Dairy Alarmism

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Replies

  • susannamarie
    susannamarie Posts: 2,148 Member
    *shrugs*

    If you don't like milk, don't drink it.

    If you like milk but think that it's making you sick, try a month without it and see if you feel better.

    In the interests of science, I went a month without it a while back. I did not notice a difference in health at all, either after removing it or after re-adding it. I did notice the absence of yummy in my tummy, so re-added it. I have friends, though, who have reported significant health benefits from removing it from their diet, even though they had not realized they were having a problem with it. It's worth trying.

    The "wasn't designed for us" is a ridiculous argument, though. No food was designed for us -- everything we eat was designed (by evolution) for the species it came from. We said "hey, that tastes good" and selectively bred it to get more of what we liked. Consider some vegetables - http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIE4Evochange.shtml - these are parts of plants designed to either absorb sunlight (leaves) or attract fertilizing insects for reproduction (flowers), not dropped from the sky to be eaten by humans. The only place where you might have a point would be fruits, which have evolved to be tasty so that animals will eat them and spread the seeds, thus allowing the plant to reproduce. However, fruits in the wild are far smaller and less sugary than most of the fruits we eat now (think berries vs. bananas and grapes), so you can't really say that that's what we're "supposed" to be eating either. We've been modifying our food sources and adapting to what was around us for a long, long time.

    I would argue that if drinking milk were seriously the net negative that some claim it is, lactase tolerance wouldn't have evolved so many different times (is it three or four?) and spread through the population so rapidly (it's a very recent evolution).
  • craftywitch_63
    craftywitch_63 Posts: 829 Member
    The dairy conspiracy started a very long time ago on a small dairy farm in Switzerland and after getting the local population hooked on icecream and chocolate milk has spread around the world.......be very weary of any person, place or gov't that offers it for sale......keep away for older people and small children especially. Thank you.

    Oh cr@p, does that mean I have to give back all of the government cheese?:sad:
  • Achrya
    Achrya Posts: 16,913 Member


    This is why my family has invested in a lactating chimp. More genetic similarities and all.

    My brain knows this is a joke, but my stomach (which is getting over a bug) feels more like ...

    gag-jim-carrey.gif
    Oh, come on, why is the milk of one species good, but the other invokes the immediate response of disgust?

    I apologize if I've offended your delicate sensibilities. If you enjoy chimp milk, by all means, please continue to do so, I give you my blessing (which is to say, lighten up, I never intended to disparage the chimp-milking industry... the juxtaposition of lactating and chimp makes my primitive, unenlightened stomach do flip-flops after 48 hours of constant nausea).

    51d03810b546e.gif
    That doesn't even make sense. If you laid off the milk, chimp or otherwise, you'd probably gain some of your senses back.

    I actually understood it without issue.

    Maybe a lack of milk is messing with your comprehension skills?
  • wheird
    wheird Posts: 7,963 Member
    My only question about dairy (and I am a huge ice cream lover) is that, at its foremost, it is food intended for a baby cow. Humans, as should come as no surprise, have nutrition requirements that are MILES away from a cow. Take a look at the constituents of bovine milk vs. human milk. It is pretty interesting. Is it the best thing to use dairy products formulated for a species so vastly different from our own? That is what makes me wonder. Of course, not when I eat my appropriate serving of Ben & Jerry's ice cream!

    Edited to add: be wary when using the UDSA to evaluate meat and milk. The USDA's mission (at least one of them) is to promote our over-consumption of meat and dairy. That is why our food pyramids, for so long, has pushed meat, dairy, and cheese as particularly healthy. They are all loaded with saturated fats! There is a really good study out there about dairy, but I don't have my notes in front of me. I think it was the Nurses Heart research study or something like that. Try googling it. It is a real an eye opener about dairy.

    I'm sorry, but this is the most asinine argument that I've ever heard. Apples were not intended for human consumption either, they were intended as a medium to house, nurture, and fertilize the apple seeds within them. Eggs were meant to house avian embryos. Almond milk was meant for baby almonds.

