Totally random geek thing...

[mbarrick]

OK. I have had this same stupid argument with people about milk so many times. It generally starts with some granola-type claiming that milk is for babies only and is in fact not good for people. I counter with something along the lines of yes, unless you are of a Northern European stock, in which case dairy farming has been part of the diet for long enough for an adaptation to have taken place. Asians, Africans and American natives are generally lactose intolerant, true enough, but for Northern Europeans milk is part of the diet. Generally at this point the PC/granola argument goes along the line that humans are humans race isn't a factor in diet, as if regional differentiation only affects skin tone. Sorry folks, but that ain't the case. And in the particular case of milk, here's the scoop: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020113/sc/health_lactose_dc_1.html

So, in general terms and in the context of humanity as a whole, people of Northern European backgrounds like myself are melanin deficient, milk-drinking mutants. Also recently in the news was evidence that lettuce can absorb e-coli through the roots and it therefore potentially hazardous even if washed, which backs up the boil-the-shit-out-of-them approach to vegatables, which is also backed up by hard facts that the vast majority of cases of food poising come from raw vegetables, not meat or fish as we are led to believe. Beer and wine have been redeemed for their cardiovascular benefits.

Bangers and mash with a pint of stout then a big bowl of ice-cream for dessert!

Comments

Re: Generally Agree....

[logik.livejournal.com]

The homogenization process theoretically involves little more than the "grinding" down of the milk to mke sure that it has an even consistency and the like... However that approach stopped ages ago. Really homogenized milk is brought to high temperatrue to kill off bacteria and a number of perservatives and extra vitamin D are added during the process. (The extra vitamin D often comes from organ maet and blood - good protein to be sure but kind of icky...). The resulting chemical stew begins to chemically break down and a number of reactions caused by the process generate two very nasty families of chemicals:
chlorine based free radicals (hence chloracne in many milk drinkers), and sulfur based oxidizing agents (oxidization agents).
Store bought homogenized milk is a chemical stew of class A carcinogens, mixed with dangerous levels of vitamin D, and extra sugar. The tetra boxes it is sold in are also well know to leach phytoestrogens into the milk and most milk cows are fed extra bovine estrogens that help keep the cow lactating all the time. We may as well pop a birth control pill every day as drink a galss of milk for the hormone levels. For men the results can be excess hair growth (if only it was on the head!) and erectile dysfunction (not fun). For women there is a very high co-relation to breas cancer and enrometriosis.

Now, if you skip the homogenization process, the heating, the extra vitamin D, blood supplementation, and sulfide chemicals and instead pasteurize the milk it is one of natures best food substances. Trouble is that it has a very very short shelf life. Unmarketable.

However you can still get all that yummy milk goodness in milk that is deliberately left to go bad... Ice cream, sour cream, yogurt, cheese, etc...

Effectievly the homogenization process prolongs marketable shelf life at the expense of creating a potentially dangerous brew of chemicals not found in natural milk.

Don't even get me started on the dubious nature of Soy milk. If you like the taste of milk but you want to be healthy, just buy the real thing from a decent store. I know that most organic stores sell pasteurized milk, and urban fare also sells unporcessed milk.

Once in a while, I break down and have a glass of milk, but I try not to make it a regular part of my diet. I only do so to make sure I do not develop lactose intolerance. (Aldult north americans can develop an intolerance to the lactose found in dairy milk if not exposed to it for over a year... We never develop intolerance for human lactose however... Hmmm....)

If you are interested in the actual chemistry behind the homogenization process, I'll track down refernces from my book shelf and see if I can find any papers online.

Re: Generally Agree....

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Don't worry about the references, I consider you a reliable source . Ivana is keen on organic meats for some of the reasons you have mentioned so it'll be easy enough to get milk from the same place.

Personally I've always been of the opinion that the natural human lifespan, "in the wild" as it were, is 35 years anyway. I figure the dying of cancer from preservatives at 75 beats the hell out of cholera or black plague or some such other bacterial nastiness at 30-something anyway.

Re: Generally Agree....

[goth-posh.livejournal.com]

I am living in a sea of soy here, soy milk, soy formula, soy paste... So please do tell the soy milk story:-)