These vegan health articles are presented to assist you in taking a pro-active part in your own health.
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Dairy products form mucus, which coats the digestive and respiratory tracts. Milk is not easily digested, and it’s also highly allergenic.
Here are some other facts about dairy products (milk, cheese, butter, ice cream, yogurt, etc.)
Most of the world is lactose intolerant. Most of us lose the ability to completely digest lactose by age four. As a result, many milk drinkers develop diarrhea, gas, stomach cramps, bowel inflammation and toxicity.
• Dairy sources are high on the food chain, which concentrates toxins, pesticides, and hormones.
• More than 20 percent of dairy cows carry leukemia viruses. Sheep, goats and chimps that are fed cows’ milk sometimes develop leukemia. There’s a great possibility these viruses can be transmitted to humans too.
• Studies have shown that the two most common cancers: breast and prostate are associated with dairy product consumption.
• Studies have shown that type 1 juvenile onset diabetes in children is linked to dairy product consumption.
• Casein — a milk protein — is a common cause of food allergies. Casein needs the enzyme rennin, to break down, but rennin isn’t present in humans after the age of four.4 Cows’ milk contains 300 times more casein than mothers’ milk.5 Casein, which is very sticky, is a main component in popular nontoxic glue. Casein coats the digestive system, leading to leaky gut syndrome, malabsorption and/or constipation. These all lead to a weakened immune system and toxic build up in the blood along with a host of other health problems that stem from the leaky gut syndrome (see the Assimilative Health chapter). Casein is extremely mucus-forming, due to its bacterial breakdown (putrefaction), our allergic response, and its glue-like nature.
• Pasteurization destroys all enzymes, including phosphatase, which is necessary to assimilate calcium, minerals and vitamins. During pasteurization, milk is heated to at least 115 degrees Celsius, causing organic calcium to become insoluble and therefore very hard to digest. Temperatures from 190 to 230 degrees Celsius are required to kill typhoid bacilli, coli, tuberculosis and undulant fever, but pasteurization temperatures only reach 145 to 170 degrees. Pasteurization kills some beneficial bacteria which normally keep the harmful bacteria in check. Within 24 to 48 hours after pasteurization, the amount of harmful bacteria doubles.
• Cows’ milk has twice as much protein as human milk, because a baby cow doubles its weight so quickly.
• Baby cows who drank pasteurized milk died in 30 days.
• Homogenized cows’ milk prevents cream from floating to the top. If raw milk is ingested, the enzyme xanthine oxidase is digested in the stomach. If the milk has been homogenized, fat globules from the cream encase the enzyme, which can pass undigested into the blood, attaching to artery walls and becoming abrasive. The body repairs these abrasions with cholesterol. The xanthine oxidase enzyme is a significant cause of heart disease in the United States.
• Bovine growth hormone (BGH), also called bovine somatotropin (BST), stimulates milk production. Synthetic BGH/BST causes up to a 25 percent increase in milk production.
• The reason you don’t want to be consuming growth hormone which is in milk, chicken and all meat is because it does just that! It makes tissues grow, which includes cancer cells which are cells that have mutated and already started to grow at an accelerated rate. When growth hormone combines with cancer cells their already rapid growth rate increases. This causes a tragic scenario. The average American has a sluggish to very weakened immune system. The immune system (Natural Killer cells and macrophages) prevents the cancer cells which normally form in everyone from getting out of control. So if one has a weakened immune system the cancer cells can multiply in greater amounts because the white blood cells aren’t able to do their job of killing them as quickly. Now to this we add daily amounts of growth hormone from dairy products, meat and chicken, causing the cancer cells to form colonies faster. We call these tumors and once tumors have formed it is much more difficult for the white blood cells (Natural Killer cells and macrophages) to get at and destroy the cancer. Can you see how dairy products, meat and chicken can ultimately destroy your health?