    See how this can go?
  • Manda86
    Manda86 Posts: 1,859 Member
    That doesn't even make sense. If you laid off the milk, chimp or otherwise, you'd probably gain some of your senses back.

    blink.gif
  • Rocbola
    Rocbola Posts: 1,998 Member
    I'm sorry, but this is the most asinine argument that I've ever heard. Apples were not intended for human consumption either, they were intended as a medium to house, nurture, and fertilize the apple seeds within them.
    The apple tree's intent is to plant it's seeds, i agree with that, but without interaction from frugivores, the fruit tree's seed would rarely ever make it farther than the base of the tree.

    Apples started in central Asia, and because of humans, they are now grown all over the world. Humans, and other frugivores, have a symbiotic relationship with fruit. They give us delicious food, and we spread their seed far and wide.

    TO THE APPLE TREE: You're welcome. Sincerely, the human race.

    TO THE COW: My deepest apologies about the whole enslavement thing. Our bad. We had bad nutritional info. :cry:
    killermeat.jpg
  • Otterluv
    Otterluv Posts: 9,083 Member
    I'm sorry, but this is the most asinine argument that I've ever heard. Apples were not intended for human consumption either, they were intended as a medium to house, nurture, and fertilize the apple seeds within them.
    The apple tree's intent is to plant it's seeds, i agree with that, but without interaction from frugivores, the fruit tree's seed would rarely ever make it farther than the base of the tree.

    Apples started in central Asia, and because of humans, they are now grown all over the world. Humans, and other frugivores, have a symbiotic relationship with fruit. They give us delicious food, and we spread their seed far and wide.

    TO THE APPLE TREE: You're welcome. Sincerely, the human race.

    TO THE COW: My deepest apologies about the whole enslavement thing. Our bad. We had bad nutritional info. :cry:
    killermeat.jpg

    Now you are intertwining the moral/ethical issue with bad nutritional info. I'm sorry, there may be an ethical argument to be made, but you clouding it with bad science by trying to make the argument against drinking milk about nutrition is not helping your case. It just makes it sound ridiculous.

    Please note that I am not encouraging a discussion on the ethics of dairy. MFP is not the place for it, it can only go down in a fiery storm. It's a very complex discussion to have, and is one that is not black and white in the least.

    OP: even for those of us who are lactose intolerant, there is lactose free milk (which I drink), so that's not even always a problem. There are those who are allergic to dairy, but they are the exception and not the rule.
  • Otterluv
    Otterluv Posts: 9,083 Member
    Now you are intertwining the moral/ethical issue with bad nutritional info. I'm sorry, there may be an ethical argument to be made, but you clouding it with bad science by trying to make the argument against drinking milk about nutrition is not helping your case. It just makes it sound ridiculous.
    What bad science did use? Dairy is TERRIBLE for you. That is why i talk most about the health aspects of it. If you want to focus in on one sentence where i touched upon the ethics with part of the sentence, that makes you ridiculous.

    **sigh

    If the zillions of times that you have had this argument with people and they have given you solid, cited info has had no impact on your narrow view on this topic, my getting into a discussion with you about this is absolutely pointless. Just take the knowledgeable folks off of ignore and read through your post history to see it all.

    I will go back to memorizing the periods of Japanese Art history, which I will forget the day after my quiz (because, memorization). But, even that seems more production.
  • kjw0528
    kjw0528 Posts: 5 Member
    Why does anyone care what other people eat and drink?
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  • tigersword
    tigersword Posts: 8,059 Member
    Now you are intertwining the moral/ethical issue with bad nutritional info. I'm sorry, there may be an ethical argument to be made, but you clouding it with bad science by trying to make the argument against drinking milk about nutrition is not helping your case. It just makes it sound ridiculous.
    What bad science did use? Dairy is TERRIBLE for you. That is why i talk most about the health aspects of it. If you want to focus in on one sentence where i touched upon the ethics with part of the sentence, that makes you ridiculous.
    How about the fact that you've never used ANY science? Making random claims without any evidence isn't "science."
  • craftywitch_63
    craftywitch_63 Posts: 829 Member


    This is why my family has invested in a lactating chimp. More genetic similarities and all.

