurvedic writings in India suggest that it may be as far back as 8000 years ago, but the earliest clear example of dairy milk consumption that I have been able to find was around 6500 years ago in England where pottery has been found with traces of milk products. This discovery was made by Richard P. Evershed, of the University of Bristol in England, using a recently developed method of milk-fat detection.
Many archaeologists believe that that despite this early evidence of milk production that milk itself would not have entered human consumption for several thousand years after its initial production because of the high incidence of negative reaction to lactose . Instead, it is likely that people initially produced dairy products – butters, cheeses etc. – that were lower in lactose and, therefore, edible.
Some people were better able to digest lactose than others, thanks to a mutation on chromosome 2 that allowed people to continue to produce the lactase required for lactose digestions (normally, mammals stop producing lactase once they are weaned.) People with this genetic alteration would have had a slight evolutionary advantage in that, during times of short food supply, children that were able to get food energy from dairy products were more likely to survive to breeding age and, therefore, pass on this adaptation.
It is important to remember that, as we discussed in the Evolution chapter, evolution does not favour the “fittest” so much as it favours the “fittest to breed.” This means that an adaptation, such as continued lactase production, would be passed on because people with this trait were more likely to survive to breeding age, even if it caused dysfunction or disease later in life.
This advantage was only developed in a few social constructs . Emedicine.com estimates that 75% of the American population is lactose intolerant . Broken down, it turns out that only 25% of the white population (people with European heritage) are lactose intolerant whereas lactose intolerance among the Jewish, African American, Native American, South American, Asian American runs at around 75-90% of the population. The numbers are very similar for Canada .
This makes clear sense when viewed against archaeological record. The populations that appear to have introduced dairy products as long as 6000 – 10000 years ago have a far greater ability to process lactose because they have been given the opportunity to begin to adapt their digestive systems. This does not, however, mean that the consumption of dairy products is good for either the people who adapted the ability to produce lactase in adulthood or those who have not. It simply means that they do not suffer the immediate symptoms of lactose intolerance.
For example, there are also a large number of people who react badly to casein, a milk protein. And there are a plethora of other symptoms and diseases that have been associated with milk consumption. Studies have also shown that allergies to dairy products can cause irritability, restlessness, hyperactivity, muscle pain, mental depression, abdominal pain, cramps or bloating, gas, diarrhoea, bad breath, headaches, lack of energy, constipation, poor appetite, mal-absorption of nutrients, nasal stuffiness, runny nose sinusitis, asthma, shortness of breath, rashes, eczema, and hives.
As we discussed in the section on evolution, natural selection often creates almost perfect relationships. Each mammal species, for instance, has evolved over millions of years the ability to produce the perfect food for its offspring. When I say, “perfect food” I am of course referring to milk and, moreover, I mean perfect for the offspring of the given species. Milk is both species and age-specific. Each mammalian mother produces milk that meets the nutritional requirements specific to its own species. Cows, for instance, require a great deal more fat, protein, calcium and growth hormones than people and this is reflected in their milk. Further, each species’ milk is also specific to the age of its offspring. For example, milk produced in the first few days of an infant’s life is very different from the milk produced later. The composition of the milk changes over time to meet the requirements of the child at whatever stage of growth it is at. Evolution, over millions of years, has produced the ability for each species’ mothers to produce food that is perfect for their offspring at each developmental stage until they are weaned. Considering how different each species’ milk composition is at various stages of infant development, it is no surprise that the differences between one species milk and the next can be even more striking.
For example, bovine and human milk are drastically different. Dairy milk has only 83% of the Vitamin A contained in human milk, only half the niacin, and only 20% of the Vitamin C. Meanwhile, it has 250% of the protein contained and over 400% of the calcium of human mother’s milk. These are the differences before BGH , antibiotics and bovine diseases are examined.
