Dairy - Pleasant Grove,UT

You've gotta love the milk debate. I am, by the way, on the side of dairy not being bad for you. I totally agree with the moms that say to talk to registered dieticians and physicians to know the truth about food. If it's not based in science, I just don't listen to it. Speaking of science, I read a recent study regarding milk and weight loss. In the study, they were researching the effects of diet soda vs. milk drinkers. In controlled studies, the people who drank milk lost weight while the diet soda drinkers did not - in fact many of them gained weight. Scientists have found that the calcium that milk delivers is key to weight loss and that diet sodas actually suppress the centers of the brain that make you feel full, so you eat more. So - no, dairy does not make you gain weight, in fact it can help you lose (if you stick to low-fat dairy).

We use milk now that the allergies are outgrown. My doctor recommended soy for my allergic son. I did some research and did not want to give it to my boy. When I asked the doctor, he said there was validity to the concerns. Think about it, if women can relieve hormonal symptoms by eating soy, is it really something you want your children to have a lot of, especially boys? I agree with the post that both sides get pretty extremist. I think you have to make a decision that works well for your family, and realize that others are going to disagree. I have done the goat's milk thing. It's been a couple of years, but at the time it was over $16 a gallon. We used it very sparingly! Yogurt was about $1.25 a serving. We now just use organic for the reasons mentioned before. If you have a kid prone to ear trouble, it's worth seeing if it's related to dairy. Our pulmonologist says that there is way more benefit from having milk than the problems it causes for congestion for most kids. She says this even when our son is sick. To be honest, I never really noticed avoiding milk helping with congestion. GL! I hope you can make sense of everything you find on the subject! :)

My three girls and I drink Lactaid. We tried Soy milk but it was too sweet for me and we also started getting the same stomach aches we would when we drank regular milk. I don't know if we were allergic, lactose intolerant or what but we can eat regular yogurt and cheese in very small amounts.

S.: i read all the responses and agree with some. my son has a dairy allergy. there is a difference between an allergy and being lactose intolerant.

first our naturopath told us that a huge indicator of allergies is ear infections. my son had 12 ear infections before he was 2. the worrisome symptoms with my son were behavioral. he would scream and run through the house like a wild animal. when i would finally get him calmed down, sometimes hours later, i would ask him what he was so upset about and he had no memory of being upset, screaming, running, yelling.

he also started becoming very aggressive. he always was trying to hit me. he also would have "freezing" spells. he would be in the middle of something and would "freeze" until I moved him and helped him to get out of it.

I took him off ALL dairy products (our naturopathy also said... we are the only animals that drink another animals milk...isn't that odd?) anyway, when i did that within 1 week he was a totally different boy. he no longer is hysterically running through the house, he is the kindest boy you have ever met. I am a FIRM believer that milk allergy is something to be reckoned with. check with your doctor or even a naturopath and see waht they have to say.

good luck

Hi S.,
Don't have much time so I'll just recommend a couple sites online:
http://www.realmilk.com/why.html
http://westonaprice.org/soy/index.html
I second the opinion to be careful about your sources of information. The soy industry and the dairy council are not reliable sources of information.
Also, keep in mind that humans have been consuming milk and milk products for thousands of years without heart disease or obesity problems (The African Masai tribe's entire diet is almost exclusively milk--they have very low cholesterol levels and little if any heart disease). It's the modern version that we buy at the store that is problematic.
Good luck sorting this out--there's a lot of conflicting information out there.
B.

Avoiding dairy makes a HUGE difference in my congestion when I am sick, and allergy symptoms when I am not. When milk is pasteurized, it kills all of the enzymes which help us digest this substance. Our body believes it is foreign and creates antibodies. We have so many auto-immune diseases now, because of so many foreign substances from processed foods, etc. that I don't want to add more but mostly I do it because my sinuses feel so much better. I have a little cheese sometimes, but mostly I avoid dairy.

I have read that it actually leeches calcium from our bones, because it doesn't contain the right nutrients in the proper ratios for us to digest it, plus it is an acid-causing food.

I would do almond, rice or hemp milk to substitute though. Soy can cause thyroid and hormone problems, althought it might be ok in moderation. Hemp milk is yummy and fantastic for baking.

Oh- symptoms of dairy allergies are: sinus congestion, chest congestion, irritable bowel, constipation, acid reflux.... Lactose intolerance is not the same as a dairy allergy by the way. Here is a link:
http://www.foodallergysolutions.com/food-allergy-news0307...