    My brain knows this is a joke, but my stomach (which is getting over a bug) feels more like ...

    gag-jim-carrey.gif
    Oh, come on, why is the milk of one species good, but the other invokes the immediate response of disgust?

    I apologize if I've offended your delicate sensibilities. If you enjoy chimp milk, by all means, please continue to do so, I give you my blessing (which is to say, lighten up, I never intended to disparage the chimp-milking industry... the juxtaposition of lactating and chimp makes my primitive, unenlightened stomach do flip-flops after 48 hours of constant nausea).

    51d03810b546e.gif

    Quite frankly, I don't care much about the argument. I drink unsweetened almond milk or unsweetened soy milk if I can't get almond, because mammal milk (cow, goat, chimp, pig, or platypus) is disgusting. On the other hand, you will pry my cheese, cottage cheese and yogurt out of my cold, dead hands when I die of something totally unrelated at the grand old age of 175 (because the dairy products kept me alive so long! LOL)

    I'm just making this post to tell Manda86 that I am totally jacking the Frankenfurther gif. Rocky Horror Picture Show is my favorite movie! :love:
  • Rocbola
    Rocbola Posts: 1,998 Member
    Dairy sources that are low in fat have been shown to help fat loss.
    How about sustainable long term health?
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  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    The apple tree's intent is to plant it's seeds, i agree with that, but without interaction from frugivores, the fruit tree's seed would rarely ever make it farther than the base of the tree.

    In what sense does the apple tree (or the apple) actually have an intent? More to the point, in what sense are apples "designed" to be human food and non-human milk not? At best, that's a theological argument.
    They give us delicious food, and we spread their seed far and wide.

    Cows give us delicious milk, and so we've domesticated and raised them all sorts of places. And one can get milk from local family farms with well-treated cows. For various reasons that matter to me (and that I don't subject others to) I do. You may think that it's inherently unethical to milk them and that it would be better for even those family farm cows not to exist, but I disagree. More significantly, that's an ethical issue, so has no place in the "is milk bad for me" discussion.
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member


    This is why my family has invested in a lactating chimp. More genetic similarities and all.

    My brain knows this is a joke, but my stomach (which is getting over a bug) feels more like ...

    gag-jim-carrey.gif
    Oh, come on, why is the milk of one species good, but the other invokes the immediate response of disgust?

    I'm not disgusted by the idea of a lactating chimp. My thought on that was that it would be very cruel to keep a chimp for this purpose, because they are social animals and need to be around their own kind, and forcibly milking one would be extremely cruel (although the human who attempts this is likely to come off worse :laugh: )

    However, given that they've trained bonobos to light fires and make simple stone tools, I expect it would be possible to train one to use a breast pump and pay her for her milk in whatever female bonobos would want to be.... umm yeah, maybe that's not such a good idea after all.... :laugh:
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
    My only question about dairy (and I am a huge ice cream lover) is that, at its foremost, it is food intended for a baby cow. Humans, as should come as no surprise, have nutrition requirements that are MILES away from a cow. Take a look at the constituents of bovine milk vs. human milk. It is pretty interesting. Is it the best thing to use dairy products formulated for a species so vastly different from our own? That is what makes me wonder. Of course, not when I eat my appropriate serving of Ben & Jerry's ice cream!

    Edited to add: be wary when using the UDSA to evaluate meat and milk. The USDA's mission (at least one of them) is to promote our over-consumption of meat and dairy. That is why our food pyramids, for so long, has pushed meat, dairy, and cheese as particularly healthy. They are all loaded with saturated fats! There is a really good study out there about dairy, but I don't have my notes in front of me. I think it was the Nurses Heart research study or something like that. Try googling it. It is a real an eye opener about dairy.

    And honey is food intended for bees. Should we avoid it then?

    ^^^^ this

    And fruit is an elaborate ruse by plants to make animals disperse their seeds for them.



    Plants and animals don't live for the purpose of being eaten. They just want to survive and breed just like all other life on this planet. Animals become adapted to different diets through eating what's available to them and then natural selection causing the ones who thrive best on the available diet to leave their genes in future generations while the others don't thrive and so don't leave their genes in the next generation.. As a result of this, pecies evolve to suit the diet available to them. Regarding dairy, humans have only very recently evolved to be able to thrive on dairy products, and this new trait has only arisen in populations who are traditionally dairy farmers (because evolution takes time, although not as much time as some people think). So, if you're from one of those populations and have inherited that genetic trait, then dairy products are just as suitable for you as any other food humans eat. Because evolution didn't stop when we got vertical foreheads and pointy chins.

