Don't Got Milk?

“THE IMPORTANCE OF MILK as a food can hardly be overestimated. There is no other single food of such vital importance to our national welfare.” — Farmers’ Bulletin, USDA, August 1921.

“In the context of current dietary practices, it is difficult for most individuals to meet national nutrition guidance goals unless they are consuming dairy products.” — What We Eat in America, USDA, 2010

Most individuals would benefit by increasing intake of dairy in fat-free or low-fat forms, whether from milk (including lactose-free milk), yogurt, and cheese, or from fortified soy beverages or soy yogurt.” — Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025

It’s pretty clear where the U.S. government is and has been a huge milk, huge supporter. Canada, on the other hand, has broken with the United States and advises consumers to “Make water your drink of choice.” What the heck is going on?

Canada’s recommendation seems to stem mostly from their issues with obesity. 

“Health Canada recommends water as the beverage of choice to support health and promote hydration without adding calories to the diet. Water is vital for life—in fact it is the largest single component of the human body. It is essential for metabolic and digestive processes.”

In Canada 62 percent of adults are overweight or obese while in the U.S., 72 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. Are the Canadians on to something with the water thing or do they just hate cows? In one sense, it doesn’t matter what the U.S. government’s dietary gurus say, cow’s milk consumption is already dropping – from 2009 to 2018 it declined by nearly 19 percent. 

It seems that American consumers may be ahead of the government as science is beginning to discover that milk is not essential for adults. First, there is nothing “natural” about cow’s milk. “To increase milk production, cows have been bred to produce higher levels of insulin-like growth factor I, and they are pregnant most of the time they are milked which greatly increases levels of progestins, estrogens and other hormones in milk.”

Calcium is usually one of the main reasons to drink milk. While cow’s milk is a good source of calcium, which is easily absorbed by the body, it is also found in yogurt, broccoli, canned seafood, oranges, seeds, tofu, canned tomatoes and frozen waffles. It can also be found in milk substitutes like rice and soy milk. While dietary recommendations are for 3 cups of milk per day (700 ml/d) containing 900 milligrams of calcium, one meta study found that, “total calcium intakes ranging from less than 555 mg per day to more than 1100 mg day,” were unrelated to the risk of hip fracture.

As nutrition researcher Christopher Gardner says, “What are the unique nutrients that dairy has that nothing else has? Nothing.” In fact, while causation has not been shown, saturated fat in milk has been linked (linked only means correlated, it doesn’t mean caused) to heart disease, type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

Maybe Canada’s concern is that you don’t need the 144 calories in a 12 oz glass of milk? Almond milk has 30 calories per cup compared to cow’s milk at 100 calories per cup. Or maybe it’s the environmental impact of cows – greenhouse gasses (about 1.5 percent of the total), soil degradation and deforestation, air pollution, water pollution, growth hormones and land use. One estimate shows that if you took all of the grain in the U.S. currently fed to livestock and fed it directly to humans, it could feed nearly 800 million people.

Maybe it’s just “Buttergate?” Sylvain Charlebois, a Canadian food economist, discoveredthat Canadian dairy farmers get their big money from the amount of butterfat their cows produce. To get more, they added palmitic acid which has been linked to coronary heart disease. Production of palmitic acid has also been driving tropical deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia (they produce 85% of the world’s palm oil supply).

It doesn’t matter if it’s grass fed, organic or whatever, maybe it’s time to reconsider cow’s milk. It’s not clear how this will affect the breakfast cereal industry as it will take time to get used to oat or almond milk. Oh Canada, what have you done?