One more thing, I believe that if one is having some health issues related to food allergies, dairy is not always the only culprit. Some may tolerate it ok in moderation (although I still don't think it is healthy) but they may be allergic to corn, or other foods.

No, dairy is not bad for you. People have been drinking milk and eating cheese for thousands of years. Do you really think we would have survived as a species if we were all doing something that was so terrible? Milk is a complete food, it is able to sustain life if needed. That is why a baby of any mammal is able to live off nothing but milk. It has complete nutrtition, it is super yummy, it's more affordable than soy milk, it doesn't take anything but a cow and some grass to make it, it is a lot more natural that soy milk. Anyone that tells you otherwise needs to get their facts checked.

Also, Genesa stated that India is a society that is thriving as dairy free. Look it up for yourself....India is the worlds #1 producer of milk. They drink it themselves, it's not for export. Now I don't know about you, but when I see people in India, they are not fat, they aren't dying of heart disease, they don't look like they are super frail from osteoporosis either.

First, I don't drink cow's or soy milk. Soy for the reasons others have said. I am actually a vegan - no meat or dairy. I started as a teenager when my whole family changed after my mom did research. I have not done my own research, but I know one thing she said about animal products was that they are hard to digest & can put a lot of stress on the body. When I moved out on my own, the main reason I continued the diet was that meat and dairy didn't appeal anymore. I actually am not that strict, but I've found that dairy appeals even less than meat. So I'll eat meat a lot more often than I'll eat cow's milk products. I don't know why. I wouldn't say that my reasons are good enough for anyone else to do it without doing more research.

I have heard stories of eliminating dairy clearing up health problems, like autism. This is probably related to an allergy.

Thank you Jodi for having all the facts and presenting them so well. It is unfortunate that our society is so brainwashed into believing certain things are healthy just because people here have always typically done them.

If anyone has issues with soy or rice milk for their kiddos, another alternative to cow's milk is goat milk. I couldn't breast feed, so I weaned both my children off formula at about 1 year and put them on diluted goat milk. By 2 years of age they got it full strength. Because goats are so much smaller than cows, the proteins in their milk are much more easily digested by humans than the proteins in cows milk. Just FYI.

Hi S.!

Here is my take on dairy and soy...
Cow's milk products and soy are 2 of the most mucus-forming products available. They are extremely hard to digest and cow's milk products make the body very acidic, creating an environment ideal for cancer and disease. Soy mimics estrogen in the body and thus can throw off the body's hormones. So much so that it is not recommended for young boys. I could go on and on, but these are my main reasons for avoiding dairy and soy.

Only organic dairy products should be consumed, as conventional is loaded with nasty chemicals. And yes, dairy can make you gain weight, and overall it is just not good for your body. The pasturization process denatures the components of the milk, making it terrible for our consumption. Cow's that are fed pasturized cow's milk, very quickly die. The milk that is closest to human milk is Goat's milk, so that would be the best animal milk to consume. And if you are truely committed to wanting dairy, raw is really the best way to go.

If you are looking for milk alternatives, almond milk is nutritous and delicious. You can buy it at the store, or make it yourself (it is really easy). Soak 1 cup RAW almonds to 6 cups water overnight, blend in the blender (a high speed blender like a vita-mix is best), drain "milk" into a container, separating the milk from the pulp. You can then use the pulp to mix into cookies or really anything that you like to have a little almond flavor to. You can sweeten the milk with a little agave nectar, add vanilla or just drink it plain. Soaking the almonds before blending activates the enzymes making it extremely beneficial!

I have recently switched to a raw foods diet and occasionally eat some raw milk cheese, when I do, I am congested and feel like I am coming down with a cold the next day, purely because of the mucus that is formed from consuming a small amount of cheese.

Several years ago, when I met my husband, he convinced me to only drink organic milk (as I was consuming conventional milk). Within that month of switching, I lost 30 pounds, all because of the artifial hormones that I was no longer getting. Nothing else had changed in my lifestyle! At the time I was going through a gallon + of milk a week by myself, so this was a significant change for me. Because I had been drinking conventional milk all my life (and LOTS of it!), making the switch also sparked a hormone inbalance that took several years to correct.

There is a lot of information about dairy and soy, and a lot of misleading information. The dairy and soy industries would have you believe that their products are the best thing to happen to humans since we evolved, but I can assure you, they are giving out incorrect information for the sake of profit. I think you'll find that if you take out dairy and soy products, that you and your family will overall be healthier, coming down with fewer illnesses, you will have more energy and just might find it easier to lose a few pounds!

