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Is dairy good or bad?

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Replies

  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    malibu927 wrote: »
    Thalie5000 wrote: »
    Cheese can be highly addictive and is not very healthy at all. Fat-free, low calorie cheeses can be a great source of protein, but better sources are available. I do like cottage cheese with sunflower seeds. Everything in BMW: Balance, Moderation, and a Wealth of Variety is key. It gets you where you want to go in style. Greek yogurt or Icelandic Skyr are ideal dairy protein sources and probiotics from them provide many advantages. Skim Milk in small amounts doesn't hurt, especially in a protein shake. I also take plenty of Calcium and Vitamin D. I could abolish dairy from my lifestyle, but enjoy it too much.

    Fat free cheese tastes like sadness. And no, it is not addictive.

    This.
  • BoxerBrawler
    BoxerBrawler Posts: 2,032 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    You have to ask yourself why so many millions of people are lactose intolerant.

    You realize we know the answer to this, right? I even gave you a link in a prior discussion that explained it.
    Some people just simply adapt to digesting the sugar enzymes contained in milk out of survival. Others don't.

    No, that is not how it works. Some people are born with lactase persistence and some are not. So far as I can tell, I was. I drank milk as a kid, no issues. Stopped drinking it in my teens and didn't drink it other than a little in coffee for years and started again around 30, no issues -- in fact, I felt better including it, although I improved my overall diet at that time so hard to attribute it to the milk. Stopped drinking milk again, continued lots of other dairy (cottage cheese, cheese, yogurt), no issues.
    I wonder about things like this... like if something is giving you heart burn would you just take a pill and continue to eat the item?

    Personally, probably not, although my dad loves spicy foods and eats them even when they seem to disagree with him. This has zero, nada, nil, no bearing on dairy for many people, however.

    You may want to think that everyone naturally has problems with dairy (why, I dunno), but that's false.


    I don't "think" it, it's proven science.
    The ability to drink milk/consume dairy is a genetic mutation! Survival...

    Lactose intolerance is when the body does not produce enough lactase to break down lactose, a sugar found in milk and many other milk derived dairy products.

    The enzyme responsible for breaking down lactose is lactase, an enzyme found on the wall of the intestines. Lactase breaks down lactose (the sugar found in milk) into galactose and glucose. The activity of lactase becomes reduced after breastfeeding, at that point the body no longer needs as much lactase. Not to mention a human mothers milk is much different from the milk of a cow.

    The reduction of lactase activity after infancy is a genetically programmed event. Approximately 75 % of Earths population is lactose intolerant for a reason, because it’s perfectly natural.

    The statistics vary from race to race and country to country but overall they show an abnormal amount of individuals who qualify. In some Asian countries, 90 percent of the population is lactose intolerant.

    Interestingly, we are the only species on the planet that drinks milk from another species. Since lactase’s only function is the digestion of lactose in milk, most mammal species experience a dramatic reduction in the activity of the enzyme after weaning. Lactase persistence in humans has evolved as an adaptation to the consumption of non-human milk and dairy products consumed beyond infancy. Our diet has changed a lot, and as a result some of our genes have adapted, but it’s not an easy process. This is why most humans are lactose intolerant.

    Every other species weans and then never drinks milk again for the rest of their lives, and because of that they don’t have an enzyme to break down the sugar in milk. But during human evolution, some humans experienced a mutation in the LTC gene, the lactase gene, these mutations allow us to process lactose as adults. With over 75 percent of humans on the planet unable to properly process it, it is evidence enough that we are not doing what is natural and in accordance with our bodies.

    Our natural state is to be lactose intolerant. Undigested lactose in the small intestine acts like an osmotic agent, causing water and electrolytes to be pulled into the intestines, which results in diarrhea, bloating and gassiness. The body struggles and compensates, as well as protects itself by developing coping methods for our unnatural habits.

    Lactase enzyme, found in the cells lining the small intestine of mammals, cleaves lactose, a disaccharide, into the constituent monosaccharides, galactose and glucose, which are readily absorbed by the intestine. The amount of lactase activity decreases substantially after weaning in mammals, as lactose is no more a major part of their diet.

