Scholar Tokusan – who was full of knowledge and opinions about the dharma, came to Ryutan and asked about Zen. At one-point Ryutan re-filled his guest’s teacup but did not stop pouring when the cup was full. Tea spilled out and ran over the table. “Stop! The cup is full!” said Tokusan.

“Exactly,” said Master Ryutan. “You are like this cup; you are full of ideas. You come and ask for teaching, but your cup is full; I can’t put anything in. Before I can teach you, you’ll have to empty your cup.”

This is harder than you might realize. By the time we reach adulthood, we are so full of information that we don’t even notice it’s there! We might consider ourselves to be open-minded, but in fact, everything we learn is filtered through many assumptions and then classified to fit into the knowledge we already possess.

Before you read any further, I humbly request my dear community members to keep their cups empty. My intention is not to overwhelm you with research and factual data. It is my humble attempt to bring out the truth, unmasked. In the process, I expect our humanly-Bawaji-defenses and years of conditioning to push my writing aside and ‘in our most endearing Parsi tone’ call out loud, “Aai Chakram su lakech?” You will want to challenge the facts presented or simply may have many questions. I obviously will not force my views or my research findings as absolute truths on you. I encourage you to start a dialogue with me through e-mail, so that we may seek the truth together.

The Price You Pay For Milk: 

Have you thought, what is the price you pay for your milk? Is it just the twenty rupees for the Irani chai, the sixty rupees for the tetra pack, the hundred rupees for your favorite mithu dai, lagan-nu-custard, the topli paneer, the famous doodh puff or the sancha mango ice-cream from Udvada? The correct answer is: None Of The Above. You actually pay the price for your milk when you purchase your anti-inflammatory tablets or your insulin injections from your Baug’s ‘mithi mithi’ Chemist. At times, you pay when you pay your ‘mitho mitho’ handsome looking surgeon for the fractured hip being replaced, or maybe a stent implanted to sing for your beloved, ‘Yeh dil dhadakne do…’ 

Drinking a glass of milk a day appeared to be associated both, with more broken bones, and with early deaths; as per a research article on the BBC website. Humans have violated the laws of nature by stealing milk, which was originally meant for the infant of that animal. No surprise then, that humans are the only animals, those who suffer from diabetes, heart diseases, cancer and many other life-threatening diseases so commonly. Yes, my dear fellow-community friends, the price we pay for milk consumption is through our good health and well-being.

What’s in a glass of milk? 

You may be expecting to hear something to the tune of calcium, vitamins A and D, protein, and some other magic nutrients that we think are beneficial to the body. Well, a glass of milk contains acidic animal protein that leeches calcium from the bones, pus cells, bovine growth hormone, oxytocin hormone, antibiotics, and a whole lot of unnecessary fat, cholesterol and calories — all of which create a terrible imbalance in the body. 

We seem to be the only species of mammals that drinks milk after infancy, and definitely the only species that steals and drinks the milk of another species! Each mammalian species has its own ‘designer’ milk, and cow’s/buffalo’s milk is no exception. Animal milk is not designed for human consumption, only human milk is meant for human babies. So, why is it that humans feel the need to continue drinking another mammal’s milk after they are weaned from their mother’s breast milk? Human milk is very different in composition from cow’s milk or goat’s milk or any other mammal’s milk. Mother’s milk is extremely important for the child, but after weaning from the mother’s milk, animal milk should not be started for the child. Please note, I very strongly recommend breast feeding for every child, for that is the perfect food made by nature. Did you know, as your little champ grows, the breast milk of the mother changes its consistency and constituents accordingly to make the milk just right for your little one. Thus, breast milk is the perfect food for young ones.

Surprisingly, we were raised to think of cow’s/buffalo’s milk as the perfect food, thanks to our ‘white revolution’ to fill the coffers of the ‘Dairy Mafia’, now addressed, more respectfully, as the ‘Dairy Industry’. They propagate that ‘milk is natural’ and If you don’t drink milk, they will tell you that your bones will become brittle and your strength will fade due to lack of calcium. It is embedded so strongly, that even some doctors are mistakenly advising patients to drink milk. 

The problem is, most of our medical education has very little focus on nutrition as a subject. Ask any of our ‘aapra Doctors’ how many hours of study was devoted in syllabus and actual teaching of nutrition? Most Indians and particularly us Bawas, out of fear, make dairy products a staple in our diets. Knowledge kills fear. The more you know the less you fear. Drinking milk will not make you big and strong, nor will it prevent osteoporosis (brittle/weak bones). ‘Doodh peeta hai India, aur isi wajah se marta hai India!’ The supposed ‘truths’ about milk we were all taught to believe are being debunked by studies ranging from those published in reputable scientific journals, such as the Journal of Nutrition and The American Journal of Epidemiology.

