This topic should be of great concern to all parents! Most of us were raised on the belief that one should drink milk every day to build strong bones and be fit and healthy. We were also told that our milk supply is clean and wholesome.
These beliefs may have been true 50 years ago, but we have grave concerns that they are just not true any more. Concerns about osteoporosis are real, and milk is a good source of calcium for strong bones, so what is all the fuss about?
With the rise of corporate farming, profit has become the motivating factor, not the health and well being of children and adults in the U.S. We should add that the milk supply in other countries may well be cleaner than that in the U.S., but unless you have no corporate farms in your country, or you are drinking milk from a cow in your back yard that you raise, or your country has banned certain chemical use in cows, we wouldn’t bet on it.
We are aware that Europeans have many more laws and regulations protecting their food supply than we seem to be able to pass here in the U.S. They also seem to regard capitalism as an economic force that is acceptable as long as it is controlled and regulated for the good of the people. We salute the Europeans and their efforts to maintain safety standards for food and drink. You are further along than we are.
What’s in the U.S. Milk Supply?
Antibiotics in Milk
In the United States, milk is a commodity to be exploited, just like everything else. That is, milk is big business. Corporate farms have the notion that virtually anything that will increase milk production (and hence, profit) is acceptable. Cows are fed corn products because it’s cheap food, despite the fact that they cannot easily digest corn products. Not surprisingly, it causes stomach problems and they get sick. So they are pumped with antibiotics to stave off serious illnesses and infections.
Any nursing mother has been told that what she eats comes through in mother’s milk to her child. What makes us think that this isn’t somehow true for cows? Can I please have a glass of white antibiotics?
rBGH in Milk
Not so very long ago (1994), our energetic chemical company, Monsanto, realized that if we feed cows rBGH, a bovine growth hormone, the cows will produce more milk. Now rBGH is given to most of the milk cows in the U.S. This means more profits for milk producers, which is great news for them. rBST is just another name for rBGH.
Cows are pumped up with rBGH and milked on unnatural schedules, causing udders to grow inordinately large and, in some cases, drag on the ground. Now the udders are exposed to soil contaminants, manure, and who knows what else? Now the milk may contain pus, cow’s blood, pesticides, etc. We can fix that—more antibiotics on top of the hormones.
Any U.S. child under 17 has likely been fed rBGH in milk all of his or her life.
There is some evidence that rBGH produces increased insulin levels in those who consume it in milk. For diabetics, this is downright dangerous, but also for those who have high blood sugar levels but are not yet diabetic, it is also dangerous. Diabetes in on the rampage in America. Why would we tolerate such additives? The answer is, we don’t even know it’s there or we are way too trusting to believe it. See the following for further info:
A Needless New Risk of Breast Cancer
Epstein, S. S. Potential public health hazards of biosynthetic milk
hormones. International Journal of Health Services, 20:73-84, 1990.
Epstein, S.S. Unlabeled milk from cows treated with biosynthetic growth hormones: A case of regulatory abdication. Internation Journal of Health Services, 26(1):173-185, 1996.
American milk has been banned in European nations and Canada to protect citizens from IGF-1 hazards from rBGH.
Synthetic Antioxidants (BHT, etc.) in Milk
Corporate farms are also adding synthetic antioxidants (butylated hydroxytoluene, butylated hydroxyanisole, dodecyl gallate, propyl gallate and octyl gallate) to cows’ feed, since synthetic antioxidants prevent rancidity. We see this label as “to maintain freshness.” A 2008 scientific study found that synthetic antioxidants can be transferred to milk, and, indeed, detected “only the antioxidant BHT and its aldehyde BHT–CHO in all 11 conventional milk and in 18 of 81 organic milk samples.” Is the organic milk that you buy safe? Well, some may be.
But what does added hormones do to our babies and kids when they are fed the same milk?
What Else is in Milk?
For the last 10 years, one family we know lived in a rural community of southern California, not far from El Mirage, CA, the home of several large dairies. Because of ground water contamination from Chromium 6, the families living in El Mirage were not allowed to drink the tap water. Large water trucks delivered water on a regular schedule to the town’s cisterns. However, the cows drink the ground (tap) water and the milk from the dairies is transferred to a central holding facility in the region and mixed with milk from surrounding areas. Then it’s packaged and shipped to grocery stores.
In the spring of about 2006, one of the El Mirage family members reported that a two-headed cow had been born on the dairy farm the previous night. It died shortly after birth. Another newborn cow had 3 nostrils. It survived. I am not making this up! This was reported directly to me by the family member living on the dairy farm. This person attended the births.
This particular dairy farm has been merged with the other one in El Mirage. It is my understanding that milk from the El Mirage dairies continues to flow to the central, regional facility. I don’t know what the cows are drinking these days. But I am not drinking commercial milk. I switched to almond milk and never went back.
Check It Out for Yourself
Here are some more sources of information on milk in the U.S. Check them out for yourselves.
Milk: America’s Health Problem from the Cancer Prevention Coalition on the hazards of breast, colon, and prostate cancer from the contamination of the U.S. milk supply.
What’s In A Glass Of Milk? Learn About Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) (sponsored by a nutritional health supplements company)
Presence of synthetic antioxidants in organic and conventional milk (from SciVerse ScienceDirect. Citation: Food Chemistry
Volume 115, Issue 1, 1 July 2009, Pages 285-289. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. [Elsevier is a major publisher of scientific information from the world’s scientific community, not just the U.S.]).