    This condition in humans is referred to as lactase non-persistence (LNP) or adult-type hypolactasia or primary lactose mal-digestion (LM). In several human societies all over the world, lactose is a part of the diet of adults due to the prevalence of dairy products and fresh milk in diet; this has been the case ever since human societies had domesticated cattle. A genetic mutation seems to have occurred in one (or more) such society (ies) resulting in lactase activity persisting in the cells lining the intestine even in adult stage. This condition is referred to as lactase persistence (LP). This mutation, due to its selective advantage, had spread extensively in such cattle rearing societies; this is the generally accepted explanation for Northern European societies having a large proportion (up to 90%) of the population being LP. Human genome sequencing studies done since 2001 have led to uncovering the molecular basis of this mutation. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) at the position 13910 nucleotide upstream to the gene coding for lactase (LCT; located on chromosome 2) appears to determine the LP/LNP status of most populations studied. The nucleotide C at this position (which is the ancestral condition as determined by comparison with primate genome sequence data) corresponds to the LNP status whereas the nucleotide T at this position (which is a mutation) corresponds to the LP status. LP allele is dominant over LNP. This relationship between the SNP at -13910 upstream of LCT and LP/LNP has been verified for several populations including East Asia, East Europe etc and holds good nearly universally with the exception of some small pockets of indigenous populations in African Continent and Arabian peninsula. Studies carried out (to be published) in the Indian population by scientists at Biotools Technologies Pvt Ltd., and a Govt. Medical Research Laboratory show that the SNP at -13910 upstream of LCT does determine LP/LNP status in Indian population as well.

    A huge increase in milk alternative products like rice milk, almond milk and coconut milk are popping up in grocery stores and convenience stores everywhere. It may be long before the truth about milk becomes more common knowledge and consumption and production weans off.
  • BoxerBrawler
    BoxerBrawler Posts: 2,032 Member
    You have to ask yourself why so many millions of people are lactose intolerant. Some people just simply adapt to digesting the sugar enzymes contained in milk out of survival. Others don't. I wonder about things like this... like if something is giving you heart burn would you just take a pill and continue to eat the item? Personally I feel like that's my body telling me to stop. So many people forgot to listen to their bodies thought it's just sad. A lot of people actually let a computer program and application developers tell them when they should eat instead of trying to figure out if their actually hungry or not :smile:

    Rather than asking *myself* why millions of people are lactose intolerant, I asked science, specifically genetics. Interestingly, your musings here aren't entirely incorrect, but more along the line of the hazy explanation my 7 year old would provide when asked about the unique preponderance of lactose tolerance among British, Scandinavian, and other northern European populations ("simply adapt...out of survival"), how it helped them survive a harsh climate and genetically out-compete individuals with less-suitable genetic adaptations ("Others don't."), and the subsequent dispersal of the genome across at least seven millennia, while still leaving "so many millions [who are] lactose intolerant" (aka, two-thirds of the world population). You might find the following to be helpful:

    http://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-1.13471

    And yes, anyone who has dysentary-esque explosions from their posterior should probably listen to their body and stop drinking milk. It leaves more for those of us with Viking-Celt-Teutonic ancestry and a 90% tolerance rate.

    On the question of calves being separated immediately from their mothers, it is actually less stressful for both the cow and calf if the separation happens immediately. The cow rapidly forgets, and the calf doesn't know any different, as opposed to weaning after a month or two, where the stress and grief can last for days for both parties. I am an occasional visitor to both a conventional dairy farm (where the cows enjoy a particularly cushy life, including self-selecting milking, deep sand beds, automated manure clean-up, and fans, massage and misting machines), and a 100% grass-fed raw-milk operation where the cows greatly enjoy being on pasture for most of the year. It doesn't stop most from becoming hamburger at some point in their lives, but we all eventually become hamburger anyway, even the apex predators.

    Sorry about my "fuzzy" science. Please see my last post above for the actual science.

    Less stressful for the calf and the mother? Really? How about let's make it not stressful by not practicing it at all.

