Dairy: Why Even Bother?

For a while I accepted a culture that used dairy. In its bakeries, drinks, and processed foods. However, after watching several documentaries, viewing statics, and gathering information from multiple sources. I’ve realized that dairy does a lot more harm than good and after some people claimed that it was a health food I felt that I had no choice -I needed to tell people the truth.

So to begin, we have to remember that the western world developed a “tolerance,” for dairy. For generations and generations humans didn’t consume it and “about 75% of the world’s population… lose their lactase enzymes after weaning.” The Physicians Committee even goes on to say that, “milk does not offer any nutrients that cannot be found in a healthier form in other foods.” I believe, that dairy should only be consumed only if necessary. It takes a lot more resources to raise cattle than it would be to just get it from plant sources. There’s also a much bigger variety that could probably suit just about anyones taste. Theres soy milk that probably taste most like cow’s milk. There’s almond milk and coconut milk, which I personally like to put in my tea. There’s cashew milk, the brand of cashew milk I’ve gotten is salty and I don’t like much. There’s oat milk, which I like to drink on its own and there’s rice milk as well as many others. I say rice milk specifically because its on my to try list. Despite this options, I know some people will still gear towards dairy and to those people I have my own story to share.

I will speak from personal experience, but I will say that the disease I’m about to discuss is only one of many diseases caused by dairy as well as other animal products. 

My mom and my cousin both have type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease where immune cells attack the pancreas to the point where it can produce little or no insulin. With modern medicine, the disease may not be life threatening, but the insulin can cost hundreds of dollars and without it a person with the condition will likely become ill and die if insulin isn’t given on time. When I was little, my mom almost went blind after giving birth to my younger brother – a potential symptom of type 1 if not treated properly. Luckily after several eye surgeries she could see -but not as well as she used to. Those surgeries probably cost a lot and some families may have never been able to afford it. Now, with research that I hope will be more widely spread, hopefully people will begin to realize that they -and their families- don’t have to be put through this.

The China Study, Neal Barnard, and Cyrus Khambatta all have something to say when it comes to dairy consumption. Two graphs found on pages 181 and 182 of The China Study show that higher dairy consumption results in higher incidence of type 1 diabetes in those that are genetically prone to this disease.

And Neal Barnard has a video that dicuesses type 1 diabetes as well as some studies on it that I will link below(the studies he’s part of just cover type 2). There is a podcast that Cyrus Khambatta, PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry, has on his blog with Robby Barbaro on whether or not milk is good for you. Cyrus used to be a huge milk drinker and for a while thought it was good for him -until it took a toll on his body. He claims that when he was an avid milk drink he used to drink almost a pint a day, but now he realized that he was, “being programmed,” -by the government and the dairy industry- to drink it. He’s found, “close to 100 years, of scientific evidence that clearly demonstrates that dairy products are addictive, they’re inflammatory, and now there’s evidence to show that they’re actually potentially causational in autoimmune diabetes, just like Robby and I have.”