This information comprises one of the Jackie's Health & Diet Club leaflets
in the "Nutrition News and Review" series.
Does drinking a glass of milk or eating dairy ice cream leave you feeling sick, with cramping pains, wind and bloated stomach? Or do you break out in a rash, feel wheezy and get a runny nose and streaming eyes similar to hay fever? Then you may be lactose intolerant, or allergic to milk proteins - or both!
Did You Know?
...Britain consumes 40% of all EC Dairy Produce...
...A high consumption of milk protein is very strongly associated with Heart Disease...
...Up to one in ten adults in the UK are lactose intolerant...
Allergy and intolerance to milk are very common nowadays. If you are allergic to milk you know about it, because every time you eat or drink anything with milk in it you suffer an immediate and violent reaction of some kind. But you may be intolerant to milk without ever realising it. Maybe you're always tired, just can't shake off that cold, feel bloated whatever you eat, constantly suffer a headache, are always a bit stiff, or you can't think as clearly as you used to, or you're just generally "under the weather". These are just some of the most common symptoms of food intolerance, and milk is one of the foods that is most often responsible.
"But", you may say, "I never drink milk; and the tiny drop I have in my tea couldn't make any difference". Firstly, that "tiny drop" does make a difference. Each time you swallow just a tiny drop of something you're intolerant of your body reacts again - but as the result of the previous reaction hasn't yet worn off you don't notice any difference in the way you feel. You need to cut out the offending food for at least three weeks for the effects to wear off. Then when you take that tiny drop again you do notice a reaction - usually right away, but certainly within twenty-four hours. Ironically, sometimes this reaction actually makes you feel better, so you could be fooled into thinking that the food is really good for you. Sadly, this isn't the case. This reaction means that you are addicted to the food in question. Addiction is not a state of mind, its a real physical condition like allergy and food-intolerance, and can be completely cured - by staying away from the substance you're addicted to until your body has readjusted.
Secondly, you may not realise that there's milk in some form in virtually every manufactured food you find in the shops. Nearly all plain chocolate contains whey, for example, as do most brands of margarine, and the most unlikely things - such as cartons of juice - often have lactose added as a natural preservative. Seeing "No Artificial Additives" on the package is no help as milk, and the many things made from milk, such as butter, cream, yoghurt, all sorts of cheese, buttermilk, whey and lactic acid are natural substances! So its necessary to read the label very carefully to spot an ingredient that's made from milk.
Don't we need Milk for our Bones?
The facts about calcium-deficient osteoporosis are quite horrifying. More women die following hip fracture complications than from breast, cervical and uterine cancer together; in the UK, in 1990, 46,000 fractured femurs resulted in a 15% mortality rate, as well as costing £165 million for acute care. More than one in five orthopaedic hospital beds are used by osteoporotic patients. But there is no evidence that consuming high levels of calcium will prevent osteoporosis. Many cultural groups have no osteoporosis at all. The Bantus, in Africa, for example have an average daily calcium intake of 400mg, well below the RDA, and virtually no osteoporosis. In contrast Eskimos, who consume vast amounts of calcium, have an exceptionally high incidence of osteoporosis.
The promotion of milk, and meat for that matter, as health-giving food began at the turn of the century and was primarily the result of the discovery of the value of protein. The industrial revolution had taken people away from a peasant diet and introduced malnutrition on a major scale. The working classes had become smaller and weaker - not good army material. The discovery of protein and its role in human growth led to the promotion of meat, eggs and dairy produce which are now available and consumed on an unprecedented scale. Yet despite the multi-million pound advertising campaign claims of the dairy industry, no study has shown osteoporosis to be due to a "Milk Deficiency" or that milk consumption has any effect on slowing the progressive osteoprosis that commonly occurs in older women. In fact osteoprosis is more likely due to excess protein in the diet and to sedentary living. In one study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition subjects were given a moderately high protein diet (12g nitrogen daily) and a very high protein diet (36g nitrogen daily) plus 1,400mg of calcium daily. The overall loss of calcium was 37mg per day on the 12g nitrogen diet and 137mg per day on the 36g nitrogen diet. The authors concluded that "high calcium diets are unlikely to prevent probable bone loss induced by high protein diets." In another study, a daily protein intake of 95 grams resulted in an average calcium loss of 58mg per day, which indicates a potential loss of 20% of normal bone-mass over a ten-year period. Most people in the UK wouldn't consider 95 grams a day to be a particularly high protein intake - the average bacon-and-eggs breakfast, for example, supplies 55 grams!
Because of the high saturated fat content of whole milk, many people have changed to skimmed milk and dairy products made from skimmed milk. Getting rid of the dairy fat certainly seems like a good idea, because the fat in whole milk, butter, cheese, cream and ice cream will tend to elevate cholesterol levels and increase cancer risk. But removing the fat also removes the valuable "fat-soluble" Vitamins A & D - the very vitamins necessary for strong bones and teeth! For this reason some skimmed milk products are "enriched" with these vitamins during processing.
Removing the fat, even if the vitamins are replaced, hardly makes milk a health food! Skimmed milk contains no fibre and no complex carbohydrates, but has a substantial amount of lactose (sugar) - 55% of the calories in fat-free milk come from lactose. Antibiotics are also frequently present in milk products, due to their routinely being fed to cattle on modern intensive dairy farms.
The Goodness of Grains
(wheat and gluten intolerance)
What use is Sugar in your Diet?
Jackie's Health & Diet Club Home Page