  • gothchiq
    gothchiq Posts: 4,598 Member
    good, unless allergic.
  • BoxerBrawler
    BoxerBrawler Posts: 2,032 Member
    nutmegoreo wrote: »
    rankinsect wrote: »
    salembambi wrote: »
    bad for you

    & especially for the calf and mother cows

    Those cows would be in a lot of pain if they were unmilked. Dairy cows are upset with you if you fail to milk them on schedule.

    Totally wrong.
    Cows are forcefully inseminated and the moment they give birth the baby calf is ripped away before it can even walk or open it's eyes. The babies are put into cages (some) for veal and the mother cows are milked, for their milk. The entire process is painful and unethical. But yeah... keep listening to the multi-billion dollar dairy industry when they tell you milk does a body good.

    Oh, and momma cows are also upset when their babies are taken away from them.

    The words Ethical farming and slaughter just don't make sense.

    I grew up on a dairy farm. NONE OF THESE THINGS HAPPENED on our farm. None of the cows were artificially inseminated. The calves drank from their mothers until they were ready to be weaned. The calves were well cared for and were either added to the heard, or sold at market once they were older. It is absolutely possible to make choices that don't support the practices you are talking about. But to be honest, when someone comes in with the type of approach as you are using here, I actually want to eat all the cows and drink all the milk.

    ETA: and yes, failing to milk the cows was painful for them.

    Well I never said all of them were doing that. But even one is too many.
    Go ahead and eat cows and drink milk all day everyday, that's your problem not mine :smile:

  • BillMcKay1
    BillMcKay1 Posts: 315 Member
    You have to ask yourself why so many millions of people are lactose intolerant. Some people just simply adapt to digesting the sugar enzymes contained in milk out of survival. Others don't. I wonder about things like this... like if something is giving you heart burn would you just take a pill and continue to eat the item? Personally I feel like that's my body telling me to stop. So many people forgot to listen to their bodies thought it's just sad. A lot of people actually let a computer program and application developers tell them when they should eat instead of trying to figure out if their actually hungry or not :smile:

    Rather than asking *myself* why millions of people are lactose intolerant, I asked science, specifically genetics. Interestingly, your musings here aren't entirely incorrect, but more along the line of the hazy explanation my 7 year old would provide when asked about the unique preponderance of lactose tolerance among British, Scandinavian, and other northern European populations ("simply adapt...out of survival"), how it helped them survive a harsh climate and genetically out-compete individuals with less-suitable genetic adaptations ("Others don't."), and the subsequent dispersal of the genome across at least seven millennia, while still leaving "so many millions [who are] lactose intolerant" (aka, two-thirds of the world population). You might find the following to be helpful:

    http://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-1.13471

    And yes, anyone who has dysentary-esque explosions from their posterior should probably listen to their body and stop drinking milk. It leaves more for those of us with Viking-Celt-Teutonic ancestry and a 90% tolerance rate.

    On the question of calves being separated immediately from their mothers, it is actually less stressful for both the cow and calf if the separation happens immediately. The cow rapidly forgets, and the calf doesn't know any different, as opposed to weaning after a month or two, where the stress and grief can last for days for both parties. I am an occasional visitor to both a conventional dairy farm (where the cows enjoy a particularly cushy life, including self-selecting milking, deep sand beds, automated manure clean-up, and fans, massage and misting machines), and a 100% grass-fed raw-milk operation where the cows greatly enjoy being on pasture for most of the year. It doesn't stop most from becoming hamburger at some point in their lives, but we all eventually become hamburger anyway, even the apex predators.

    Sorry about my "fuzzy" science. Please see my last post above for the actual science.

    Less stressful for the calf and the mother? Really? How about let's make it not stressful by not practicing it at all.

    Well, if we don't need the milk or the meat, Why would anyone even bother to feed and raise cows? Taken to the ultimate goal you are advocating for the gradual extinction of the entire species. Seems pretty harsh.
  • BoxerBrawler
    BoxerBrawler Posts: 2,032 Member
    zyxst wrote: »
    rankinsect wrote: »
    salembambi wrote: »
    bad for you

    & especially for the calf and mother cows

    Those cows would be in a lot of pain if they were unmilked. Dairy cows are upset with you if you fail to milk them on schedule.