If you'd like to know some of the resources where I have gleaned this information from, please feel free to let me know! I have felt an incredible change in my own health, energy and weight-loss by omitting dairy and soy from my diet, so I can speak not only from the science standpoint from my research, but also from personal experience.

Please let me know if you have any questions, it's a lot of information to cram in a small space!
H. Gaitten
Owner, Natural Choices
www.naturalchoicesforliving.com

I actually keep a family cow in my backyard, and drink her milk with every meal. Since I know what she eats, and where she lives, I don't bother pasteurizing the milk, and usually drink from a bottle that is rarely more than 2 days out of the cow. I drink 16 oz with every meal. The milk is from a Jersey, so there is a huge amount of cream in the final product. I also make cheese, yogurt and butter when I have the need.

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't gain weight from the milk. My cholesterol dropped when I started drinking raw milk, and I don't get stuffed up. Best of all, prior to drinking raw milk, I used to get sick every three weeks in the winter. I now rarely get any head colds or viruses at all.

Finally, the psychological satisfactions that come from starting every day with a doe-eyed, sweet Jersey cow is far more therapeutic than a $150 Madison Avenue shrink.

Count me as a pro-milk, pro-cow guy.

Ok, I have read the other moms ideas and I respectfully disagree with a lot of it. Your body needs the calcium and other vitamins contained in milk. Of course it contains fat. So do avocados and many other very healthy things. Its how much you intake is the problem. My doctors have always said that 1% milk is a great way to cut the fat by still getting the nutrients you need to stay healthy. A glass of milk a day will NOT make you gain weight. In fact studies have shown that those who do drink an 8 oz glass of milk a day tend to loose weight. Loosing weight is not about restricting oneself to so called "diet food". No one I have ever met has done that and kept the weight off. Its all about moderation. Take a look at the weight watchers model (I am not saying go do weight watchers, i think its a little too much money). They have you eat vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, and lowfat dairy. They have you stay away from saturated fats, things high in sugars and fired anything. Even at that, if you eat more of the good things, you can still indulge and satisfy your cravings, without feeling guilty about it.
Anyway, Sorry if I went off onto a tangent that you didn't want to hear about, :). If you do have an allergy to dairy, it usually will be stomach and digestive problems. I would talk to you doctor about it. I had to be off milk for awhile while I was breastfeeding, so I used lactaid and it worked great. And just so you know there is as much controversy over soy as there is dairy. I hoped I have helped a little!
Good luck!

S., My family avoids milk for a couple of different reasons. I refuse any product that is laced with hormones. Cows are given estrogen to make them fat and to help them produce more milk. What it does for us is; makes us fat because if it makes the cow fat, it will make us fat. Another reason is estrogen is something my body makes enough of without the help of another animal. I had estrogen dominance disease until I gave up anything that comes from a cow that has been shot with hormones. YOu can look up estrogen dominance on the internet and learn for yourself if you have any of the symptoms. If you have noticed, little girls are developing breasts at a very young age these days, especially those who dring a lot of milk, they are getting their menstral cycles as young as 8. That is the main reason we gave it up. But I don't have the congestion I used to have either.

The dairy most people consuem today is a far cry from the dairy of long ago. Unless you go for raw milk or an organic milk you are putting hormones & antibiotics that can cause many adverse effects.
Also with all of the vaccinations & antibiotics, and early cow milk introductions (such as formula) our systems do not respond correctly to milk. They try to fight it of now instead of coinsiding with our body. Therefore producing an "allergic reaction".

The first signs of a milk allergy are ezcema, then ear & nose problems & finally asthma. In baby's & young children it will show itself as rashes, fussiness, upset stomach, pulling on ears, runny nose, throwing up & even at times anaphylactic shock.

Dairy is a much needed ingredient in our diet for calcium & fat. But there are many societies that thrive DAIRY FREE such as indian (from India) cultures. Soy has a list of contradictions to in, high in estrogens can cause adverse effects, especially in baby boys. It can actually hault developement of reproductive organs. While ok in moderate use, close watch should be kept on how much you consume. Check out "the stone age diet" a book with stats & info of soy & it's processing & many other commen ingredients.

I hope this helps, G.

