Milkalcoholic is the term invented by our first paediatrician, Dr Bruce Symonds, to describe a type of baby he was seeing on the wards of the San Fernando General in the 70s. They were fat, anaemic and sluggish with proud parents who confused fatness with wellness and milk with healthy food.
The fact that cow’s milk or “formula” acquired a uniquely exalted status as a life-giving proxy for mother’s milk is quite extraordinary. It’s an idea that has nothing to do with healthy nutrition. That and the belief that milk is good for adults is one of the biggest mistakes in the history of modern nutrition.
Humans are the only species that regularly drink the milk of another species, and worse, drink milk past infancy. Cow’s milk is designed for calves and, therefore, has a completely different nutrient profile from human breast milk. Modifying it slightly and calling it a formula makes little difference.
The act of drinking milk becomes even weirder when one considers the diseases milk causes. Lactose intolerance (gas, diarrhoea and belly pain) is found in 75 per cent of the world’s population and even higher among brown-skinned peoples. About five per cent of infants are allergic to the protein in cow’s milk. It causes constipation, abdominal discomfort and vomiting.
Milk damages the intestine in babies and adults. It causes bleeding. The blood loss causes iron deficiency anaemia which, among other things, causes tiredness, weakness, depression, amenorrhoea and headache.
Because of excessive intake, high cholesterol and fat content, milk is implicated in the development of obesity and its companion diseases, heart attacks, strokes and diabetes. The cost of taking care of these diseases in T&T has been estimated at over $8 billion a year.
High milk consumption during adolescence is associated with a higher chance of old-age fractures. Europeans, who drink the most milk, have the highest rate of hip fractures, whereas persons from Asia hardly experience similar fractures.
Interestingly, the daily recommended requirement for calcium intake is much lower in Europe than in the USA, where the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has an obsession with calcium intake, driven by their contacts in industry.
Apart from the health consequences, milk’s impact on climate and the environment is simply staggering. There are almost 1.5 billion cows in the world. A single cow produces about 65 pounds of manure daily. The stomachs of cattle were meant to digest grass, not grain. Cows produce anywhere from 500–1,000 litres of methane per day, comparable to the pollution produced by a car a day. Cattle actually account for 20 per cent of global methane.
Thirty per cent of the earth’s land is involved in livestock production. Half of all the freshwater on the planet is used for livestock. It takes 3,000 gallons of water and 14 pounds of feed (mainly corn) to produce one pound of beef. It takes 1,500 gallons of water to produce one gallon of milk.
Dairy production destroys land and pollutes air and water. Land used for pastures often comes from clearing forests, a practice that erodes and depletes the soil. Cow manure and urine pollute rivers and groundwater, while nitrate fertilisers used to grow feed for dairy cows leach into rivers and water.
Milk is an unsustainable product, both environmentally and financially. In Europe in 2015, a staggering 71 per cent of dairy farmers’ revenue was dependent on government support. Add in the health costs.
Yet, it goes on and on. Why?
The milk industry is fabulously well-organised. It is so successful that it must be regarded as one of the wonders of the modern era. In the last 100 years, it transformed an unneeded and harmful food into a must for everyone, regardless of its dreadful consequences to climate and health.
In business, the ideal situation is where your company controls the movement of your product from producer to consumer. And brother, does the milk industry do this ever so well. They manage the movement of milk from the cow’s udder to your stomach. They own the farms. They invest in cows. They produce the machines that milk the cows. They control the transport and storage systems. They supply the supermarkets. They are everywhere.
Competition is the heartbeat of business. A monopoly serves only the interests of one group. Milk industry giants have far too much control over their product. When they move to legalise their control as they have done in the USA, where it is USDA policy that “schools must offer students a variety (at least two different options) of fluid milk” or suffer a fine, it becomes intolerable.
The final insult is that they control consumer behaviour shaped by digital and social media advertising so sweetly, that the consumer never realises what is happening and continues to believe the outdated phrase, “Milk, good for you.”