Medical professionals have progressed in providing people with new information about food stuffs we consume but shouldn’t, and food stuffs we don’t consume but totally should. I’m happy to state that more and more conscientious and learned doctors are now strongly advising their patients to be completely Dairy-free. Cow/Buffalo milk is one of those things that have been utterly (pun intended) normalized, especially within the Indian society; but are the risk factors worth it? The consumption of milk by the human species is relatively new in our evolution. It began with domestication of animals and with animal husbandry, which was around 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. Even then, it did not spread all over the earth. Historically, the milk of domestic animals was mainly used in West Asia and spread to Europe in the West and up to North West India in the East. Large parts of the world, until recently, did not use milk. Thus, the American Continent, the African Continent, Australia and East Asia did not use milk. East Asia, even today, does not use milk. It appears that, historically, the area of milk consumption coincided largely with wheat producing regions of the world. It is only in the last two hundred years, thanks to the Industrial Revolution and colonialism, the milk consumption spread all over the world. 

Did you know that in Medieval England, parents would tie rabbit’s feet around their baby’s neck to ward off illness? Doctors would also spit on wounds because saliva was believed to have healing properties. Indeed, history is replete with unfounded health beliefs, and to everyone’s detriment, the ‘milk myth’ is among the most tenacious. Milk is much more than just a beverage – it’s a cultural phenomenon made popular to fill the coffers of the Dairy industry. A lie repeated over and over again has been now held as a sacred truth. The milk myth has spread globally based on the flawed belief that this protein and calcium-rich beverage is essential to support good, overall health and bone health in particular, at any age. It is easy to understand that the confusion about milk’s imaginary benefits stems from the fact that it contains calcium – around 300 mg per cup. But many scientific studies have shown an assortment of detrimental health effects directly linked to milk consumption. And the most surprising link is that not only do we barely absorb the calcium from cow/buffalo milk, but to make matters worse, it actually leads to calcium loss from the bones. What an irony this is! 

Unraveling The Milky Murky Truth:

Hold your guns, let me explain how it happens. The milk industry advertises cow’s milk as a good source of calcium. And so, it is! However, this calcium lies bonded to the protein casein, which cannot be unbonded without the action of the two digestive enzymes rennin and lactase. Since humans over the age of 4 years do not produce these enzymes, they cannot avail of this calcium at all. It actually gets excreted in urine, having done the body no good, whatsoever. Even though human babies under 4 years can avail of this calcium, it is the protein casein that causes great harm to their digestive systems. In fact, casein protein is proven beyond doubt to cause cancer cells to multiply in the body. Also, like all animal protein, milk acidifies the body pH which in turn triggers a biological correction. 

Calcium is an excellent acid neutralizer and the biggest storage of calcium in the body is – you guessed it… in the bones. So, the very same calcium that our bones need to stay strong is utilized to neutralize the acidifying effect of milk. Once calcium is pulled out of the bones, it leaves the body via the urine, so that the surprising net result after this is an actual calcium deficit! Knowing this, you’ll understand why statistics show that countries with the lowest consumption of dairy products also have the lowest fracture incidence in their population. Three countries with the highest consumption of dairy products are Finland, Sweden and Denmark – these also have high osteoporosis and other bone-diseases in population. On the other hand, there are two countries which have the least consumption of dairy products – Vietnam and Thailand  – and both have the least bone diseases in population. 

Amy Lanou Ph.D., Director of Nutrition for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, D.C., states, “The countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis are the ones where people drink the most milk and have the most calcium in their diets. The connection between calcium consumption and bone health is actually very weak, and the connection between dairy consumption and bone health is almost nonexistent.” Surprised? You shouldn’t be, because as I mentioned earlier, milk is an acidifying animal protein. Like any other animal derived protein-rich food, milk has a positive Potential Renal Acid Load (PRAL) which triggers a protective biological reaction to neutralize all the damaging acidic protein before it reaches the kidneys. Well, this should raise alarm bells when devouring the farchas and chaaps too! The body is designed for survival, so it sacrifices bone density to protect the kidneys and urinary tract because the latter are essential to survival. The most readily available source of acid neutralizer is in the bones. So even though milk contains calcium, it ends up sapping your bones of that crucial mineral!

And that’s not all because… today’s milk is a highly processed, and at times, simply artificial, chemical-laden formula food. I am sure you must have come across regular news reports of milk made from Urea and detergents, that can fool the available testing kits. 