• Dairy cows used to live 25 years. Now, few make it past four years because of the BGH they are injected with.
• Even pasteurized milk can transmit papillomavirus, which may be involved in a number of human cancers.
• Milk may be related to the onset of childhood diabetes mellitus.
• Antibiotics are common in milk, due to cows’ udder infections. Those antibiotics are transmitted to humans, causing reactions in those sensitive or allergic to antibiotics, or causing the production of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in our bodies.12 One of these is sulfamethazine, a suspected human carcinogen.
• Pesticide from cows’ feed gets concentrated as it goes up the food chain to you and me.
• Finland has one of the world’s highest dairy intakes — and the world’s highest death rate from heart disease. Finns consume 11⁄2 times more dairy products than Americans; coincidentally, Finland’s death rate from heart disease is 11⁄2 times higher than that in the U.S. High fat, high cholesterol, and liquid meat (milk) diets are not conducive to total health and wholeness.
The fact that we need calcium is a poor reason to say we must drink milk because pasteurization or heat renders the calcium practically unassimilatable and of very little use to the human body. The average American gets 807 mg of calcium a day from drinking milk. Compare that to daily averages in Spain (308 mg), Brazil (250 mg), Taiwan (13 mg) and Ghana (8 mg).14 People in these countries get their calcium from other sources like broccoli, spinach, soybeans, kidney beans, almonds, rhubarb, collards, turnips, etc.
The amount of calcium we need is debatable. The Food and Nutrition Board of the Nation Academy of Science recommends 800 mg per day for adults, while the World Health Organization recommends 400 mg. But God made our bodies so amazing that we absorb more calcium when consumed in lesser quantities than when we consume larger quantities. In other words, our bodies know precisely what and how much they need.
The risk of osteoporosis (thin, frail bones) is nearly double in meat and dairy-eating people than in strict vegetarians.
The African Bantu women consume a dairy-free diet, and they still get 250 to 400 mg of calcium daily — half that of Western women — from vegetable sources. Bantu women commonly have 10 children in their lifetime, and they typically breast-feed their children for about 10 months. Even with this tremendous calcium drain and relative low calcium intake, osteoporosis is essentially unknown among these women.
If you still believe you must drink milk to make your bones strong, here’s an interesting fact: The five highest dairy-consuming countries (Finland, Sweden, U.S., U.K. and Israel) also have the five highest rates of hip fracture — a sign of osteoporosis.
Here’s another case point that shows how we assimilate more toxins as we move up the food chain, when we move from eating plants to eating meat:
The Environmental Defense Fund studied the breast milk of 1,400 women from 46 states. The study found widespread contamination of breast milk with pesticides. The levels of contamination were twice as high in meat and dairy consuming women as in vegetarians. Because pesticides are concentrated in animal foods, the study advises women who plan to breast-feed to avoid meat, some kinds of fish, and high-fat dairy products.
Multiple sclerosis is more commonly found in areas of the world where infants and children are raised on dairy products rather than on breast milk and vegetable foods.
To close on dairy products, I leave you parents with the following thoughts concerning your children.
Dr. Dan Baggett, a pediatrician, directly correlates cows’ milk with the following conditions seen in his office:
1) eczema
2) asthma
3) strep throat
4) rheumatoid arthritis
5) growing
pains
All of these conditions began to improve when dairy products were eliminated from the diet.
Excerpt taken from the book Total Health = Wholeness: A Body, Mind and Spirit Manual by Dr. Keith and Laurie Nemec. For more information go to Total Health Institute http://www.totalhealthinstitute.com.
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We began this archive as a means of assisting our visitors in answering many of their health and diet questions, and in encouraging them to take a pro-active part in their own health. We believe the articles and information contained herein are true, but are not presenting them as advice. We, personally, have found that a whole food vegan diet has helped our own health, and simply wish to share with others the things we have found. Each of us must make our own decisions, for it's our own body. If you have a health problem, see your own physician.