    BTW if anyone objects to the idea of eating organisms that don't want to be eaten, please stop at veganism (i.e. a well balanced vegan diet) and don't become a fruitarian (because it's impossible for a human to get all their required nutrition on a fruitarian diet). But like it or not, this is how it is for the entire animal kingdom... eat other organisms or parts of other organisms or die. Sorry about that.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    My thought on that was that it would be very cruel to keep a chimp for this purpose, because they are social animals and need to be around their own kind, and forcibly milking one would be extremely cruel (although the human who attempts this is likely to come off worse :laugh: )

    All quite true. I thought it was self-evidently absurd, but didn't mean to be taken too seriously, of course.
  • Rocbola
    Rocbola Posts: 1,998 Member
    My thought on that was that it would be very cruel to keep a chimp for this purpose, because they are social animals and need to be around their own kind, and forcibly milking one would be extremely cruel (although the human who attempts this is likely to come off worse :laugh: )
    Forcibly milking a social animal is cruel? Ya don't say.....
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn1GmYHpjiw
  • Jewlz280
    Jewlz280 Posts: 547 Member
    Dairy sources that are low in fat have been shown to help fat loss.
    How about sustainable long term health?

    *shrug* Go to some nursing homes or talk to people who are in their 80's and 90's and ask them what their diets were. Ask them how they have eaten pretty much all of their lives. Do it. Go. NOW. Because most of those folks will tell you they grew up eating meat -- and not just the pretties but the organs, too, like brains and liver. They will tell you they drank whole fat milk and real butter along with their veggies (and even their veggies were carrots, potatoes, green beans and maybe cabbage) and very little to no fruit. I have a large family -- something like 11 or 13 uncles and aunts on just ONE SIDE. They have ALL lived into their late 80's and most into their 90's. All grew up and continued to live and eat meat and drink dairy milk. Including my hearty Granny who lived until the age of 99. She was in a healthy weight range, active, and on NO medications. NONE. And for almost her entire life, she lived on what you would consider an unhealthy diet because it contained meat and dairy. Most of which was combined and included lots of fat and sugar! She loved to bake. Back to my point. She ate all of these things and they constructed most of my diet, too because we all literally lived right next to each other so eating together was a thing. When I gained weight, it wasn't because of meat or dairy or fat -- it was simply due to portion sizes. She never had an issue with that. We all ate the same things, but at some point, we quit paying attention to portion sizes and just flat out ate too much. Dairy isn't the problem and neither is meat. The problem is flat out the over-consumption of food in general. Even if it is 'healthy'. That and barring any medical conditions.

    *Edit to add that I say nursing homes because that is the greatest concentration of older folks I can think of. Or senior living centers. Unless you're like me and live in an area where the population of retirees is high.
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
    Help a man out. Are there any legitimate dairy concerns, backed by a consensus of good research?

    Unless you have an intolerance, no. I haven't seen anything beyond alarmism and agenda-pushing.

    ^^ This.....

    I'm not giving up my yogurt or cheese or ice cream any time soon......
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  • Serah87
    Serah87 Posts: 5,481 Member
    Dairy sources that are low in fat have been shown to help fat loss.
    How about sustainable long term health?

