I've known about milk's problems for years and have cut out drinking it except on cereal in the morning a few times a week.  I probably don't drink more than a cup a week any more.  I'm a firm believer in "everything in moderation".

I agree that processed milk is not good for you.  I hear ya dreamosis, when you spoke of people poo pooing your ideas and thinking you are a conspiracy kook.  Been there, done that.  Well, all we can do is offer eh?   I try to tell my mom (she's 80) but she says her doctor says its good for her.  Every try to tell an 80 year old anything?  There's no point - if you get my drift.

I've tried the rice milk, and it just wasn't my thing.  Neither was the soy milk.  So, I drink the "organic" stuff from the supermarket, but in small quantities.  I've noticed that it lasts forever. I had one quart once for a month and it still smelled okay.  But I've become leery of that so only keep it no more than 2 weeks now. 

I believe that the hormones they put in milk has something to do with why our younger generations are coming into puberty sooner.  I don't think that's the full cause, but a part of it.

And, most times, people don't really have any information to come back with except: "If it was so bad for you, then they wouldn't sell it...How do you know it's bad and no one else does?"

I said this in my other post, but there really does seem to be a lot of programming around milk, man.  It's a "sacred cow" to people (he-he).

I have, however, influenced my inlaws lately about it.  Since a city-to-city move, I've been living with them.  I keep Rice Milk in their fridge.  They got curious about it, tried it and liked it, and suddenly stopped buying regular milk and said they don't want to go back.  ...I never even had the milk talk with them.  They just liked Rice Milk better.  And they were real dairy-aholics.  Go figure. 

...I did notice that the dairy group made it into the new food pyramid, though.

The Dairy Deception

The worst of these foods, receiving $7 billion in government subsidies, are dairy products. But dairy products cost U.S. consumers many times more than just the $7 billion federal subsidy given dairy producers as corporate welfare.

Milk and milk by-products are leading contributors to the $1.5 trillion sickness industry-milk causes allergies, gas, constipation, obesity, cancer, heart disease, infectious diseases, and osteoporosis.

Yes, milk causes osteoporosis, despite the massive deceptive advertising campaign by the ADA stating that milk prevents osteoporosis.

Several studies have concluded that drinking milk is more likely to cause than to prevent osteoporosis, which is the result of calcium
leaching out of the bones and is not directly associated with calcium intake, because the amount and type of protein (casein) in milk results in a great loss of calcium in the bones. For those who
believe that taking calcium as an adult will help them have strong bones, calcium contained naturally in vegetables is much healthier, easier to absorb, and more abundant. A cup of the latest Tropicana
calcium-enriched orange juice contains more calcium than fortified milk--350 milligrams versus 302 milligrams in a cup of milk. Moreover, whatever benefit calcium intake may have in avoiding
osteoporosis probably stops in adulthood when bone mass stops increasing-despite the fact that ADA milk advertising promoting calcium intake to avoid osteoporosis is targeted toward adults and older Americans.

But of far more concern than contributing to osteoporosis, milk contains hormones and carries infectious diseases. A typical cow in nature can produce up to 10 pounds of milk per day, whereas
today's tortured modern dairy cows produce up to 100 pounds of milk per day. This is because cows today are given massive amounts of specialized hormones like bovine growth hormone (BGH) to increase milk production-making their udders so large they often drag on the'ground. This results in frequent infections and the need for constant antibiotics-the USDA allows drinking milk to contain from 1 to 1.5 million white blood cells (that's pus to a nonbiologist) per milliliter. These growth hormones, antibiotics, and pus remain in the milk after processing, which causes dire medical consequences for people, especially children, who consume dairy products.

Any U.S. brassiere manufacturer will tell you that sales have been good the past few decades since the introduction of BGH in milk, because BGH and other hormones have increased the size of the average teenage human female breast and have decreased the age of menarche. But what the brassiere manufacturer may not be able to tell you is that these same hormones are also a major cause of
the increase in breast cancer in adults-as they cause malignant tumors in the human breast to grow as though they were tortured cows' udders filled with BGH. Despite the fact that numerous consumer groups have called for milk containing BGH and other hormones to be banned or at least labeled as such, the FDA continues to bow to the ADA lobbyists and refuses to ban such hormones or to require milk to be so labeled.

Milk production is also terrible for the environment and for the cows themselves. A dairy cow may produce 100 pounds per day of milk, but it also produces 120 pounds per day of waste-equivalent to the waste produced by 24 people, but with no toilets, sewers, or treatment plants. Each cow consumes 81 pounds of grains and vegetables, plus 45 gallons of water per day. Although natural cows may live 20 to 25 years, cows in dairy production typically live only 4 to 5 years-burning out from the hormones and constant artificial pregnancies that turn them from living creatures into grotesque milking machines.

The worst thing about dairy products is not the disease they cause, the torture for the animals involved, or the terrible impact on the environment-the worst thing about dairy products is that they are the major cause of more than 61 percent of our population being over-weight and obese.

Although drinking milk and eating cheese may possibly give a young girl the breasts of Britney Spears (the latest celebrity proudly sporting a milk mustache), drinking lots of milk and eating cheese will definitely give a young girl the thighs and hips of the late Mama Cass.

The average American eats over four pounds of food per day, and nearly 40 percent of that food is milk and dairy products. Milk contains no fiber and is filled with saturated fat and cholesterol. A glass of milk is 49 percent fat, and cheeses are more than 65 percent fat. Milk really should be called "liquid meat"-one 12-ounce glass contains as much saturated fat as eight strips of bacon. When
it comes to obesity and being overweight, milk is even worse than beer-a 12-ounce glass of milk contains 300 calories and 16 grams of fat, whereas a 12-ounce glass of beer contains 144 calories and no fat. Just four tablespoons of half-and-half added to a cup of coffee contain 15 grams of saturated fat-about 80 percent of the saturated fat you should consume in an entire day. To counter the undisputed truth of these facts, the dairy industry came up with the deception of "2 percent" and "low-fat" milk. In reality, 2 percent milk contains 24 to 33 percent calories of fat and is only slightly less fattening than whole milk (which contains 3 percent fat by weight). Milk producers even had the audacity to label cottage cheese, which contains 20 percent calories of fat, "low fat"-which prompted the FDA to recently order dairy producers to stop promoting milk products as low- or nonfat foods.

How did we get to where we are today-where most Americans drink milk and eat milk by-products every day? Historically, milk was valued by our pioneer ancestors because it could be processed at home into high-energy foods like butter and cheese that could last through the winter.

Because milk was perceived to be so valuable, innovative entrepreneurs figured out ways to produce milk at an amazingly low price, then used their profits to build a self-perpetuating marketing and political organization now known as the ADA.

The ADA lobbied the federal government to subsidize overproduction, then forced milk into the diets of children through mandatory school lunch programs. I say forced because, though it is widely known that 95 percent of Asians are lactose intolerant, I
suspect that most adult humans of every race are similarly intolerant. Caucasians, who comprise most of the milk market, have sadly learned to accept the accompanying allergic reactions, heartburn, upset stomach, diarrhea, gas, and diabetes as facts of everyday life-and to treat only the symptoms of these diseases, taking addictive over-the-counter remedies on a continual basis.

From "The Wellness revolution" by Paul Zane Pilzer
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ … 94-9233609