Until the end of the 19th century in Europe and the beginning of the 20th century in the US, milk was consumed unpasteurized or raw. Later on, homogenization became the industry’s standard. These processes further alter milk’s chemistry and actually increase its detrimental acidifying effects. Nowadays, milking cows are given antibiotics and most are also injected with a genetically engineered form of bovine growth hormone (rBGH). A man-made or synthetic hormone used to artificially increase milk production, rBGH also increases blood levels of the insulin-growth factor 1 (IGF-1) in those who drink it. And higher levels of IGF-1 are linked to several cancers. 

This should not be ignored, especially in view of information by Samuel Epstein, MD, Professor of Environmental Medicine at the University of Illinois School of Public Health, and Chairman of the Cancer Prevention Coalition. In a press release titled, ‘Monsanto’s Hormonal Milk Poses Serious Risks of Breast Cancer, Besides Other Cancers’, (June 21, 1998) Dr. Epstein concludes, “Drinking rBGH milk would thus be expected to significantly increase IGF-1 blood levels and consequently to increase risks of developing breast cancer and promoting its invasiveness.” Milk is also laden with Oxytocin and estrogen hormone (female hormones) as the cattle is injected these hormones in insane quantities to keep them milking always. Does this explain why our young girls start menarche as early as eight and nine years and more and masculinity in guys on a downtrend?

Food For Thought:

As I explain to my Osteoporotic patients and contrary to mainstream recommendations, drinking milk and eating lots of dairy products is not the answer to treating osteoporosis (weak and brittle bones). In my two decades of practice I have seen patients doing much better once they quit dairy. If we want a good supply of calcium, we should be looking at vegetables instead of the cows. Leafy green vegetables have a lot more calcium than milk. Other sources of high levels of calcium are cauliflower, pumpkin, turnip, radish, spinach, millets, gram, rajma, horse gram, amaranth, rajgira, almond, walnut, sesame, sunflower seed, watermelon seed, soyabean, lime, amla, apricot, fig, raisin and dates. To make a comparison, human milk has 33mg of calcium per 100gm portion, whereas even our all-time Parsi favourite vegetable, potatoes have 40mg, beans have 50mg and chickpeas have 150mg. As described in my last article, adequate Vitamin D from natural sunshine (Khorshed and Maher Yazad) is also a must for the proper assimilation of calcium from these foods. Milk is very poor in iron content as well. It would take about 250 liters of milk to provide an equivalent in iron content for one bowl of our humble ‘Bhaji dana’, the distant cousin and Parsi version of ‘matar palak’. Food for thought: have you ever wondered, where do vegetarian animals like the cow and the elephant get calcium for their strong bones as well as for the milk production for their young? Well, just from plant sources because that is where the calcium is!

Take My Three Months Dairy Free Challenge!

Eliminate milk and milk products completely for 3 months! 

Expected Outcome: 50% of all the degenerative diseases including Heart Disease, Constipation, Intestinal Discomfort, Diabetes and Hypertension will begin to diminish and improve! You will be happy to request your doctor to taper down your Diabetes or High Blood Pressure medications as within few week’s time, the Dairy Free Challenge will normalize your blood sugar and blood pressure levels and your blood cholesterol level will also start returning to normal. Your requirement to inject Insulin will drop. This is the experience of thousands of my patients who have been frustrated with increasing doses of medication and wanted to explore the truth. The truth of stopping the dairy products and replacing that with plenty of fresh and organic fruits and vegetables can help a person free himself of the 3 Ds – Dairy, Doctors and Disease.

Feel free to write to me with your questions, doubts, refutations and reasonings as also everything else. I will do my best to answer them all in subsequent articles and if need be through personal replies too. You can reach me through my email: daneshchinoy@gmail.com as also on my WhatsApp no. 8454800869. Just remember, all that I seek from you is an empty cup.

.

---

.

.

I leave you all with a list of certain ‘white truths’ extracted from the most trusted and referenced scientific literature for you to ruminate on till we meet next fortnight. Vohuman and Tandorasti to you and yours!

.