    *shrug* Go to some nursing homes or talk to people who are in their 80's and 90's and ask them what their diets were. Ask them how they have eaten pretty much all of their lives. Do it. Go. NOW. Because most of those folks will tell you they grew up eating meat -- and not just the pretties but the organs, too, like brains and liver. They will tell you they drank whole fat milk and real butter along with their veggies (and even their veggies were carrots, potatoes, green beans and maybe cabbage) and very little to no fruit. I have a large family -- something like 11 or 13 uncles and aunts on just ONE SIDE. They have ALL lived into their late 80's and most into their 90's. All grew up and continued to live and eat meat and drink dairy milk. Including my hearty Granny who lived until the age of 99. She was in a healthy weight range, active, and on NO medications. NONE. And for almost her entire life, she lived on what you would consider an unhealthy diet because it contained meat and dairy. Most of which was combined and included lots of fat and sugar! She loved to bake. Back to my point. She ate all of these things and they constructed most of my diet, too because we all literally lived right next to each other so eating together was a thing. When I gained weight, it wasn't because of meat or dairy or fat -- it was simply due to portion sizes. She never had an issue with that. We all ate the same things, but at some point, we quit paying attention to portion sizes and just flat out ate too much. Dairy isn't the problem and neither is meat. The problem is flat out the over-consumption of food in general. Even if it is 'healthy'. That and barring any medical conditions.

    *Edit to add that I say nursing homes because that is the greatest concentration of older folks I can think of. Or senior living centers. Unless you're like me and live in an area where the population of retirees is high.


    THIS!!! ^^^^^^ :drinker:
  • nainai0585
    nainai0585 Posts: 199 Member
    Dairy is fine if your body produces the enzyme lactase. The very recent evolution of the ability to digest dairy products in adulthood is fascinating... this trait has evolved in populations with a long history of dairy farming/herding, e.g. Europeans, Masai (in Africa)... what's most interesting is that this trait evolved at least twice, i.e. separately in both those populations, and it may be the case that it's evolved separately in other dairy/herding populations (the alternative is that gene flow between populations resulted in the trait spreading from one population to another,but it's been demonstrated in scientific studies that the European mutation and Masai mutation for digesting dairy as adults are different and arose separately).

    Anyway, whether you find that kind of thing interesting or not, the ability to digest lactose is quite closely tied to ethnic origin (although it's not 100% because of gene flow and archaic genes sticking around) so if your ancestors over the last few thousand years were dairy farmers or herders, chances are you can digest dairy just fine, and there's no reason to avoid it. If your ancestors from this time period didn't have anything to do with dairy, then there's a high probability that you can't digest dairy and in that case you should avoid it. But usually people who are lactose intolerant know about it without being told this information due to getting sick when they eat dairy.

    Dairy allergy is separate to lactose intolerance and while I'd love to know the evolutionary history of allergy (which is probably a defence against parasitic infection) I don't know much about it or examples of any particular populations it evolved in. But if you're allergic to milk that's another reason not to drink it.

    Unfortunately there's a lot of pseudoscience against milk because both the vegan crowd and the paleo crowd hate on it. There are few things that these two groups agree on, but hatred of dairy products is one. And both groups will tell you "milk is for baby cows not for humans" they also both tend to ignore or be unaware of the fact that humans are highly adaptable in terms of diet, and the ability to digest dairy products has evolved in populations with a long enough history of dairy farming/herding.

    I, personally, am from the British Isles and the Britain a history of dairy farming going back at least 5000 years; I can digest dairy just fine and will continue to consume dairy products

    :drinker: @ dairy products and the lactase persistence gene






    tl;dr: if dairy makes you sick don't eat/drink it, if it doesn't and you like it then eat/drink it

    Why isn't there a LIKE button???!!!!
  • QueenBishOTUniverse
    QueenBishOTUniverse Posts: 14,121 Member
    My only question about dairy (and I am a huge ice cream lover) is that, at its foremost, it is food intended for a baby cow. Humans, as should come as no surprise, have nutrition requirements that are MILES away from a cow. Take a look at the constituents of bovine milk vs. human milk. It is pretty interesting. Is it the best thing to use dairy products formulated for a species so vastly different from our own? That is what makes me wonder. Of course, not when I eat my appropriate serving of Ben & Jerry's ice cream!

    Edited to add: be wary when using the UDSA to evaluate meat and milk. The USDA's mission (at least one of them) is to promote our over-consumption of meat and dairy. That is why our food pyramids, for so long, has pushed meat, dairy, and cheese as particularly healthy. They are all loaded with saturated fats! There is a really good study out there about dairy, but I don't have my notes in front of me. I think it was the Nurses Heart research study or something like that. Try googling it. It is a real an eye opener about dairy.

