Got Milk? Maybe, But Do You Know What Kind?

Filed under: News — admin at 11:15 pm on Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Kitsap Sun
May 30, 2007

This article gives several terms and definitions associated with milk. Health aspects of milk are discussed.

Excerpt…

For most Kitsap County residents born before the Reagan era, milk was a fairly easy term to define. It’s whatone poured over cereal in the morning, added to oatmeal to make it creamy or was used to dunk cookies before eating.

But today’s choices can often lead the consumer perplexed and confused, with labels reading “pasteurized,” “homogenized,” “raw milk,” “organic milk” and “soy milk” and with just as wide a variety of percentages, not to mention the rumors of additives or preservatives. So the Dairy Farmers of Washington — in honor of June being Dairy Month — have created the following information, designed to help clear the air in the milk aisle.

Types of Milk

Whole milk: A good choice for children ages 1-2 years and contains 150 calories and 8 grams (g) of fat per 8-fluid oz. serving.

Reduced fat milk: Whole milk in which the milk fat level has been reduced from 3.25 percent to 2 percent (hence its popular name, “2 percent milk”)….

Low fat milk: Whole milk in which the milk fat level has been reduced from 3.25 percent to 1 percent (hence its popular name, “1 percent milk”). Low fat milk contains 100 calories and 2.5 g of fat per 8-fluid oz. serving.

Fat-free milk: Whole milk in which the milk fat level has been reduced from 3.5 percent to essentially none. It is often referred to as “skim milk.” Fat-free milk contains 80 calories and 0 g of fat per 8-fluid oz. serving.

Flavored milk: Milk to which a flavoring — such as cocoa or cocoa powder, strawberry or vanilla extract — and a sweetener have been added…

Cultured Buttermilk: Valued as a recipe ingredient and digestive aid. Buttermilk is freshly pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized fat-free or low-fat milk with added fat-free dry milk solids and a natural culture for taste.

Acidophilus milk: A great digestive aid. Acidophilus milk is pasteurized milk — usually low fat or fat-free…

Reduced lactose milks: For people coping with lactose maldigestion. They are available in reduced fat, low fat and fat-free varieties.…

Low sodium milk: For people on salt-restricted diets with 95 percent or more of the sodium that occurs naturally in milk removed.

Eggnog: Typically a holiday beverage treat that contains milk, egg yoke, egg white and nutritive carbohydrate sweetener.

(Read on …)

Joe Mercola States Organic Milk has No Added Benefits; advocates raw milk

Filed under: News — admin at 1:40 am on Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Mercola.com
May 15, 2007

Joe Mercola commented on the recent announcement that an organic milk surplus is expected this year, and questioned whether organic milk is any healthier for consumers than conventional milk.

Expect an even greater surge of organic milk coming to American grocery stores soon which could create a huge surplus to the tune of more than 25 million gallons, according to dairy analysts. In fact, prognosticators expect the annual growth rate for organic milk will double in America to at least 40 percent in 2007.

Considering some industry experts estimate the demand for organic milk is growing annually by 25 percent, dairy producers like Dean Foods and Organic Valley have welcomed the news and the competition, as they divert some of that excess milk to other product lines, namely powdered milk, ice cream, yogurt and cheeses. By the way, don’t expect prices for organic milk to fall either, as the dairy industry expects the glut to be short-term.

That said, the numbers merely serve to divert the attention of most folks away from the most important question: Is organic milk any better than pasteurized milk for your health? Even conventional medicine agrees there’s no inherent advantage to consuming organic milk, except for the companies that profit from it.

All of this competition obscures the simple fact that, no matter how many chemicals dairy producers remove, pasteurized milk — organic or not — does your health no good at all. The pasteurization process alone destroys some of milk’s natural micronutrient and vitamin content, encourages the growth of harmful bacteria and makes the major part of calcium insoluable, leading to rickets and bad teeth.

Your best bet for your health is to seek out safer sources of raw milk, one of the finest sources of calcium available to humans, from a source near you by reviewing the offerings at Real Milk.

