No reason for adults to drink cow’s milk
Milk is indeed a miracle food. Cow’s milk contains 15 percent protein, primarily casein, which is 20 times the amount in (human) mother’s milk. Cow’s milk is high in cholesterol, fat and calcium, nutrients needed for a calf to double its birth weight in 45 days. It also contains hormones, including recombinant bovine growth hormone, a genetically engineered hormone injected into the cow to increase milk production, and which has been linked to certain cancers in humans.
Cow and human milk is made up of milk sugar called lactose. The enzyme lactase is required to digest lactose, however, this enzyme’s activity in the small intestine is greatly reduced after the age of 4. In essence, milk-drinking is for infants and toddlers only. As cited in a recent Buffalo News article, lactose-intolerance is a major cause for abdominal distress in children. Humans are the only species that drinks milk from another and that continues to drink milk into adulthood. Milk is “the perfect food” – for calves. Perhaps it’s time for our society to grow up and wean ourselves from cow’s milk and dairy products.