    And honey is food intended for bees. Should we avoid it then?

    ^^^^ this

    And fruit is an elaborate ruse by plants to make animals disperse their seeds for them.



    Plants and animals don't live for the purpose of being eaten. They just want to survive and breed just like all other life on this planet. Animals become adapted to different diets through eating what's available to them and then natural selection causing the ones who thrive best on the available diet to leave their genes in future generations while the others don't thrive and so don't leave their genes in the next generation.. As a result of this, pecies evolve to suit the diet available to them. Regarding dairy, humans have only very recently evolved to be able to thrive on dairy products, and this new trait has only arisen in populations who are traditionally dairy farmers (because evolution takes time, although not as much time as some people think). So, if you're from one of those populations and have inherited that genetic trait, then dairy products are just as suitable for you as any other food humans eat. Because evolution didn't stop when we got vertical foreheads and pointy chins.

    BTW if anyone objects to the idea of eating organisms that don't want to be eaten, please stop at veganism (i.e. a well balanced vegan diet) and don't become a fruitarian (because it's impossible for a human to get all their required nutrition on a fruitarian diet). But like it or not, this is how it is for the entire animal kingdom... eat other organisms or parts of other organisms or die. Sorry about that.

    You're forgetting the breatharians! Because eating ANYTHING is cruel. If you try hard enough you'll spontaneously generate chloroplasts and be able to produce your own food! Of course, you'll be converting light energy in to chemical energy thus leading to the furthering of entropy in the universe, which is of course selfish. Because, science.
  • craftywitch_63
    craftywitch_63 Posts: 829 Member
    Dairy sources that are low in fat have been shown to help fat loss.
    How about sustainable long term health?

    *shrug* Go to some nursing homes or talk to people who are in their 80's and 90's and ask them what their diets were. Ask them how they have eaten pretty much all of their lives. Do it. Go. NOW. Because most of those folks will tell you they grew up eating meat -- and not just the pretties but the organs, too, like brains and liver. They will tell you they drank whole fat milk and real butter along with their veggies (and even their veggies were carrots, potatoes, green beans and maybe cabbage) and very little to no fruit. I have a large family -- something like 11 or 13 uncles and aunts on just ONE SIDE. They have ALL lived into their late 80's and most into their 90's. All grew up and continued to live and eat meat and drink dairy milk. Including my hearty Granny who lived until the age of 99. She was in a healthy weight range, active, and on NO medications. NONE. And for almost her entire life, she lived on what you would consider an unhealthy diet because it contained meat and dairy. Most of which was combined and included lots of fat and sugar! She loved to bake. Back to my point. She ate all of these things and they constructed most of my diet, too because we all literally lived right next to each other so eating together was a thing. When I gained weight, it wasn't because of meat or dairy or fat -- it was simply due to portion sizes. She never had an issue with that. We all ate the same things, but at some point, we quit paying attention to portion sizes and just flat out ate too much. Dairy isn't the problem and neither is meat. The problem is flat out the over-consumption of food in general. Even if it is 'healthy'. That and barring any medical conditions.

    *Edit to add that I say nursing homes because that is the greatest concentration of older folks I can think of. Or senior living centers. Unless you're like me and live in an area where the population of retirees is high.


    THIS!!! ^^^^^^ :drinker:

    You seem to come from a long line of people with long lives. That's a good thing for you because scientists believe longevity is in part inherited (of course, getting hit by a bus would severely screw with the DNA but that's for another forum!:smile: )

    PJYlvhJ.jpg

    This is Buster Martin. He died in 2011 at the age of either 101 or 104 (some question remains as to the exact year of his birth. He says 1906.) Either way, he had a good, long run. Please notice the two objects he is holding. That's right a mug of ale and a cigarette. He claims to have started both at about age 12. Oh, yes, he also ran a marathon at age 101 (by his estimation). I have no real inside information but I'm guessing he at real eggs, butter, whole milk, saturated fat and everything else since that was the custom during his lifetime.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13068053

    Some of it is just in the genes.
  • nainai0585
    nainai0585 Posts: 199 Member
    My only question about dairy (and I am a huge ice cream lover) is that, at its foremost, it is food intended for a baby cow. Humans, as should come as no surprise, have nutrition requirements that are MILES away from a cow. Take a look at the constituents of bovine milk vs. human milk. It is pretty interesting. Is it the best thing to use dairy products formulated for a species so vastly different from our own?