As I have children who are allergic I've done a ton of research on this subject. Here's what I know.
Approximately 70% of the population is allergic or intolerant to milk. We are the ONLY species that drinks milk past toddlerhood. As we are leaving toddlerhood (around 4 years old), most people's body stop making the enzyme to digest lactose--the milk sugar. This is lactose intolerance. Symptoms of this include bloating, gas, digestive ailments, Irritiable bowel syndrome, etc. A milk allergy is when you are actually allergic to the protein in milk, either casein or whey. Symptoms of this include digestive ailments and IBS as above, as well as rashes, including eczema, deep dark circles under the eyes, mucous build up (due to the body's release of histamine), mood changes and ADHD symptoms (particularly in children) and even symptoms of asthma and hay fever type symptoms. The reason that so many people have these symptoms is because we were not originally built to digest another animals milk. Cows have four stomachs and digest things twice. Cow's milk is perfect for baby cows, but it is not made for humans. There is a section of people in Europe who for some reason have adapted to drinking milk--thus the 30% of people who can drink milk with no symptoms.

The reason people who are strongly supportive of breastfeeding do not like cow's milk is for the above reason....why would you take a baby of one year off of milk that is perfectly made for a baby human to give him/her milk that is perfectly made for a baby cow? It simply doesn't make sense. World wide we are the only country that recommends taking a baby off of breast milk to go on cow's milk. If allowed to self-wean the average age a child will wean off the breast is between the ages of 3 and 4, with the earliest being around 2 1/2.

While it is true that calcium is good for you and dairy products have a lot of it, you can get your calcium in lots of other forms. My son does not do soy or dairy due to allergies. But he does eat fortified rice milk, spinach, broccoli, etc.--and incidentally is incredibly healthy. So why do health officials push milk? Partly for the calcium. Partly because we have been trained for a long time to think it is good for us. Partly because there is a very large lobby of dairy farmers who would be out of work if people stopped drinking milk and eating cheese. You can see this example with corn syrup as well. The corn growers are launching an add campaign about how corn syrup if perfectly natural because so many people are worried about it. It is natural. The reason it is a problem is because it delays the release of hormones that tell your body it is full. Therefore, if you eat corn syrup with a meal you will, on average, consume about 100 more calories then if you had not had corn syrup. Those calories add up, and many believe that corn syrup has a lot to do with the current obesity epidemic in America. By the way, I got this information from Dr. Mehmet Oz's book (the doctor that is often on Oprah).

I hope this clears some things up for you. I tried to explain it from an open point of view.
J.

People stay away from dairy for many, many reasons. The truth about milk is it is designed to grow baby cows just as human milk is designed to grow baby humans. The amount of protein found in a mammals milk directly relates to how quickly they have to grow in order to reproduce, which is why cows milk does make you gain weight. We don't stay away from it in our home, we moderate. We don't drink milk, but we do use some cheeses once or twice a week. I use soy milk in my cooking. Soy milk can be troublesome if it has been altered by extracting the protein from soy beans and then added to the soy milk in order to make that milk have more protein. Look for soy isolate or isolated soy protein and stay away from anything that has that in its label. Those products, because they are no longer natural, do cause the same rise in estrogen in a human body, including in males, as cows milk does.

Many of the allergens are: asthma, nasal congestion, skin rash, various chest infections, irritability, fatigue, attention deficit disorder, and hyperactivity. Milk also diminishes the hydrochloric acid in the stomach which can allow undigested protein into the blood system (which some doctors believe to be one of the causes of type 1 diabetes) and can leave the stomach vulnerable to ulcers.

The body cannot digest the calcium very well when consumed in milk, or supplements, because the body needs natural silica in order to process the calcium and take it from a mineral state and form it into a biological state. The natural silica is only found in vegetables, and in the ratio needed in order to process the calcium found in those vegetables.

Several studies have shown that osteoporosis is found in greater amounts where greater amounts of milk is consumed. That is due to the fact that the body doesn't process the calcium well, as I briefly explained, and that milk drinkers generally consume less vegetables. Also, as the body takes in unusable amounts of calcium it senses an overload of calcium and stops processing it. Animal proteins, whether from milk or meat, make the blood in the body acidic and the buffer for balancing the alkalinity of the blood happens to the bone. So, as the acidity rises the bones are dissolved and the fact that the body senses an overload of calcium in the digestive system means you are not replacing calcium so you end up with osteoporosis. If you have a genetic tendency in your family for this I would stay away from all dairy.

I am a Nutritional Herbologist. Health and diet have been my constant personal study for several years. This is an issue that you should look into. However, don't rely on sources that have an agenda or reason for you to listen to what they say. Find sources that research for the pure sake of truth and knowledge.