White Truth of Obesity: “The largest study of its kind analyzed more than 12,000 children aged 9 to 14. It found that the more milk they drank, the heavier they were.” – Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (2005)

White Truth of Breast Cancer: “A study from the Harvard Medical School on Breast Cancer risk and diet among 90,000 pre-menopausal women showed a cancer link to Whole Milk and Milk Products.”  – The Journal of the National Cancer Institute (2003)

White Truth of Heart Disease: “A study involving 7 countries showed that, as the milk supply grew, so did the incidence of deaths from heart diseases.” –  International Journal of Cardiology (1994)

White Truth of Insulin Dependent Diabetes (Type I): “The more that cow’s milk is consumed, particularly by the children, the higher is the incidence of Diabetes Type I. For Example, Finland has one of the highest intakes of dairy products in the world. Interestingly, the country also has the world’s highest rate of insulin dependent diabetes affecting 40 out of every 1000 children.” –American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1990)

White Truth by Biggest Ever Study on Milk: “Harvard University study on seventy-eight thousand women revealed that, those who drink milk the most, were actually at greater risk of bone fracture than those who drink little or no milk.” – 12-year prospective study-American Journal of Public Health (1997)

White Truth of our Ancestors – “After examining the bones of our ancestors who lived in a pre-milk era, we found robust fracture resistant bones.” – Department of Evolutionary Biology, Colorado State University (2002)

White Truth by British Advertising Standards Authority: “In October 2005, the British Advertising Standards Authority forced Nestle Health Nutrition to withdraw its advertisements in the United Kingdom, stating that milk was “Essential for healthy bones.” – UK Advertising Standards Authority (13th Oct, 2005)

White Truth of Infertility: “A consistent correlation is seen between the consumption of cow’s milk and infertility in women. Researchers have specifically found that the countries where the most milk products are being consumed have high prevalence of infertility, with earlier occurrence in life.” – American Journal of Epidemiology (2005)

White Truth of Constipation: “Many studies have established the relationship between consumption of cow’s milk and constipation, and remarkable improvement when the offending milk is removed from the diet.” – New England Journal of Medicine (1998)

White Truth of Allergy among Children: “Cow’s milk and the products made from it, are one of the most common food allergens. This is particularly true for children.” – Nutrition Review (1984)

White Truth of Prostate Cancer: “The association between dairy products and prostate cancer is one of the most consistent dietary predictors for prostate cancer.” –  Epidemiology Reviews (2001)

White Truth of Parkinson’s Disease: “Harvard School of Public Health Researchers found that, men who consumed lactose, calcium and vitamin-D from dairy, along with dairy protein, had 50% to 80% higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, than men who consumed least amount of these nutrients.” – Annals of Neurology (2003)

White Truth of Pregnancy: “The risk of juvenile diabetes, ear infection, skin rashes, colic and iron deficiency may all be reduced by the avoidance of cow’s milk-based formula and other dairy products during pregnancy.” –  Pediatric Research (1993)

White Truth of ‘2 Glasses of Milk per day’: “In comparison to men who drink no milk, then men who consumed more than 2 glasses per day, the latter had twice the incidence of Parkinson’s disease.” – Neurology (2005)

White Truth of Menstrual Cramps: World renowned gynaecologist and best-selling author, Dr. Christiane Northop cautions, “In addition to menstrual cramps, cow’s milk consumption has been associated with recurrent vaginitis, fibroids and increased pain from endometriosis.”  – Women’s Body, Women Wisdom (1994)

White Truth of Brain Disorder: “Dangerously high levels of aluminium were found in cow’s milk sample and infant formula.” Journal of Pediatric Gastro-Enterology and Nutrition (1999); “Aluminum poisoning has been associated with memory loss, dementia, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.” –  Brain Research (2002)

White Truth of Dioxins and Liver/Nervous System Damage: “Dairy products alone account for 30% of dioxin exposure in adults and 50% exposure in children.”- Green Guide (July/August 2004); “Dioxins have been shown to result in nervous system and liver damage.” – Dioxin Action Summit (2000)

White Truth of Bone Loss: “Women who derived most dietary protein from animal sources, had 3 times higher chances of bone loss and 3.7 times higher chances of hip fracture, compared to the women who obtained most of their protein from vegetable sources.” –   American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2001)

White Truth of Refined Sugar: “Refined sugar interferes with the calcium absorption, thereby increasing the risk of osteoporosis.” – Journal of Nutrition (1987)

White Truth of Calcium Absorption: “Humans can absorb greater percentage (63%) of calcium from vegetables than that from cow’s milk (32%).” –  American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1994)

White Truth of Milk Contamination: “Frequent contamination is found in a glass of milk because of cow’s exposure to hormones, antibiotics and other drugs. Some of these have been linked to blood diseases, cancer and deaths in humans.” – FDA Notice, Associated Press (4th March, 2003)

White Truth of Reversing Heart Diseases: “WHO funded research trial, ‘The MONIKA Project’, reported that “changes in milk consumption, up or down, accurately predicted changes in coronary deaths four to seven years later.” – Lancet (1999)