Digest Number 692

[Guest guest]

Thanks for sending this. I'm not really a vegan by choice, but it seems

like a good decision. Anyone have any information about a vegan diet and

osteoporosis?

 

Suzanne Romey

 

 

 

 

 

 

on 08/29/2003 04:08:13 AM

 

Please respond to

 

cc:

 

Digest Number 692

 

 

 

 

Message: 1

Thu, 28 Aug 2003 14:53:56 -0700

" Tea Cozy " <teacups

White Poison

 

White Poison: The Horrors of Milk

Shanti Rangwani, ColorLines

December 3, 2001

 

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12002

 

Got milk? If not, then thank your lucky stars. Because if you do,

medical research shows that you are likely to be plagued by anemia,

migraine, bloating, gas, indigestion, asthma, prostate cancer, and a

host of potentially fatal allergies -- especially if you are a person

of color.

 

Ignoring this, the government declares that milk is essential to good

health, subsidizes the milk industry to the tune of billions of

dollars, and requires milk in its public school lunch programs. And

celebrity shills sporting milk mustaches tell us that milk is rich in

proteins, calcium, and vitamins -- and very cool to boot.

 

They forget to tell you about the dangers lurking in that

innocuous-looking glass of white. Once criticized only by naturopaths

and vegans, now the health effects of milk are being decried by many

mainstream doctors. The supposedly hip milk mustache is actually a

creamy layer of mucus, live bacteria, and pus.

 

Former Chairman of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University, Frank

Oski, M.D. even has a book called Don't Drink Your Milk which blames

every second health problem kids suffer on hormone-ridden commercial

milk. Sixty percent of ear infections in kids under six years of age

are milk-induced, and milk consumption is the number one cause of

iron-deficiency anemia in infants today according to the American

Association of Pediatrics.

 

But milk is also a racial issue. Almost 90 percent of African

Americans and most Latinos, Asians, and Southern Europeans lack the

genes necessary to digest lactose, the primary sugar in milk. The

milk industry's response is classic: they have launched new campaigns

arguing that non-whites can digest milk if they take in small sips

during the day. There is a burgeoning industry worth $450 million a

year churning out products designed to minimize lactose intolerance.

 

Lactose intolerance is the most common " food allergy, " but to call it

an allergy is to take a white-centric view that trivializes the fact

that most of the world's people are not biologically designed to

digest milk.

 

Milk does no body good, but for the vast majority of the world's

people -- people of color -- it is a public health disaster.

 

No other animal drinks cow's milk, not even calves once they are

weaned. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, the U.S.'s leading authority on

child care, spoke out against feeding " cow's glue " to children,

saying it can cause anemia, allergies, and diabetes and in the long

term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease, the number one

cause of death in this country.

 

Most of milk's much-vaunted protein is contained in casein -- which

is also a raw material for commercial glue. Undigested, it simply

sticks to the intestinal walls and blocks nutrient absorption.

 

The mainstream media and the government ignore the medical studies

showing that milk is a serious health threat, in part because people

of color are the main victims. The institutionalization of racism is

highlighted by U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson Eilene

Kennedy's statement on milk, that the government's recommended food

pyramid is intended for " the majority of Americans. It doesn't

communicate to all Americans. "

 

The USDA continues to require that school lunch programs include milk

with every meal, and recommend that we glug milk for calcium, even

though Harvard studies show an increase in osteoporosis and

bone-breakage in people who consume milk. It says we should drink

milk to prevent heart disease (and is echoed by Larry King) even

though saturated fat constitutes 55 percent of milk solids.

 

The dairy lobby perpetrates lies to ensure its profits. It benefits

directly from the exaggerated support prices the government shells

out for this " health food. " The government pays over a billion

dollars a year for surplus butter. A General Accounting Office (GAO)

study concluded that a reduction in the government price support

system would have netted consumers savings of $10.4 billion from 1986

to 2001. And the USDA pays inflated prices to purchase dairy products

for both the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and federal school

lunch programs -- milking the taxpayers and actually getting them to

pay for poisoning 26 million school kids.

