3 Cups of Skim Milk

Drink it up and meet your daily recommended needs for Calcium, according to the USDA.  

And to clarify, it’s not just milk, it’s low fat milk.

That’s it.  The whole suggestion in its entirety doesn’t mention anything about how if you’re consuming dairy, it should at least be grass-fed, organic and local.    

Granted, I’m not a fan of dairy myself as I prefer to keep True Paleo, but my advice to clients who are transitioning into Paleo is to at least go from fat free to full fat as part of the process.

But let’s get beyond this.

Why drink milk?  Is it really helping to ‘build strong bones’ and provide us with all that calcium it claims to?

No.

First of all, you must read Chapter 5 of Dr. Cordain’s book, The Paleo Answer, in which he shows how dairy consumption is linked with GI distress, ulcers, heart disease, insulin resistance, acne and asthma and succinctly sums it up with a closing sentence “Bottom Line: Avoid Dairy Products”.

Another great resource that fits in well here a favorite blog post on this particular topic which comes from Marion Nestle’s Food Politics, in which she includes some interesting tidbits such as:

• Nearly half of the milk supply goes to make about 9 billion pounds of cheese and 1.5 billion gallons of frozen desserts–two-thirds of which is ice cream
• 11 percent of all sugar goes into the production of dairy products.

We also learn about the ‘dairy checkoff program’ which is

“a USDA-Sponsored programs, paid for by dairy farmers through checkoff fees, but run by the USDA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture employees attend checkoff meetings, monitor activities, and are responsible for evaluation of the programs. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the legality of the checkoff programs as “government speech”, finding: “the message … is controlled by the Federal Government.”

The report has some interesting findings about the checkoff. Although checkoff funds are supposed to be used for generic marketing, the dairy checkoff helped:

• McDonald’s make sure that dairy foods play an important role in product development.
• Taco Bell introduce its double steak quesadillas and cheese shreds.
• Pizza Hut develop its 3-Cheese Stuffed Crust Pizza and “Summer of Cheese” ad campaign.
• Dominos add more cheese to its pizzas as a result of a $35 million partnership.
• Domino’s “Smart Slice” program introduce its pizza to more than 2,000 schools in 2011.
• Promote “Chocolate Milk Has Muscle” and “Raise Your Hand for Chocolate Milk.”

Unless you’re a calf, there are simply no benefits, and a huge number of consequences, to your health, the health of society, the health and humane treatment of cows to drinking milk.

And unless you’re the Dairy Board, there’s no benefit to recommending its consumption.

I suppose they’re simply acting like any business would, trying to sell its product.  Unfortunately, however, their product causes a lot of harm and no good.