9 min read
This article is a response to some incomplete and misleading claims made in an article published by ABC Australia titled “Almond, soy or coconut? How plant-based milks compare to regular dairy."
With headings like "Milk that's real milk", the ABC article opening paragraphs seemed more like an advert for dairy than anything else. It features quotes from dieticians promoting the 'health benefits' of dairy and assuring everyone that there is nothing wrong with consuming it, while totally ignoring all the disease-causing harmful effects of it.
“Cow's milk has been a staple of Western diets for thousands of years and is an excellent source of vitamins and minerals, particularly calcium" ... "Milk plays an important role in bone health."
- Nicole Dynan, DAA spokeswoman
The article was published in February this year, just conveniently and perfectly timed for Februdairy, a month-long campaign created by dairy farmers encouraging people to drink more milk as a response for the ever-growing vegan movement and the record-breaking sign-ups for Veganuary.
The re-occurrence of these dishonest stories are emerging more and more in mainstream media since the rise of veganism in Australia and they all seem to be written to mainly "educate" the public about how "dangerous veganism is" and how "nutritional" animal products are for us - either overlooking or contradicting the conclusions of many solid scientific studies linking animal products to chronic diseases and advising us of doing just the opposite of what The ABC and their chosen experts are promoting.
[Unless you're lactose intolerant then you should] "Keep enjoying [dairy] - there is no reason to change your habit anytime soon."
- Dr Tim Crowe, Nutritional researcher
"We know that the Canadian food plate has recently in January 2019 removed dairy as a food group from the national nutritional guide which says a lot about how healthy and beneficial dairy is to the human body”
- Ed Winters
Dairy products are one of the top dietary sources of saturated fat. A huge study of over 100,000 people published in the British Medical Journal in 2016 found that saturated fats are linked with increased heart disease risk - and heart disease is already the leading cause of death both in Australia and globally.
As the Physician Committee of Responsible Medicine points out on their website:
"Milk products also contain cholesterol. Diets high in fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol increase the risk of heart disease, which remains America's top killer. Cheese is especially dangerous. Typical cheeses are 70 Percent fat."
Heart disease is also Australia's top killer.
"Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major cause of death in Australia, with 43,477 deaths attributed to CVD in Australia in 2017. Cardiovascular disease kills one Australian every 12 minutes."
- Australian Bureau of Statistics 2018, Causes of Death 2017, ABS cat. no. 3303.0, September.
Meat and Dairy products have also been proven time and time again to be a contributor to Alzheimer's disease and type 2 diabetes (the third and seventh leading causes of deaths in Australia respectively).
What the media doesn't seem to be interested in letting you know is that dairy products contain micronutrients and several bioactive constituents that are full of estrogens that not only cause hormonal imbalances but also may influence cancer risk and progression. Studies have also linked dairy to an increased risk of breast, ovarian and especially prostate cancers.
"It is not surprising, then, that the dietary centerpiece of the 2014 'Dietary and Lifestyle Guidelines for the Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease,' published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging, was: 'Vegetables, legumes (beans, peas, and lentils), fruits, and whole grains should replace meats and dairy products as primary staples of the diet.'”
- Dr Michael Greger of Nutrionfacts.org
Since the media have conveniently overlooked the countless studies showing how harmful dairy is, I’ve included 11 more frighting facts about dairy (Most of these facts listed were taken from an article published by Dr Thomas Campbell from the Centre of Nutrition Studies) with linked independent studies supporting each claim.
Approximately 65 percent of the human population are lactose intolerant. Don't you think it's wrong that dieticians and government recommendations define a healthy diet as one that includes a product that most of their people are genetically intolerant to?
Well, you are in luck, because all the nutrients in dairy that they're so hyped to tell us about can actually be obtained from plants without the extra disease-causing baggage dairy products come with.
An appropriately planned vegan diet can meet all your nutrient needs at any stage of life including when you are pregnant, breastfeeding or for older adults and athletes.
The statement above is not my opinion but is the peer-reviewed position of the largest dieticians organisation in the world with over 100,000 credentialed practitioners, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
It is also the position of all the major dieticians' organisations around the world including The Dietitians Association of Australia, Dietitians of Canada, The British National Health Service and The British Nutrition Foundation. Click the links to see for yourself. See this post for more.
Just because dairy contains protein and calcium, it doesn’t change that fact it also contains trans fats, casomorphin and addictive substances, and more harmful things that literally cause our leading diseases and illnesses.
And speaking of addictive substances in dairy... If you consume dairy products, then you are probably also addicted to this food and don't even know it
The one fact that matters the most when it comes to health in which the media and many other "experts" don't seem to be interested in letting anyone know about is that the only diet that has ever been proven in the laboratory to not only PREVENT and ARREST coronary heart disease but even REVERSE it is a low-fat whole food plant-based diet.
"Despite recent improvements, it remains one of the biggest burdens on our economy. CVD heart disease affects more than 3.7 million Australians. 1.4 million people are prevented from living a full life because of CVD related disability."
- Australia's Health Direct Government Statistics on heart disease
But don't take my word for it, I'll let this 104-year-old passionate surgeon tell you about it in this short one and a half minute clip...
Last but not least, avoiding dairy products does not only reduce our risk of developing harmful chronic diseases but it also eliminates unnecessary suffering to billions of sentient beings and helps to a great extent in solving the environmental issues we're all facing today.
While Dr Crowe apparently thinks that "there is no real reason to change our habits anytime soon", scientists, environmentalists, NASA and the United Nations are publishing study after study urging us to do just the opposite.
The latest of which is a 5-year study by Oxford University released in 2018 and is considered the most comprehensive study ever conducted exploring the relationship between food production, land use and the environment.
The study has found that all kinds of meat and dairy productions are harmful to the living world than growing plant protein. The findings of the study show that animal farming takes up 83% of the world’s agricultural land, but delivers only 18% of our calories. While eating a vegan diet cuts the use of land by 76% and halves the greenhouse gases and other pollution caused by food production.
It was summarised at the end of the study that the single biggest way to reduce your impact on the environment is to live a vegan lifestyle - that is a lifestyle completely devoid of all meat and dairy products.
To learn more about how your milk is produced and the unnecessary inflicting of pain and suffering it causes, then I recommend watching this short youtube clip called Dairy is Scary: The Industry Explained in 5 Minutes.
To learn more about the impact of dairy and other animal products on the environment, land use and resources, I recommend watching Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (available on Netflix now).
If you feel like these studies I provided (linked above and listed below at the end of the blog) are too much for you to read, then you are in luck because the amazing Dr Michael Greger and his team at NutritionFacts.org (an independent non-for profit organisation) work around the clock going through thousands of studies and summarising them for people like us in short informative bite-sized videos such as these 19 short videos explaining how “nutritional" dairy is really for us.
Here's one of these videos burying the old myth Ms Dynan was quoted as saying "milk plays an important role for our bone health".