Some New Research Has Me Wondering If I Need to Change My Raw Milk Consumption Patterns

Filed under: News — admin at 2:22 am on Monday, May 14, 2007

Complete Patient
May 14, 2007

In response to an article from Harvard Magazine titled, “Modern Milk,” the following article and comments from subscribers of the Complete Patient blog who are in favor of raw milk consumption (like the blog owner), were mixed in their concern regarding the natural hormones present in all milk. The full article and comments are at Complete Patient.

Excerpt…

Part of the joy of drinking raw milk and partaking of other locally-produced and non-processed foods is being more a part of a natural system, a cyclical system that revolves around seasonal changes, old-fashioned grazing, and animal reproduction cycles.

Well, it’s this last point that may create a problem for my raw milk consumption. A friend who knows of my interest in raw milk sent me an article from the current issue of Harvard Magazine, which quotes a Mongolian physician expressing concerns about the natural hormone levels of milk (excluding BGH-fed cows). Her research indicates that much of our milk has high levels of estrogens, which have been implicated in hormone-dependent cancers like those of the prostate, breast, uterus, etc.

This physician became interested in the subject of milk when she noticed differences in dairy practices between her native Mongolia and Westernized countries. In Mongolia, pasture-fed cows are milked only through the first three months of a pregnancy, when hormone levels are still low, while in Westernized countries cows are kept pregnant and lactating 300 days a year. And, indeed, she has found evidence that hormone-based cancers in Japan, which uses Westernized dairy practices, have increased since the 1950s at about the same rate as milk consumption increased.

I wondered when I read this whether the same practices apply to farmers producing raw milk, so I called the New Hampshire farmer who supplies me with my milk. She told me that cows have the same nine-month pregnancy cycle as humans, and she milks through the first seven months of a pregnancy; the last two months the cows get “a rest,” and then after birth the cows begin being milked again. This is all standard practice, she said, whether a farmer is selling milk raw or sending it off to a processing plant for pasteurization.

The cow that has been providing my milk, she said, is currently pregnant and due in September. That means she became pregnant in January, and is currently in her fifth month of pregnancy, well into the “high-hormone” period. This farmer has a second cow, but it is currently in its rest period.

I’m uncertain what to make of this situation. As someone who has had prostate cancer, I’ve been told to avoid consuming anything that would stimulate increased testosterone production. But would estrogen do that? There is a school of thought that recommends increased consumption of soy products for men as a way to reduce prostate cancer risks, because of soy’s natural estrogen. Confusing stuff.

Yet in the case of the raw milk, I’m thinking that maybe the best thing to do is avoid drinking milk produced by cows in the fourth through seventh months of pregnancy. That means I have to start shopping around for raw milk, and inquiring of farmers about the pregnancy status of the cows producing the milk.

Obviously, other people have their own special concerns. Indeed, the Harvard Magazine article quotes the researcher as suggesting that cows in late pregnancy should not be milked or, if they are milked, their milk should be labeled to show it comes from a pregnant cow.

I guess I can’t just assume the natural cycles are always working for me. But the advantage I have as someone buying directly from a farmer I know is that at least I can find out the real situation.

(Read on …)

Uprooting the organic claims

Filed under: News — admin at 6:46 pm on Wednesday, May 2, 2007

BBC Radio 4
Presenter, The Investigation
Simon Cox
April 26, 2007 

Excerpt… 

Sales of organic produce are booming on the back of alleged benefits to our health and the environment, as well as claims of higher standards of animal welfare. But are we being seduced by “feel good” claims that don’t stand up to scientific scrutiny?

Borough Market in South London is the granddaddy of farmers markets. On a Wednesday lunchtime there is a big queue at the organic salad bar. Next door there’s a steady stream of customers at Betty’s organic stall stocking up on organic herbs and spices.

For many consumers, there’s a belief that eating organic will improve their health. It’s one Betty supports.

“Given a choice would you eat something that is covered in artificial chemicals to something that is natural and clean?”

Can we prove that organic is better for our health?

The Soil Association, Britain’s largest certifying body for organic produce, claims there “is a growing body of research that shows organic food can be more nutritious for you”. And there have been some recent studies to back this up, showing higher levels of vitamins in organic kiwi fruits and tomatoes.

