Milk - It does a Body Good?

We’ve all heard it; “drink milk; It does a Body Good.” From the Food Triangle to high school health sciences, milk is pushed without question. "Milk; it does a body good" is a highly orchestrated myth. While milk may have been considered a wholesome drink around the turn of the 20th century, draconian advances in hormones and the institutional mechanized dairy farms of today have mutated this perceived staple. With American cow’s milk consumption around 7 Billion gallons a year, can we afford to turn a blind eye to the dangers hidden under the white milky disguise?

In the early 1980's, the production of milk exceeded our demand due to competition from soda and bottled water, decreased consumption, and inflated government price support. In an attempt to correct the surplus, the U.S. Government passed the "Dairy Production Stabilization Act of 1983" that required milk producers to contribute to a national campaign to teach and promote milk consumption. In 1990, the U.S. Government passed "The Fluid Milk Act" which further increased the milk marketing campaign to around $200 million per year. The most successful generic milk ad campaign, and what is possibly the best ad campaign ever, is the "Got Milk?" campaign created by Jeff Manning from the Goodby, Silverstein & Partners ad agency in 1993. The campaign was originally targeted towards the California market, but it quickly went national, international, and even won the 1994 Cleo "Best in Show" award for advertising.

According to the International Dairy Foods Association, today's U.S. dairy market is estimated to be $70 billion dollars per year. In an attempt to protect that market, most commercial milk is pasteurized in order to kill off harmful bacteria like Campylobacter, E. Coli, Salmonella, and Listeria. The heating and cooling process of pasteurization, first developed by Louis Pasteur in 1864, should kill most of the harmful organisms responsible for such diseases as listeriosis, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and brucellosis. Still, there is a strong potential for cross contamination from unsanitary production and packaging facilities.

Even with pasteurization, U.S. commercial milk still contains dangerous contaminants. In 1937, the bovine hormone was recognized as an agent to increase a cow's milk production. In 1993, the FDA approved the sale of the synthetic bovine growth hormone, rBST (aka. rBGH), to increase milk production by 10% to 15%. The U.S. Dairy Association and U.S. Government agencies argue that the cows that are injected with rBST still produce safe milk. While independent tests have been inconclusive, it is widely believed that rBST may increase the risk of mastitis and foot problems in cows and certain cancers in humans. Many insightful countries including Canada, the European Union, Australia as well as New Zealand have outlawed the sale of rBST.

In addition, Dean Foods, Kroger (parent of King Soopers), Kirkland (parent of Safeway), Lucerne, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Costco, and even Starbucks have discontinued the sale of rBST milk. In an attempt to turn the tide on the resistance towards rBST, Monsanto, the producer of rBST and rBGH, has, up to this point, successfully lobbied and curtailed the labeling of dairy products containing the synthetic hormone, thus, making it impossible for consumers to distinguish between rBST dairy or non rBST dairy products.

According to the USDA, today's dairy farms have to use antibiotics to protect their herds from mastitis and lameness. The USDA's list of various antibiotics used to treat dairy cows include Aminocyclitol, Aminoglycoside, Noncephalosporin beta-lactam, Cephalosporin, Florfenical, Lincosamide, Macrolide, Sulfanamide, and Tetracycline. Regardless of a dairy cow's health, it is fed antibiotics through the cow feed. While the FDA claims that the antibiotic traces in milk are at acceptable levels, opponents fear that this practice may also increase human resistance to antibiotics and result in increased allergic reactions. In regards to dioxins, a 2003 USDA research project concerning polychlorinated dioxins, furans, and biphenynls, reported that these toxic contaminants are concentrated in animal products and ultimately consumed by humans. The study determined that dairy cows fed contaminated feed excreted 30% of the digested dioxins in their milk.

Milk can be contaminated with a variety of environmental infectious microbes including Bacillus cereus, Brucella, Campylobacter jejuni, Coxiella burnetii, E.Col 0157:H7, Listeria monocytogenes, Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Samonella, Staphylococcus aureus, and Yersinia enterocolitica. While pasteurization kills most of these microbes, cross contamination, process packaging, confined and horrid dairy cow living conditions can contaminate the general milk supply.

Clearly, our idealistic visions of happy fat cows grazing in rolling hills of tall grass, has been shattered by the horrendous living and sanitation conditions on the vast majority of dairy farms. Much like meat or poultry products, we prefer to purchase these nicely packaged foods without thinking about their origins. The contaminated dairy milk is the basis for many foods like dry milk, butter, ice cream, cheese, yogurt, and many manufactured baking goods. One important point that people tend to overlook is the fact humans are the only species to drink another species' milk and we are the only species that consumes milk beyond infancy. Our delusional desire for milk is not only un-natural, it's dangerous.