In the quest to produce the maximum amount of milk possible, at the lowest cost, a variety of growth hormones and antibiotics are in regular use. BGH (in the USA) is used to increase milk production. Antibiotics are used to fight mastitis. As well as being painful for the cow, the mastitis produces white blood cells (pus) that obviously make their way into our milk. Dr. McDougall said, in the April 2003 issue of his newsletter that:
Unfortunately, some of that white [milk is white] comes from white blood cells – commonly referred to as “pus cells” – which are cells produced by the cow’s immune system to fight off infections, especially those of bacterial origin, such as mastitis. The dairy industry calls these somatic cells and refers to their presence as the somatic cell count (SCC). The SCC is the number of (mostly) white blood cells per milliliter (cells/ml) of milk. (There are 20 drops per milliliter; 30 milliliters to an ounce)
Beginning July 1, 1993, the SCC level in milk must be less than 750,000 SCC to comply with the State and Federal Pasteurized Milk Ordinance.32 This means one 8 ounce glass of milk (240 milliliters) can contain 180 million white blood cells and still be fine for you to drink and feed to your family. In a recent study of milk sold in New York State the average SCC was 363,000 cells/ml.33 These white blood cells were produced by the cow to fight off the 24,400 bacteria/ml found in this milk.
When I read this, I was seriously surprised. On the other hand, I thought, perhaps it explains something else I read about milk: For the period of October 1, 1993 through September 30, 1998 (five years) dairy products were the most often recalled of all foods.
Even with the evolutionary odds stacked against it, and the pharmacological and bacterial infection issues to consider as well, I was still astounded at the long list of diseases that milk consumption has been linked to: ovarian cancer, prostate cancer , diabetes , lymphoma , osteoporosis , acne , Crohn’s disease , salmonella , leukaemia , lung cancer and a plethora of other diseases and symptoms.
So, if milk is so bad, why do so many trust it? For the same reason that people pay well over the odds for vacuums, encyclopaedias and time share products; good sales and marketing. In 2004 the Dairy Management Company plans to spend $162,300,000 on their marketing plan to increase demand for milk products. Paul Rovey, chairman of Dairy Management Inc., said in their statement about this marketing plan,
“The 2004 budget allows producers to work effectively with processors, retailers, manufacturers, restaurant chains, educators, health organisations and others. Increasing dairy demand is good for our industry and good for the nation.”
Knowing what I know today, I am certain that I do not want him spending this money to influence “educators and health organisations.” How much to you think Bill Clinton and other celebrities (whom we often place far too much trust in) get paid to wear milk moustaches in billboard and magazine ads? I do note with some bitter irony that President Clinton, who is young and appeared relatively healthy, is recovering from a quadruple bypass as I write this section of the book.
The Calcium Myth
So if milk is so bad for us – as the evidence strongly suggests – then what are we going to do about calcium? Remember that hundred and sixty million dollars the milk people are spending each year to increase demand? That question, what are we going to do about calcium, is precisely what they are spending that money on. And it seems like they are getting their money’s worth because when my friend Tim first suggested dairy free living, my first question – asked with wide open arms – was, “Where am I going to get my calcium from?” (As I think about that now I can just see Mr. Rovey of the Dairy Management Company smiling and rubbing his hands together.)
Perhaps, with a few hundred millions dollars to spend the farmers and producers of kale, spinach, turnip, broccoli, sesame seed, nut, flax seed, seaweed, fig, egg, parsley, tomato, rhubarb, and lettuce could finally get the message out that the foods they produce are the sources of calcium that are natural to our digestive system.
In researching calcium, I sought to answer a number of questions:
1) Where did we get our calcium from before dairy?
2) How much do we really need.
3) Is milk a good source of calcium.
Where did we get calcium from before?
Since my interest in archaeology had led me to understand that milk consumption was relatively new to the human diet – 10,000 years for Northern Europeans and as little as a few hundred years for many others – I was of course compelled to wonder how we met our calcium requirements before this change. I had grown up, like most of us, believing the milk was a vital part of our diet and always had been, so finding out how new milk was to our history came as quite a surprise – it was almost as though I had been misled by the people I trusted most.
If you consider that hominids first surfaced around 5,000,000 years ago, and archaeological record suggests that the earliest use of dairy products was no more than 10,000 years ago, this means that for 4,990,000 years (or 99.8% of our history) we managed to meet our calcium requirements without the help of dairy products. For most of us, the introduction of dairy milk appears to have been within the last 1000 years – meaning 4,999,000 years (or 99.99% of our history) without dairy products. This is particularly interesting when we consider that that many of our ancestors had significantly larger and stronger bones than we do.)
