The awful truth about milk.
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By Marie D in The big bad corporate world Published: Tuesday, 03 July 07 - 08:58 PM (GMT) Last Updated: Tuesday, 03 July 07 - 09:17 PM (GMT) |
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A big debate has been going on for a long time between those who think we should drink milk and eat dairy (and the industry is on that side) and those who say that milk is for calves and babies. A variation around the same theme is a theory according to which the structure of milk has been modified by changes in the feeding of the cows, and that would be why there are more and more allergies.
I am not a doctor, but I have been studying the lactose intolerance issue recently.
This is something different from milk allergy: an allergy is an absurd immune response to a product, in this case a protein contained in the milk. Lactose intolerance is different.
See, lactose is a disaccharide, a "double sugar", present in milk and dairy. Your body cannot assimilate it, that is why we have an enzyme called lactase, whose job is to break the lactose into two simple sugars that can be assimilated and used by our body.
This is common to all mammalians. And the other common point is that, starting at age 2 (for humans, at least), our body gradually decreases its production of lactase. Why? Because in theory, past the age of 2, we eat other things than milk. So what happen if we drink milk or eat dairy when we don't have that enzyme? The lactose goes directly into the bowel, it stays there because it cannot be assimilated, until the moment the bowel bacteria will start metabolizing it to declutter the place, and here come the cramps, bloating, and other symptoms I am not going to describe here.
We are genetically programmed not to digest milk and dairy after our early years. Now you're going to tell me that you drink liters of milk without getting sick? Or people around you? That's very much possible. Some populations, coming from Northern Europe, have undergone a genetic mutation thousands of years ago, that made them produce the lactase enzyme at adult age.
Mathematically speaking, these people are the exception. Lactose tolerance is the exception. Among other populations, the situation is different: 95% of Asians are lactose intolerant, as well as 95% of Latinos. 80% of black people are lactose intolerant. That is a lot of people.
Of course the dairy industry doesn't talk about this too much. Nor does the food industry in general, that uses lactose in very different products like bread. If you experience bad digestion and are part of a risk population, you might want to give a lactose-free diet a try. And please don't tell me you need milk to get calcium: just eat your broccoli, they're full of it too. Just another thing the industry never talks about.
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