    Totally wrong.

    I'm not a cow, but I did give birth to a human and had to deal with breasts swollen with milk. It is painful and made me upset that I couldn't pump out the milk to relieve the pain.

    How about if you'd given birth and your baby was taken away from you. Then you could be hooked up to machines for the milk... that could be given to cows to drink. Then when you're done you could have another baby.. oh hell, let's make it a dozen more babies until you're all used up. Sound like an awesome way to spend a life.
  • BoxerBrawler
    BoxerBrawler Posts: 2,032 Member
    ndj1979 wrote: »
    You have to ask yourself why so many millions of people are lactose intolerant. Some people just simply adapt to digesting the sugar enzymes contained in milk out of survival. Others don't. I wonder about things like this... like if something is giving you heart burn would you just take a pill and continue to eat the item? Personally I feel like that's my body telling me to stop. So many people forgot to listen to their bodies thought it's just sad. A lot of people actually let a computer program and application developers tell them when they should eat instead of trying to figure out if their actually hungry or not :smile:

    that last statement is pretty ironic given that you have an open diary that you are using to track calories on a site that is designed by others...

    Really? out of the entire statement all you can come up with picking on the very last sentence? LOL!
    Okay, I'll play, yes I'm using a site built and maintained by developers. But that doesn't mean I have forgotten how to listen to my body. It was a general statement, not aimed at anyone in particular. Are we done now?
  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    ndj1979 wrote: »
    You have to ask yourself why so many millions of people are lactose intolerant. Some people just simply adapt to digesting the sugar enzymes contained in milk out of survival. Others don't. I wonder about things like this... like if something is giving you heart burn would you just take a pill and continue to eat the item? Personally I feel like that's my body telling me to stop. So many people forgot to listen to their bodies thought it's just sad. A lot of people actually let a computer program and application developers tell them when they should eat instead of trying to figure out if their actually hungry or not :smile:

    that last statement is pretty ironic given that you have an open diary that you are using to track calories on a site that is designed by others...

    Really? out of the entire statement all you can come up with picking on the very last sentence? LOL!
    Okay, I'll play, yes I'm using a site built and maintained by developers. But that doesn't mean I have forgotten how to listen to my body. It was a general statement, not aimed at anyone in particular.
    Are we done now?

    I sure hope so. The anthropomorphizing and illogical appeals to emotion posing as legitimate arguments against the nutritional benefits of milk consumption are getting old.

    Ahhh....The plagiarism of another (illogial, unscientific) site combined with the distinct increase in screechiness and general hysteria in response to the debunking of a position took me back to my days of teaching college writing. Next, the crying. I would collect the tears in a vial and wear them on a chain around my neck.

    http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/04/03/over-75-of-earths-population-is-lactose-intolerant-for-a-reason-dairy-is-harmful/

    From that same site:
    Deodorant causes breast cancer.

    http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/10/23/how-to-prevent-breast-cancer-through-an-armpit-detox/
  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
    Good to taste or good for your body? Cause swiss cheese is NOT good at all......ever!

    TIL @stephanieluvspb has never had the pleasure of a properly prepared Reuben.
  • TR0berts
    TR0berts Posts: 7,739 Member
    Hornsby wrote: »
    Seriously, what I am supposed to eat with Oreos, if not milk?

    Pfft...

    More Oreos?
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    zyxst wrote: »
    rankinsect wrote: »
    salembambi wrote: »
    bad for you

    & especially for the calf and mother cows

    Those cows would be in a lot of pain if they were unmilked. Dairy cows are upset with you if you fail to milk them on schedule.

    Totally wrong.

    I'm not a cow, but I did give birth to a human and had to deal with breasts swollen with milk. It is painful and made me upset that I couldn't pump out the milk to relieve the pain.

    How about if you'd given birth and your baby was taken away from you. Then you could be hooked up to machines for the milk... that could be given to cows to drink. Then when you're done you could have another baby.. oh hell, let's make it a dozen more babies until you're all used up. Sound like an awesome way to spend a life.