Wow, who knew that people could get so worked up over a glass of milk? I have read that the reason that some people can not tolerate the lactose in milk is that their ancestors did not use milk in their diets. Some ancient peoples relied on milk as a big part of their diet because they were herders, they kept goats or cows and they drank their milk and made cheese from it etc. Other societies hunted and gathered or cultivated plant food but may not have consumed milk, so they did not need to digest lactose past the age of breastfeeding. The decendants of such peoples are often lactose intolerant. This does not mean, however, that milk is bad for everyone. Personally, I have witnessed the effects of a calcium poor, milk-free diet on both children and adults in East Asian countries. Osteoporosis and even rickets were not uncommon. The addition of milk or other calcium rich foods into the people's diets not only helped the people to have stronger bones and less disease, but the children who grew up consuming more calcium grew to be much taller than their parent's generation, at a rate of generational growth that was much greater than that which is seen under "normal" or stable circumstances. So I have a very hard time believing the claim that milk is bad for you.

If you chose to have a diet free of milk in any form, you must be very careful to consume enough calcium, and not just supplements, calcium is absored best when it comes from foods. Soy milk, in addition to whatever else may be wrong with it, is not the best way to get your calcium because the calcium that is added (it does not occur naturally in soy)sinks to the bottom of the carton and even vigorous shaking will not re-mix it all into the soy milk. Other milk repaclements like almond milk may be healthy in other ways, but they do not have nearly as much calcium in them. I hope that this gives you some useful information, just please be careful about what and whom you believe, I think that the alarmists who believe that basically all food is bad for you are wrong about many things, if you really want to know the truth about food, call a registered dietian.

A good website to check out for health and dietary questions is http://www.mercola.com/ ...... he'll talk about a lot of things you would never hear from mainstream media. Hope it helps!

This debate gets pretty sensational pretty fast, and I think it's hard to sort out what is science and what is just hysteria.
My family eats dairy very sparingly since it's one of the big five allergens and food allergies run in our family. When my son was a newborn baby, he had an allergic reaction to proteins in my milk, presumably from the dairy I was eating (which, at the time, was quite a bit). While there's no way to totally prove exactly what the reaction came from--allergies are a hard thing to study--his intestines were completely swollen shut and he was on an IV in a children's hospital, and then, once everything was cleared out and I had converted to a *very* strict dairy-free diet, he was like a new baby, kicking and gooing and sleeping for long stretches when he'd never done anything except cry before. The dairy was our medical team's best guess, and eliminating it made a difference and allowed me to continue nursing him. Now, at age six, he can have dairy sparingly but it constipates him if he gets too much--it *is* a lot of saturated fat with no fiber, so we go easy on it. I never felt better than I did during the two years I was strictly dairy-free, but I'm willing to consider that it was as much because I was eating hardly any saturated fat as it was because I didn't have any dairy.
People go on and on about chemicals and hormones and antibiotics and I'm sure those concerns are legitimate, but for me the biggest reason I no longer drink cow's milk as a beverage is because it's illogical to me. I mean, it *is* the milk of a lactating cow designed by nature to feed her baby. Humans are the only species who drink the milk of another species, even after infancy. What's more, cows must be induced to produce milk for humans--it's the perfect illustration of how lactation is all supply-and-demand. We keep milking cows and ijecting them with hormones so they keep lactating even though their babies would be long since weaned. Most dairy cows do not get to nurse their calves, as that would take milk away from the dairy; male calves are slaughtered for veal. So I have some ethical issues, which some people might think are silly.
Dairy is very much a cultural food, since most people in the world are not as cow-obsessed as Americans and some Europeans (not a lot of milk in Asian cuisine, and most of the world's population is lactose-intolerant). If you notice, too, all the ads with milk moustaches or other ads saying how indispensible milk is to good health are subsidized by America's Dairy Farmers. I resent that marketing of any kind is permitted in my child's school, and I remain unconvinced that cow's milk is indispensible to good health. I don't think it's the devil, I just think it's one of several culturally convenient ways to get protein and vitamins. (You can get as much or more usable calcium from orange juice and broccoli, without the saturated fat.) Frankly, people say "oh, but our parents and grandparents ate a lot of dairy and look at them. . . " but I am looking, and I see a lot of heart disease I don't want to inherit!
You might find the slightly hysterical site www.notmilk.com of interest. You also might like to read Dr. Andrew Weil's web site. He is thoughtful about health issues and not hysterical, which is refreshing. He also has some information about soy, which people worry about because in large quantities it can act as an estrogen mimic.
Good for you for thinking about things! I think everyone's choices should be deliberate and thought-out, no matter what they are.