So, it seems that the need for calcium is not quite as powerful an argument for milk as we have been led to believe.
Still, although milk clearly does not need to be our primary source of calcium, perhaps it still can be? To answer this question, I turned to the time in our lives when calcium intake would, in all likelihood, have the greatest, or at least a very high level of, importance: our first few years.
Human infants, on average, triple their birth weight in the first year. Naturally this means that babies require a great deal of calcium to support the growth of their bones during this period. The question then is: How much is a “great deal” of calcium? To answer this question we can examine the only food that was designed specifically for us to consume during that time: human mother’s milk.
Cow’s milk, specifically designed for calves, contains 431% of the calcium contained in human milk. So, if we need calcium, what is the harm in having 4 times our proven requirement?
Mark Lallanilli of ABC News reported in an article titled Mineral Rights that too much calcium can be unhealthy . Further, a paper published in the British Medical Journal on May 19, 2001 reported that excess calcium is associated with an increase in incidence of hip fracture, one of the measures of bone health. They also said:
“… International rates of hip fractures are higher in countries where calcium consumption is high….”
Another study , published by the National Library of Medicine examined the relationship between milk (and calcium supplements) and hip fracture and they determined that “neither milk nor a high-calcium diet appears to reduce risk [of hip fracture]” and that, “…adequate vitamin D intake is associated with lower risk [of hip fracture]”.
I found this alarming. All these years of education and conditioning had given me a very strong belief that without regular consumption of dairy product I would end up with weak or brittle bones. Now I find that the opposite is true – that not only will the consumption of milk prevent this from happening but it may well contribute to causing it?
Just how much calcium to we need?
Wait. There must be examples of people who don’t have milk and have even worse incidents of hip fracture and brittle bones. As I searched for examples of this I found that the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported in 1965 that African Bantu women, who give birth to an average of 9 children, and breast-feed each one for 2 years, rarely if ever have calcium deficiency, hardly ever break bones or lose teeth and yet only consume 350mg of calcium per day. (One cup of milk has around 300mg of calcium and the US RDA for adults of around 1000mg and the British RNI is between 700 and 1000mg per day.)
Websites published by dairy sites are fond of quoting the drastic amount of spinach we would have to consume to meet or daily calcium requirements so I decided to do some math:
If the US RDA for adults is correct (1000mg per day), then it would take around 4 cups of spinach to meet our daily requirements – a bit extreme for anyone other than Popeye. Alternatively, one could consume 10 cups of broccoli – also a daunting task. On the other hand, if the actual daily requirement for calcium is closer to 350mg, then a person eating a good amount of green vegetables each day would surely be getting enough calcium.
So why is the US RDA 1000mg? And why are the Japanese and Korean RDA closer to 600mg? Is it possible that some of Mr. Rovey’s hundreds of millions of dollars has influenced this number? He did say that he planned to use the money to work with “educators, health organisations and others.”
It appears that the US RDA’s are set by looking at the average American daily consumption and the current health of the general population. If the average American is taking 600 – 800mg per day and there is an average decrease I bone density and a corresponding increase in osteoporosis then it would be easy for Mr. Rovey to convince the “educators, health organisations and others” that people should be taking in even more calcium. But this is not the whole picture.
Is milk a good source of dietary calcium?
No. To my surprise I found that animal protein –- which milk is packed with — can cause calcium loss. USA Today reports on their website that:
Eating too much animal protein (over 80 to 100 grams a day) can cause you to lose too much calcium. Plant or vegetarian protein does not seem to cause this problem.
Since dairy milk is high in animal protein, consuming it may well amount to working at cross purposes, particularly if you are already consuming enough or more than enough animal protein to begin with. In other words, the more animal protein (including milk) you consume the more calcium you will require.
Now I had an answer as to why incidents of hip fracture appeared to increase in proportion to milk consumption around the world: Drinking milk does not end up in the net calcium benefit that we originally thought.
So it seemed that my beliefs about milk were going to have to change. I was now sure that I was not unfortunately unable to consume dairy products and that I may have to compensate for this deficiency. Instead, I realised that I was quite fortunate to have discovered that I could not have dairy products because, in all likelihood, no person should.