This intrigued Clare Williamson from the British Nutrition Foundation who decided to study all the current research on the comparative health benefits of organic and non-organic food.

The organic lobby’s claims failed to convince her. The BNF “feel it would be irresponsible to promote organic food over non organic food as being better for you as there is not enough strong evidence,” Ms Williamson says of her findings.

The government and its independent watchdog, the Food Standards Agency are equally adamant there is no proof organic food is better for our health. But science alone cannot prove the point, says Lord Peter Melchett, a director of the Soil Association, who believes consumers must trust their instincts.

“Science doesn’t tell us the answers so some of it we have to go on feelings,” he says.

One fact that can’t be disputed is that organic farming uses far fewer pesticides than conventional agriculture. The Soil Association’s booklet Organic Food and Farming: Myth and Reality, is clear what this means: “pesticides have a harmful impact on human health”.

Natural pesticides

So organic must be better for your health as it rarely uses pesticides… Currently the amount of pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables isn’t high enough to harm us, says the Food Standards Agency.

And Professor Anthony Trewevas, an expert in plant and molecular biology, believes the argument against pesticides is disingenuous and simplistic since we are already eating huge numbers of natural toxic pesticides which plants use to kill off insects.

“All of us on average consume several thousand a day,” says to Professor Trewevas, who estimates this amounts to a quarter of a teaspoon a day. These natural pesticides don’t adversely affect us, he says.

“You do not come out in tumours; you do not become sick from nerve toxins.”…

…Laurence Woodward, director of the nearby Elm Farm Organic Research centre, believes Sheepdrove is a perfect advert for the environmental benefits of organic farming.

“There is no question that organic farming is better for the environment than conventional farming, there is mounting evidence from government studies,” he says.

Bad science

But, as with the health claims, can we prove organic really is better for the planet?

That’s exactly what the government and organisations like the Soil Association have been trying to find out. Earlier this year, Ken Green, professor of environmental management at Manchester University Business School, was commissioned by the government to conduct the first comprehensive study of the environmental impact of food production.

His findings weren’t good news for the organic industry. “The studies that exist show there is not a clear cut thing that says let’s go organic and that will have a big environmental impact compared to traditional methods of farming,” says Mr Green, summarising his findings.

The organic lobby rounded on the study accusing it of bad science because it was only a “literature review” rather one based on original research. But Lord Melchett, readily concedes there are “still some big gaps in our knowledge about this”. He is confident future research will prove organic is better for the environment.

But few studies have actually tried to analyse the environmental benefits of organic farming. Mr Woodward believes there’s a good reason for this: “It’s almost impossible to do a sensible comparison of organic and conventional farming systems. The systems are so different”.

Welfare standards

Yet this hasn’t stopped bodies like the Soil Association from claiming that “Organic farming is friendlier to the environment”.

Who says so? According to the Soil Association’s website, the government does. “The UK government has said that it (organic farming) is better for wildlife, causes lower pollution from sprays, produces less carbon dioxide - the main global warming gas.”

But challenged on this, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, not surprisingly, says it doesn’t favour one form of farming over another.

Not all organic consumption is about saving the earth. It is about rearing and caring for livestock more humanely. We have uncovered evidence of serious concerns from insiders about the way some organic meat is produced.

Laurence Woodward, who led a study to be published later this year, says conditions at some pig farms in Holland were not “organic” since “they are kept indoors, in cramped conditions.

“It’s very much conventional, very intensive,” he says.

What of the consumers who buy this meat? “There is no other way of saying it - they being conned,” says Mr Woodward. The research didn’t identify which of the UK’s certifying bodies was approving these overseas products.

But when it comes to endorsing organic produce from overseas, the Soil Association, for one, doesn’t send its inspectors directly. Rather “what we do is inspect the inspectors and make sure they are going to inspect to our standards,” says Lord Melchett.

Being an ethical consumer was never going to be easy. The politics of produce is confusing and getting more complicated each day. The best advice, don’t believe simple labels that promise the earth but without the science to back it up.