    How would you feel if someone demolished your house, claimed the land their own, planted their crops and trees and killed your children for nibbling on "their" crops? How would you feel to be walking around minding your own business only to get mortally injured because someone decided to put up an invisible barrier? How would you feel if someone poisoned your food sources?

    If you want to appeal to emotion in every scenario that might hurt animals you would be a breatharian living in a cave. Taking a stand for an issue of choice is a good thing (I'm passionate about my own issues of choice which I don't push on anyone), but I don't see how any of this has anything to do with the effect of dairy on health for those who are not lactose intolerant.

    You monster, that cave could be a bear's home that now has to freeze to death in winter with its family.
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    ndj1979 wrote: »
    You have to ask yourself why so many millions of people are lactose intolerant. Some people just simply adapt to digesting the sugar enzymes contained in milk out of survival. Others don't. I wonder about things like this... like if something is giving you heart burn would you just take a pill and continue to eat the item? Personally I feel like that's my body telling me to stop. So many people forgot to listen to their bodies thought it's just sad. A lot of people actually let a computer program and application developers tell them when they should eat instead of trying to figure out if their actually hungry or not :smile:

    that last statement is pretty ironic given that you have an open diary that you are using to track calories on a site that is designed by others...

    Really? out of the entire statement all you can come up with picking on the very last sentence? LOL!
    Okay, I'll play, yes I'm using a site built and maintained by developers. But that doesn't mean I have forgotten how to listen to my body. It was a general statement, not aimed at anyone in particular.
    Are we done now?

    I sure hope so. The anthropomorphizing and illogical appeals to emotion posing as legitimate arguments against the nutritional benefits of milk consumption are getting old.

    Ahhh....The plagiarism of another (illogial, unscientific) site combined with the distinct increase in screechiness and general hysteria in response to the debunking of a position took me back to my days of teaching college writing. Next, the crying. I would collect the tears in a vial and wear them on a chain around my neck.

    http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/04/03/over-75-of-earths-population-is-lactose-intolerant-for-a-reason-dairy-is-harmful/

    From that same site:
    Deodorant causes breast cancer.

    http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/10/23/how-to-prevent-breast-cancer-through-an-armpit-detox/

    Yeah, the ACS says so too:
    http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/antiperspirants-and-breast-cancer-risk

    Huh?

    From the website you posted (emphasis added):

    Antiperspirants and Breast Cancer Risk
    The claims
    For some time, an email rumor suggested that underarm antiperspirants cause breast cancer.
    (snip)
    All of these claims are largely untrue.
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    ndj1979 wrote: »
    You have to ask yourself why so many millions of people are lactose intolerant. Some people just simply adapt to digesting the sugar enzymes contained in milk out of survival. Others don't. I wonder about things like this... like if something is giving you heart burn would you just take a pill and continue to eat the item? Personally I feel like that's my body telling me to stop. So many people forgot to listen to their bodies thought it's just sad. A lot of people actually let a computer program and application developers tell them when they should eat instead of trying to figure out if their actually hungry or not :smile:

    that last statement is pretty ironic given that you have an open diary that you are using to track calories on a site that is designed by others...

    Really? out of the entire statement all you can come up with picking on the very last sentence? LOL!
    Okay, I'll play, yes I'm using a site built and maintained by developers. But that doesn't mean I have forgotten how to listen to my body. It was a general statement, not aimed at anyone in particular.
    Are we done now?

    I sure hope so. The anthropomorphizing and illogical appeals to emotion posing as legitimate arguments against the nutritional benefits of milk consumption are getting old.

    Ahhh....The plagiarism of another (illogial, unscientific) site combined with the distinct increase in screechiness and general hysteria in response to the debunking of a position took me back to my days of teaching college writing. Next, the crying. I would collect the tears in a vial and wear them on a chain around my neck.

    http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/04/03/over-75-of-earths-population-is-lactose-intolerant-for-a-reason-dairy-is-harmful/

    From that same site:
    Deodorant causes breast cancer.

    http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/10/23/how-to-prevent-breast-cancer-through-an-armpit-detox/

    Yeah, the ACS says so too:
    http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/antiperspirants-and-breast-cancer-risk

    Uhh...

    "All of these claims are largely untrue."