The milk of the matter

The milk scare, or rather the melamine scare, has all folks who drink milk talking about the hazards of milk — powdered milk from China, that is.  It’s the melamine, they say. So, what is melamine? A check with Wikipedia defines it as:

“Melamine is an organic based and a trimmer of cyanamide, with a 1,3,5-triazine skeleton. Like cyanamide, it contains 66 percent nitrogen by mass and, if mixed with resins, has fire retardant properties due to its release of nitrogen gas when burned or charred, and has several other industrial uses. Melamine is also a metabolite of cyromazine, a pesticide. It is formed in the body of mammals who have ingested cyromazine.  Melamine combines with cyanuric acid to form melamine cyanurate, which has been implicated in the Chinese protein export contaminations.

“Melamine is combined with formaldehyde to produce melamine resin, a very durable thermosetting plastic, and melamine foam, a polymeric cleaning product. The end products include countertops, dry erase boards, fabrics, glues, housewares and flame retardants. Melamine is one of the major components in Pigment Yellow 150, a colorant in inks and plastics.

“Melamine is sometimes illegally added to food products in order to increase the apparent protein content. Standard tests such as the Kjeldahl and Dumas tests estimate protein levels by measuring the nitrogen content, so they can be misled by adding nitrogen-rich compounds such as melamine. 

“In 1999, in a proposed rule published in the Federal Register regarding cyromazine residue, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed ‘removing melamine, a metabolite of cyromazine from the tolerance expression since it is no longer considered a residue of concern.’ Melamine, classified a controlled substance in China, has been illegally used in the high profile 2008 baby milk scandal case which led to the death of at least four infants.”

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Like most kids during my time, I grew up drinking milk, I admit. When I turned vegetarian over 20 years ago, I stopped the milk-drinking habit.  I also got rid of most dairy products from my diet.

One of the first things I learned at 23 was that milk was a no-no. One of the vegetarian books that I read at that time said that drinking milk of cows was for cows and not for humans. Matter of fact, once an animal is weaned from the milk of its mother it stops drinking milk altogether. People are the only animals on this planet that drink milk beyond the weaning stage.

Why is that? I have no idea.

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Rochelle Regodon of The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sent me an e-mail with the PETA’s top 10 reasons why milk is bad. Let me share them with you.

PETA’s top 10 reasons not to drink milk:

1. Cows are not milk machines. After years of living in filthy conditions, being kept constantly pregnant, and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they naturally would, dairy cows are slaughtered.

2.  “Moo” is not your first language. Human babies don’t say “goo goo moo moo,” so why treat them like calves? Humans are the only animals who drink breast milk after infancy and the only animals who drink milk from a different species. It makes much sense for people to drink cow’s milk as it would for dogs to drink giraffe’s milk!

3. Cookies and cramps don’t mix. Studies show that over 90 percent of Filipinos are lactose-intolerant. Can you say abdominal cramps, bloating, and diarrhea?

4. Dairy is pus-itively scary. There’s more to that glass of milk than you think. Dairy products are commonly contaminated with blood, pus, pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics.

5. There’s veal in your cereal. Milk fuels the cruel veal industry. Considered byproducts of the dairy industry, male calves are dragged away to veal crates when they are just hours old.

6. Milk is bad to the bone. Contrary to a popular milky myth, studies strongly implicate dairy in causing, rather than preventing, osteoporosis, because its high protein content leeches calcium from the body. Repeated studies show that consuming dairy products leads to an increase in uric acid crystal formation, unlike consuming soy products.

7. Milk does the planet bad. Bad for mother cows, milk production is also bad for Mother Earth; it’s a disastrous source of water pollution. Just one dairy cow produces 120 pounds of waste every day—as much as two dozen people could produce—but with no toilets or sewers.

8. The white stuff isn’t the right stuff. Milk is formulated to meet the nutritional needs of calves—who have four stomachs and gain an average of 115 kg in their first six months. It’s mad for humans to chug moo-juice!

9. No grain means lots of pain. Every glass of milk takes a meal away from the hungry. Crops that could be used to feed the hungry are instead used to feed dairy cows. It takes a huge amount of grain cycled through cows to produce a very small amount of milk.

10. Be leery of dairy. Devoid of fiber and complex carbohydrates but loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol, dairy products have been linked to heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and certain types of cancer.

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“All cow’s milk — whether it’s poisoned with melamine or not — is an unhealthy mix of contaminants, cholesterol, and fat,” adds Regodon. “The best bet for people who care about their health is to switch to healthy and humane soy, rice, or almond milk and give dairy products the boot.”