    I'm an extended breastfeeding mom, going on 23 months with this kiddo, and to be honest, people would have the same issues with human breastmilk if it were used in foods as they do with cow, sheep, goat, buffalo, and any other kind of animal milk. Some people are repulsed that I'm nursing a child who walks, talks, and has a full set of teeth because apparently breastmilk is only for teeny tiny babies.

    Most, if not all, of the things we eat in this world (save breastmilk) were not formulated specifically for us, that doesn't necessarily make consuming them a bad thing. If someone doesn't want to eat dairy, that's fine, I just don't see any validity in the "not for humans" claims that people make from their soapboxes.*

    *Not you, I know that you were contributing a thought to the discussion and not being preachy.

    We should start a lactating farm so everyone who believes cow milk is meant JUST for calves, can have human milk meant JUST for humans :)
    Side note: I am a strong believer in breast feeding and have done so myself for 4 children, two of which where mine and 2 that where not.
  • QueenBishOTUniverse
    QueenBishOTUniverse Posts: 14,121 Member
    Dairy sources that are low in fat have been shown to help fat loss.
    How about sustainable long term health?

    *shrug* Go to some nursing homes or talk to people who are in their 80's and 90's and ask them what their diets were. Ask them how they have eaten pretty much all of their lives. Do it. Go. NOW. Because most of those folks will tell you they grew up eating meat -- and not just the pretties but the organs, too, like brains and liver. They will tell you they drank whole fat milk and real butter along with their veggies (and even their veggies were carrots, potatoes, green beans and maybe cabbage) and very little to no fruit. I have a large family -- something like 11 or 13 uncles and aunts on just ONE SIDE. They have ALL lived into their late 80's and most into their 90's. All grew up and continued to live and eat meat and drink dairy milk. Including my hearty Granny who lived until the age of 99. She was in a healthy weight range, active, and on NO medications. NONE. And for almost her entire life, she lived on what you would consider an unhealthy diet because it contained meat and dairy. Most of which was combined and included lots of fat and sugar! She loved to bake. Back to my point. She ate all of these things and they constructed most of my diet, too because we all literally lived right next to each other so eating together was a thing. When I gained weight, it wasn't because of meat or dairy or fat -- it was simply due to portion sizes. She never had an issue with that. We all ate the same things, but at some point, we quit paying attention to portion sizes and just flat out ate too much. Dairy isn't the problem and neither is meat. The problem is flat out the over-consumption of food in general. Even if it is 'healthy'. That and barring any medical conditions.

    *Edit to add that I say nursing homes because that is the greatest concentration of older folks I can think of. Or senior living centers. Unless you're like me and live in an area where the population of retirees is high.


    THIS!!! ^^^^^^ :drinker:

    You seem to come from a long line of people with long lives. That's a good thing for you because scientists believe longevity is in part inherited (of course, getting hit by a bus would severely screw with the DNA but that's for another forum!:smile: )

    PJYlvhJ.jpg

    This is Buster Martin. He died in 2011 at the age of either 101 or 104 (some question remains as to the exact year of his birth. He says 1906.) Either way, he had a good, long run. Please notice the two objects he is holding. That's right a mug of ale and a cigarette. He claims to have started both at about age 12. Oh, yes, he also ran a marathon at age 101 (by his estimation). I have no real inside information but I'm guessing he at real eggs, butter, whole milk, saturated fat and everything else since that was the custom during his lifetime.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13068053

    Some of it is just in the genes.

    Pretty much *all* of it is down to genes. Yes, modern medicine, nutrition etc. have increased life expectancy substantially, but if you want to make it past 100, you'd better hope you had some grand parents that made it that far, otherwise your chances are almost nil. And if you do have grandparents that made it that far, I can almost guarantee you they didn't do it on a life long vegetarian diet. I have a Russian great grandmother that's still kicking past 100, definitely NOT avoiding the meat and dairy.....