Commentary: Milk needs to be spilled off the revised FDA's Food Pyramid
Ian McCarthy, Athens NEWS Special Projects Contributor
June 6, 2005
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still highly recommends milk products in its recently released revised Food Pyramid, despite the fact that the product is tainted with steroids and antibiotics, not to mention pesticides and a lot of ingredients, such as hydrogen peroxide, on the FDA's Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS) list that are never listed on the label.
The quality and necessity of milk have been called into question, despite the fact that the milk industry has had several of the most successful advertising campaigns in the food industry with its slogans "It Does a Body Good" and "Got Milk?"
The advertising campaign for milk far exceeds the scale of advertisement for any other of the highly recommended foods on the FDA's Food Pyramid. This may be related to the fact that nearly all African Americans and Asians are lactose intolerant. Europeans and a few other cultures have developed the unique genetic ability to continue to produce lactase after weaning. No other mammals on Earth have developed this capacity to continue to digest milk from their own species after weaning, much less the milk from another species.
Neither the FDA nor the dairy industry discusses much of the differences between cow's milk and human milk. The dairy industry reluctantly admits, for example, that one can just as well absorb Vitamin D from the sun as from milk and that the need for calcium decreases significantly between puberty and retirement age. Osteoporosis and other calcium-related ailments occur far less frequently in areas, such as China, where fewer milk products are consumed.
Cow's milk is very different from human milk. It is fattier and contains about 10 percent protein. All human milk is relatively low fat and contains 2-3 percent protein. The high protein content of cow's milk acidifies the blood, which actually flushes calcium and other minerals out of the body in the urine. Calcium can much more readily be absorbed into the body from a number of plant products, including leafy green vegetables, almonds and broccoli. Additionally, milk is a highly addictive substance, which contains opiates that are thought to solidify the bond between mother and child. Most Americans are never weaned from mammary secretion, but rather transitioned from human mother's milk to bovine mother's milk during early childhood.
The heifers that are used as dairy cows must give birth before lactating. The male calves are removed from the mother and typically are killed immediately or starve in veal production facilities, while the female calves become the next generation of milk producers. Dairy cows have a lifespan of more than 20 years, but according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), few live past their fourth year, when the spent dairy cows typically are sent to the rendering plant to become feed for other meat-producing animals or food for humans. A large portion of the beef that McDonald's serves is rendered from spent dairy cows.
Howard F. Lyman, president of the International Vegetarian Union and so-called "Mad Cowboy" who relinquished his profitable life as a fourth-generation Montana rancher to become a vegan, has the distinction, along with Oprah Winfrey and her parent broadcasting company, of being sued by several Texas cattlemen under the as-yet constitutionally untested "food disparagement" law for explaining on Oprah's show how cows are fed to other cows in the feedlots of America.
When Lyman and his wife became vegan, his children and grandchildren "thought we had slipped over the edge," he said. He reported that, since then, about half of his six children and five grandchildren have voluntarily declared themselves vegan. "I think consumers are going to drag the USDA and FDA kicking and screaming into the 21st century," he said when asked whether the FDA or USDA might one day revise their strong support of the dairy industry and its products.
According to John Robbins, author of "Diet for a New America" and heir to the Baskin-Robbins ice cream fortune who became vegan and refused his inheritance, even the cows in the production facilities at Horizon Inc., the largest producers of organic milk products in the United States, typically suffer many of the same treatments and never see a live blade of grass, although they are fed organic grains.
Organic foods are the fastest-growing segment of the food industry. The dairy industry fought unsuccessfully to have the word "milk" removed from all beverages not derived from lactating mammals. Even the FDA has considerably improved its infamous four food groups, which recommended that one quarter of everyone's diets consist of dairy products. The FDA itself has no qualms about identifying its mission as being dual between promoting good health for the American people and promoting the good health of the American agricultural industry. Currently, the dairy industry vastly overproduces milk products.
Comments
Please log in to post a comment.
