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I enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning and add a little half and half dairy product which gives me just the right flavor for my morning coffee ritual. I am sure all of you coffee aficionados know to what I am referring.
In the course of my ongoing literature reviews on inflammatory responses, I keep coming up with references about the effects of milk casein, which is the protein in milk, being linked to inflammatory disease(s). Out of curiosity, I wanted to know a little more about milk production in our country.
The milk industry, like other industries, is based on production and output. Cows, on the other hand, are grazing animals (grass) and other than when nursing calves, they are not in full time milk production.
Under current USDA guidelines the following is allowed for use in Dairy production:
rbgh recombinant bovine growth hormone
steroids
antibiotics
GMO modified grains
All of these have a high affinity for the fat content in milk and the USDA comments on this in a recent research paper:
“"Use of antibiotics and other drugs and chemicals in the dairy industry is one of the greatest threats to food safety. Surveys indicate that at least 5% of bulk milk shipments and 30% of milk sold to consumers contains detectable amounts of antibiotics and drugs. This presents a significant human health hazard."
If you are interested, take a look at the kind of garbage they feed milk cows, much of which will contain herbicides and pesticides and have an affinity for the dairy fat. http://www.milkproduction.com/Library/Ar…
When dairy cows are kept in feed lot conditions and under constant milk production it is not unusual for them to get udder infections called mastitis. Mastitis produces pus and bacteria which is passed into the milk.
Is pus and bacteria allowed into our milk supply? You betcha, according to the USDA.
ONE cubic centimeter (cc) of commercial cow's milk is allowed to have up to 750,000 somatic cells (common name is "PUS") and 20,000 live bacteria... before it is kept off the market.
That amounts to a whopping 20 million live squiggly bacteria and up to 750 MILLION pus cells per liter (a bit more than a quart).
So, 1 cup (or 236.5882cc) could contain about 177,441,150 pus cells and about 4,731,600 bacteria.24 oz (or 3 glasses, the daily “recommended” intake) could have 532,323,450 pus cells and about 14,220,000 bacteria.
Everyone knows that milk is pasteurized and pasteurization kills all the bacteria. Well the pasteurization process works like this: milk is typically pasteurized more than once before it gets to your table... each time for only 15 seconds at 162 degrees Fahrenheit.
Compare that to sanitizing drinking water: one is told to boil it (212 degrees F) for several minutes. That is a tremendous disparity, isn't it?
Well maybe not everything is killed, but for sure there is a lot of dead bacteria bodies floating around in my milk, along with growth hormones, antibiotics, pus and traces of herbicides and pesticides.
You probably have guessed the sad part of this story; I have to give up my cherished coffee ritual. Probably just like a cigarette smoker, who one day realizes the risks far out weigh the benefits.
This article was published on Thursday October 15, 2009.