As I continued my studies and found that the “calcium from milk” issue did not only include increased rates of hip fracture and osteoporosis (with increased dairy consumption) but that there were also links to other diseases as well. As well as the long list of diseases I mentioned in the previous section of this chapter, I found an extraordinary link between excessive calcium consumption and prostate cancer.
The American Cancer Society reported that a study conducted at Harvard University suggested that too much calcium may be the largest dietary risk factor for the development of prostate cancer. The study found that men that consumed the most calcium, say double the recommended daily intake, developed advanced prostate cancer 300%, and metastatic prostate cancer 500%, more often than those that took in half that level. (The study also found that increased fructose (fruit sugars) reduced these percentages substantially.)
One of the study authors, Dr. Edward Giovannucci, said:
“We’re not saying that calcium causes cancer. What we are saying is that more than enough calcium may be too much of a good thing. It may even be more important than how much fat you eat. And that by eating plenty of fruit, you can bring down your chances of getting prostate cancer dramatically.”
If “more than enough calcium may be too much of a good thing” then is it wise for our children to be consuming approximately 4 times the requirement determined by nature and millions of years of evolution? And, if it is not wise for our children, is it wise for us in adulthood?
Obviously, as my research progressed and my knowledge increased, I became certain that not only are dairy products not a requirement – a major relief to me since I could not have them – but they are not even an option (except, of course, for calves.)
I have come to understand that dairy products are the result of the most serious abuses of animals and have no place in the human diet. I strongly believe that the single most important and beneficial change that most people can make to their diets is the elimination of all dairy products.
For some people, this will be obvious – many people will have experienced the benefits of non-dairy existence: reduction or elimination of allergies and asthma symptoms, weight loss and energy gain are among the most obvious. For all those would be sufferers of ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, lymphoma, osteoporosis, acne, Crohn’s disease, salmonella, leukaemia, and lung cancer that have managed to avoid these diseases by removing dairy from their diets; they will never truly be able to appreciate what they have done for themselves.
Animal Rights
I have discussed this issue briefly in the chapter on Animal rights, however, just in case the personal reasons for eliminating dairy products were not compelling enough, I thought I would point out a few realities about how dairy cows are treated.
To start, I will quote a few points from John Robbins’ book, The Food Revolution:
“Dairy cows in the United States today do not have it easy. The natural life span for dairy cows is 20 – 25 years. But under modern conditions these animals are lucky to make it to age four.”
I agree with many of John Robbins observations and I suspect that when he said “lucky” he did not really mean lucky. After all, how “lucky” are these animals are to make it to age four, or to live at all. They are removed from their mothers almost as soon as they are born and then (in the United States) more than half of them end up living in factory-like conditions some of which are described below by the Humane Society of the United States:
Factory farmed dairy cows are typically kept in indoor stalls or on drylots. A drylot is an outdoor enclosure devoid of grass. Cows raised on drylots usually have no protection from inclement weather, nor are they provided with any bedding or a clean place to rest. Drylots can hold thousands of cows at one time. Because these lots are only completely cleaned out once—or at the most, twice—a year, the filth just keeps building up. Such conditions are not only extremely stressful for the cows, they also facilitate the spread of disease.
Until recently, Robbins tells us in his book, dairy cows could produce their own body weight in milk in a four-month period – they are now doing so in three weeks or, if they have been injected with bovine growth hormones, as little as ten days. This pressure to over-produce, combined with the unhealthy diet and lifestyle (cows US were until recently fed, like in pre-BSE UK, food mixed with animal products), has created a situation that has half of the 10,000,000 dairy cows in the United States suffering with mastitis. (Even if the mastitis issue does not bother you from a health perspective – pus count in milk – it may bear considering how painful it is for the cows.)
I don’t think that anyone could suggest that dairy cows live anywhere near enjoyable lives. In most cases they live deplorable lives of slavery and suffering. Their suffering is reason enough for many people to stay well clear of dairy foods.
If you continue to consume dairy products after reading this book I only ask you to consider purchasing them only from producers that use free-range and ethical farming practices.
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The Human Diet by Eric Edmeades 