Things aren’t always what they seem

Rob & I sip a delicious non-dairy strawberry shake at the Chicago Diner!

It’s all around us and very much a part of our daily lives.  It’s accepted to be normal, healthy and it’s consumption is encouraged from the time we are very small.  It’s versatile, easy to use, fairly cheap to buy, and almost impossible to avoid.  In fact, it’s so widely available and delicious, one might wonder how in the world we could ever live without it!  Guess what “it” is yet?

However, it has a dark side.  It causes excess mucous production in the body, clogs our arteries, gives us headaches and constipation, puts us at higher risk for diabetes, causes weight gain, interferes with calcium retention, contains incompatible hormones, alters our instinctive body functions, induces premature development in human females…and it doesn’t stop there.

It’s dairy and it’s dangerous.  When we’re babies, most human mothers breastfeed just like other mammals do with their young.  This is the way nature intended.  But nowhere do you see a baby kitten feeding from a dolphin.  Or a baby monkey nursing from a goat…yet humans consume dairy from a cow.   I know this paints a preposterous picture, but imagine for an instant the baby kitten still nursing from it’s mother when fully mature.  This would be the same as a human infant nursing from a grown cow.  This wouldn’t be natural to happen!

When humans wean from their mothers during the wee years, the natural progression would be to graduate towards other foods; Mother’s milk has fulfilled it’s purpose and now the baby’s digestive system is ready for more solid foods—not someone else’s mother’s milk…especially the mother of a completely different species!  Even more absurd would be for the child to be nursing from the mother well into adulthood.  It’s not natural and it’s not necessary.

Yet, grown humans everyday are chugging cow’s milk by the glassful and nibbling on it every way thinkable—cheese, yogurt, ice cream, whey powder, butter… we have made the body fluid of another mammal become a product.

The chemical composition of cow milk is in completely different proportion than that of human milk.  The protein and fat content of cow milk is significantly greater than our milk.  Hence the reason why calves are able to be grown into 2000 pound cows.  In fact, the protein content of a cow’s milk makes it difficult to use the available calcium.  The human body cannot absorb and utilize the calcium from cow milk very easily.  Now if the calcium doesn’t get used, where does it go?  It gets deposited in its various forms around the body, usually in the form of some kind of stones.  Many stones are composed of calcium deposits.

But we have to ask ourselves: Why is a cow’s milk so high in calcium to begin with?  If all goes as planned, the cows are eating the green grasses, which are stocked with great proportions of calcium, magnesium, boron, and other trace minerals that provide balance from this grassy green.  The green grass is so high in calcium that the cows excrete the excess in their body fluid.  The very same thing would happen if a human female were to become pregnant and eat lots of green leafy vegetables—her milk would contain an abundance of calcium.  It would be easier to use the minerals from the leafy greens though, because cow milk is not compatible with human needs.  The fat and protein content of human milk is significantly less because our biological needs are unique to our species.  Just because you are consuming the milk from a cow, doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to use it.

Dairy also lowers the pH of our blood, making it more difficult to retain trace minerals like calcium.  So in order to balance this out, the body naturally draws calcium out of the blood to buffer some of the acidity created from the dairy intake.  If the blood were kept more alkaline at a higher pH, then our daily requirement of calcium wouldn’t be so high.  Just another benefit to being a vegan: eliminating meat, dairy and eggs allows room to replace those foods with other ones that would be less acidic after being metabolized.  Along with minimal sugar intake (less than 20 grams/day)—because it too lowers your pH—your body has greater potential to remain at a more alkaline pH, which equals a “healthier you” all around!

I know temptations taste sweet, but next time you want to indulge in dairy, ask yourself, “Is it really worth it in the long run for my health?”
There are plenty of other non-dairy goodies all over the place!  You just have to be willing to look (and if you’re in the Chicagoland area, I highly recommend checking out the Chicago Diner– 3411 N. Halsted, Chicago IL –it’s so fun and delicious!)

Bottom line?  Skip the cow, and eat the greens yourself.  Your body will thank you and so would the cows if they could.  Experiment with new leafy greens.  Come back soon and join me for Watercress Week (April 1-7).  Maximize your nutrient absorption and retention, while reducing your risks of heart disease, cancer and hormone complications.  Encourage the ones you love to do the same.  Protect yourself from the dangers of dairy, despite the marketing appeal.   After all, we don’t sell human milk for our consumption.  Why in the world should we nurse from a cow and buy their milk instead?