 

The milk lobby has whipsawed its way into the highest echelons of

power. Staffers under Richard Nixon were indicted for accepting

$300,000 from the dairy lobby for making milk part of the school

lunch program.

 

Dr. Robert Cohen of the Dairy Education Board, a nonprofit

organization dedicated to exposing the milk lobby, contends that the

dramatic 52 percent rise in asthma deaths among minority kids in New

York coincided with the surplus milk, cheese, and butter pumped into

them under the USDA's free school lunch and breakfast giveaway

programs. The incidence of asthma deaths may be even higher since

asthma is not a reportable disease, and asthma deaths are sometimes

certified as cardiovascular disease.

 

There is also a direct link between milk consumption and prostate

cancer among African Americans, who have the highest incidence of

this disease in the world. A study in Cancer has shown that men who

reported drinking three or more glasses of whole milk daily had a

higher risk for prostate cancer than men who reported never drinking

whole milk.

 

The controversial Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) -- banned in most

countries -- is pumped into U.S. milch cows to increase annual yield

(50,000 pounds of milk per cow today compared to 2,000 pounds in

1959). Milk from cows treated with BGH is likely to contain pus from

their udders since the hormone leads to mastitis, or udder infection.

BGH use results in a tumor-promoting chemical (IGF-I) that has been

implicated in an explosive increase of cancer of the colon, smooth

muscle, and breast.

 

The antibiotics dairy farmers use to treat BGH-caused infections in

cows appear in their milk and greatly hasten human tolerance to most

antibiotics, a potentially life-threatening state of affairs. The

Center for Science in the Public Interest reports that 38 percent of

milk samples in 10 cities were contaminated with sulfa drugs and

other antibiotics.

 

A fightback is beginning. Protesters picketed New York City Mayor

Rudolph Giuliani's planned milk promotion campaign with a photo of

the mayor wearing a milk mustache over the caption, " Got Prostate

Cancer? " Giuliani (who, like his father, has prostate cancer) dropped

the campaign. And doctors from the Physicians Committee for

Responsible Medicine (PCRM) persuaded Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony

Williams not to declare May 11 as " Drink Chocolate Milk Day " by

presenting evidence that milk is harmful, especially to people of

color.

 

The PCRM -- composed of some of the leading doctors in the U.S. --

has campaigned extensively in the health and consumer press and led a

successful legal effort in 1999 to make dairy products optional in

the federal food guidelines. The campaign was supported by a number

of prominent civil rights organizations and leaders, including the

Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP, Martin Luther King, III, Jesse

Jackson, Jr., the National Hispanic Medical Association, and former

Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.

 

The dairy lobby remains cozy with most medical practitioners to

perpetrate its " drink milk " propaganda. However, not one of the 1,500

papers listed in Medicine that deal with milk points to its goodness

-- only to the pus, blood, antibiotics, and carcinogens in milk, and

the chronic fatigue, anemia, asthma, and autoimmune disorders milk

consumption causes.

 

The time has come for the milk industry to face the kind of scrutiny

that the tobacco companies face today. Meanwhile, discard the moo

juice.

 

 

Shanti Rangwani is an allopathic doctor and a columnist for the Times

of India

 

Previously posted to: SoFlaVegans - thank you

[Guest guest]

>

> My husband just mentioned that he heard/saw on TV (maybe CBC) earlier

> today that *Red Delicious* apples have four times the anti-oxidants of

> other

> apples. Four times?! Wow. Now we all know that Red produce is healthier

> than other colours, but four times???

>

> Anyone have any info on all this? Ideas?

>

> Best, Pat

 

This doesn't sound reasonable to me, but I'd be interested in a definitive

source. IMHO, these are about the worst eating apples around in taste and

texture.

 

Annice