Is It Important To Drink Milk?

NOT AT ALL!

Unless it is organic and whole, possibly unpasteurized, non homogenized milk, you are better off just not drinking it at all. There are many alternatives to cows milk: Almond, milk, Cashew milk and Coconut Milk are my favorite. I do not recommend using Soy milk (due to GMO ) and rice milk (usually too sweet and may contain arsenic)

Multiple studies (majority done in Scandinavian countries) showed that drinking too much milk (more than 1 to 2 cups per day or 10 – 15 oz/day) may lead to osteoporosis (thinning of the bones) and vitamin D deficiency, not the other way around!!!

One of the reasons explaining this milk phenomenon is that pH of the body becomes low (acidotic) when consuming milk, therefore this environment does not allow the calcium from the milk to be adequately absorbed into the bones. Mind you, one cup of green veggies (like broccoli, kales or spinach) has more calcium than 1 cup of milk, and it is more available to bones than the calcium from milk (pH is high/ alkaline and this promotes calcium absorption).

Eat your veggies, do not gulp that milk!
Maybe you did not hear this one from your pediatrician, simply because we are NOT thought nutrition in medical school. Unless your doc has a special interest in food ingredients, cooking, nutrition, and/or vitamin absorption from different sources, there is just a scarce of information on this topic in our medical books. Besides, we- the doctors, can often eat fast , processed and nutritionally poor food due to running very busy lives.

How About Vitamin D?

You will NOT get your daily vitamin D amount from any food or drink. Period.

Sadly, many dairy cows in US never see the sunlight, therefore do not produce sufficient amount of vitamin D. Besides, vitamin D stores in milk fat, so drinking low fat or fat free milk will

NOT rise your vitamin D levels (even the milk from sunbathed cows who grazed on the pastures). On the top of everything, majority of US milk is fortified with vitamin D2, which unfortunately may inhibit vitamin D receptors in our body and prevent vitamin D absorption. (link for more on vitamin D here)

Take your D3 vitamin supplement diluted in oil based liquid!

What Is Wrong With Store Bought Milk?

Industrial milk is usually pasteurized (heated to kill the milk bacteria, good and bad) and homogenized (fat is emulsified into small droplets – so there is no cream on the top – which increases fat spoilage and can deteriorate our health).

Their cows live under very poor conditions: not moving around, stuck in their own excrement, with lack of sunlight, sick and depressed, fed with GMO corn and chemicals. Due to all this they easily get sick therefore are often treated with antibiotics. Still their milk can contain lots of bad bacteria so pasteurization process will neutralize this and mask how sick their milk really is.

Heat will also kill the good bacteria and enzymes which mother nature designed in milk to protect the overgrowth of the nasty bacteria. So now we have milk with no bacteria (good or bad) and no beneficial enzymes, containing antibiotics, chemicals, etc.

Is Raw Milk OK?

Raw milk from the trusted source can be beneficial for health. In order to prevent exposure to bad bacterial strains, raw milk is usually tested for microbes on a batch by batch bases.

Article published in 2001 (see the link) showed less allergies, hay fever and asthma in kids who consumed raw milk.

Another study showed 30% decrease in ear infections, fever and respiratory infections (see the link)

And yes, this is me milking the cows on the top of Ecuador mountains, and my kid drinking it. By the way, there is about 8.5% milk fat found in “udder milk” compared to whole milk which has 3.5% (the rest of the fats are used to make butter, and other goodies). So even your “whole ” milk is not as whole as you thought.

Low Fat Or Whole Milk?

Always choose the whole milk. In simple words – more fat in milk will make less fat around your waist! Also, consumption of whole milk WILL NOT increase your cholesterol!!!

Milk fat will make you less hungry, it will slow down the sugar release in your blood, therefore reduce the amount that is stored as fat.

Usually, powdered milk is added to skim / low fat milk to make up for the lack of taste due to fat removal. To make powdered milk you have to process it under high pressure and heat, and this results in plaque formation in arteries, heart disease, cancer and genetic mutations, Read more about the study (link here)

Be A Smart Milk Buyer

When shopping for milk, you should look for:

• 100% grass fed or “pastured” or “pasture raised” milk (do not confuse it with the term pasteurized which means heated to kill bacteria)
• Choose the milk with cream on the top (unhomogenized) if available
• Get the “whole milk” of full fat milk. Consumed in moderate amount it will give your body more nutrients
• (immune factors, fat soluble vitamins, and healthy fats like conjugated linoleic acid which reduces risk for obesity, cancer, diabetes and inflammation)
• Always buy certified organic milk since it does not have harmful pesticides. These cows are not treated with hormones and antibiotics, they are fed non GMO feed however they still may or may not be raised outdoors on pasture.

Here is a great link to check the organic milk quality. By Cornucopia Institute.

References:

“Dirt cure” book by Maya Shetreat – Klein, MD