When it comes to nutrition, there is rarely another food that arouses so much controversy and emotion as milk does. Mothers faithfully feed it to their children, telling them it will help them grow strong bones and teeth. Celebrities smile widely at us from magazine ads-their moustaches white with milk. Television commercials have perfected the slow motion shot of pure, white milk being poured-implying freshness, health and goodness! "Milk does a body good," they say. But does it?

I believe the goodness of milk is a matter of circumstance and availability. Mother's milk, and raw, natural cow or goat milk, may do a human body good under the right circumstances. However today's industrialized, massproduced milk quite simply does a body harm.

Milk is near and dear to our hearts for good reason. Technically, milk is what every one wants to believe it is: wholesome, nourishing, necessary and healthful. But, only from the source we were originally supposed to get it from-our mother's breast. It is natural for us to thrive on breast milk in the first few years of our lives. It is not natural, however, to expect that a cow will replace this food as we grow. In fact, most humans, as most mammals, naturally lose the ability to digest lactose (milk sugar) somewhere between the ages of 18 months and four years. In addition, some of us are also allergic to a protein in milk called casein, a difficult molecule for the body to digest.

Naturopathic doctor and author of Traditional Foods Are Your Best Medicine (Healing Arts Press, 1997), Ronald F. Schmid, says there are many symptoms directly caused by drinking cow's milk, including fatigue, nasal congestion, colds and allergies. He contends, as do many experts, that these symptoms disappear rapidly when consumption is reduced or eliminated.

Dr. Weston Price, in the early part of the 20th century, travelled the world to observe the traditional diets and health of population groups untouched by civilization. He discovered groups with complete resistance to dental decay and chronic disease using no dairy foods at all. Price also discovered, however, that many traditional cultures (genetically able to digest milk) enjoyed milk as a major role in a health building diet. These people used raw, whole milk, as did many people as far back as history is recorded, both fresh and cultured, along with other dairy products in substantial quantities.

Certainly, it is a good argument that drinking the milk of someone else's mother-the cow-is not logical or necessary. And there is no sense arguing with the genetics of milk digestion. The real argument comes with our modern milk, although the facts are nothing new.

More than three decades ago, natural health guru Paavo Airola, investigating the dispute between milk supporters and non-supporters, wrote, "Both sides agree that today's milk is unfit for human consumption." Airola stated in his book Are You Confused? (Health Publishers, 1971), what many informed nutritionists, including myself, advocate: "If you cannot get a high quality milk, raw and unpasteurized, guaranteed to be from organically raised animals and 100 per cent free from chemical additives, drugs, detergents and insecticide and herbicide residues, then you are better off to omit milk and milk products
from your diet."

While this may seem like harsh advice, it is both valid and sound. With health experts on both sides of the milk yard fence agreeing on the poor quality of today's milk, it is time for the consumer to consider how our milk is produced-and to realize it's not healthy no matter what argument you serve it up with. The authors Real Food For A Change (Random House, 1999), say, "Laws governing milk protect its industrialization more than its quality or safety."

In relation to milk production the cows are not what they used to be-even before we consider the modern day realities of Mad Cow Disease and Bovine Growth Hormone effects. According to Sally Falon, author of Nourishing Traditions (NewTrends Publishing Inc.,1999), a century ago cows produced 400 to 500 pounds of milk per year.

Today's Holsteins routinely give up to 30,000 pounds annually. This is accomplished by selective breeding to produce cows with abnormally active pituitary glands. Dr. Frank Oski, former head of pediatrics at John Hopkins University, and author of Don't Drink Your Milk (Teach Services Incorporated, 1992), says 80 per cent of lactating cows are pregnant. The milk from these cows is enriched in progesterone, and can result in a disrupted hormonal balance in humans. There are also antibiotic residues in milk from the drugs fed cows to treat their illnesses. The diet and lifestyle of cows used specifically in the production of milk also affects their health and the value of the milk they secrete.

We've come to believe that pasteurization is a good thing, necessary for protection against disease. But the same process that is supposed to protect us from disease also destroys the nutrition in milk (according to Falon all outbreaks of salmonella from contaminated milk in recent decades have occurred in pasteurized milk). The heat involved in the pasteurization process also damages its Birds of a Feather.....Together 23 protein structures making the milk less digestible. Some vitamins are destroyed and all of the enzymes are lost. In
fact, the test for successful pasteurization is the absence of enzymes.

The process of homogenization, which reduces the fat globules in milk to prevent cream from separating and rising to the top of containers, is very harmful to our health as well. For the sake of an extended shelf life, evidence indicates that homogenization produces substances in the milk that damage arterial walls.

We are not drinking the natural, raw, whole milk of our ancestors or of those very few groups of people in the world who have not been affected by the modern Western diet.

We are drinking milk that is not healthful and we are paying a price. Dr. Robert C. Atkins, author of The New Diet Revolution (Morrow, Williams & Co., 2001), says cow's milk is responsible for diarrhea, cramps, constipation, gastrointestinal bleeding, iron-deficiency anemia, skin rashes, atherosclerosis, acne, recurrent ear infections, bronchitis, leukemia, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, dental decay, cancer, diabetes, allergies and cataracts, just to get started.

The Nurses Health Study conducted by Harvard University, which followed 78,000 women for more than 12 years, found that those who consumed the most calcium from dairy foods actually broke more bones than those who rarely drank milk (American Journal of Public Health, 1997). In a review of 57 studies of the relationship between dairy foods and bone health, researchers concluded that there was no clear evidence to suggest that milk was beneficial for bone health (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2001).

Does milk do a body good? Yes, but these days, only if you're an infant enjoying the intimate suckle of your mother's breast, or if you're part of an untouched civilization that also boasts the correct genetic make up for milk digestion. For the rest of us, there are many better and healthier sources of calcium, for example, green leafy vegetables (especially kale), almonds, kidney beans and sesame seeds.

Sandra Tonn is a registered holistic nutritionist, natural health journalist and speaker, and a yoga teacher, based in Powell River, BC. www.sandratonn.com.

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