Dairy Products Avoidance

Whether through allergy, lactose intolerance, hormone contamination or infectious agents, the consumption of dairy products has contributed to chronic health problems in both children and adults. In some individuals, avoiding dairy products may contribute significantly to both short and long term health improvements and a sense of well being.

Please note that it is extremely important to obtain an accurate diagnosis before trying to find a cure. Many diseases and conditions share common symptoms: if you treat yourself for the wrong illness or a specific symptom of a complex disease, you may delay legitimate treatment of a serious underlying problem. In other words, the greatest danger in self-treatment may be self-diagnosis. If you do not know what you really have, you can not treat it!

Knowing how difficult it is to weed out misinformation and piece together countless facts in order to see the "big picture", we now provide simple online access to The Analyst™. Used by doctors and patients alike, The Analyst™ is a computerized diagnostic tool that sits on a vast accumulation of knowledge and research. By combining thousands of connections between signs, symptoms, risk factors, conditions and treatments, The Analyst™ will help to build an accurate picture of your current health status, the risks you are running and courses of action (including appropriate lab testing) that should be considered. Full information is available here.

A trial period of strict avoidance and observation of symptom reduction would confirm the importance of avoiding dairy products. The continued use of dairy products along with supplemental lactase - a milk sugar digesting enzyme - could help distinguish between a simple lactose intolerance problem and other consequences of milk consumption.

Calcium

The dairy industry owns the psychological exclusive rights to calcium in foods found in super markets. Few food manufacturers would dare to compete with the dairy message which infers that no other foods contain the calcium contained in milk, and without milk and dairy products you're certain to one day end up with bone-crippling osteoporosis.

The dairy industry and milk processors invest hundreds of millions of dollars each year to guarantee that Americans will continue to drink milk and eat dairy products, investing their money to continually let Americans know that milk tastes good and the intake of milk and dairy products must be continued to insure good health. Milk mustaches are stylish.

Common knowledge of osteoporosis is based upon false assumptions. American women have been drinking an average of two pounds of milk or eating the equivalent milk in dairy products per day for their entire lives. Doctors recommend calcium intake for increasing and maintaining bone strength and bone density which they call bone mass. According to this regimen recommended by doctors and milk industry executives, women's bone mass would approach that of pre-historic dinosaurs. This line of reasoning should be equally extinct.

Milk and dairy products contain only small amounts of magnesium. Without the presence of magnesium, the body only absorbs 25% of the available dairy calcium content. The excess remaining calcium can cause problems: calcium builds up the mortar on arterial walls which becomes atherosclerotic plaques; calcium is converted by the kidneys into painful stones that can block the urinary tracts; excess calcium contributes to arthritis.

Osteoporosis is not a problem that should be associated with lack of calcium intake. Osteoporosis results from calcium loss. The massive amounts of protein in milk result in a 50% or greater loss of calcium in the urine. In other words, by doubling your protein intake there will be a loss of 1-1.5% in skeletal mass per year in postmenopausal women and this, multiplied over 20 years, is considerable. The calcium contained in leafy green vegetables is more easily absorbed than the calcium in milk, and plant proteins do not result in calcium loss the same way as do animal proteins.

Avoiding dairy extends beyond obvious items such as milk, cheese or yoghurt. You will have to read the labels on everything you want to eat. Milk is hidden in many foods, even those you might never think of, like luncheon meats, tuna, and chocolate. The long list of foods and ingredients to avoid includes:

ammonium caseinate
artificial butter flavor
butter
butter fat
butter solids/fat
butter oil
buttermilk
calcium caseinate
caramel color
caramel flavoring
casein
caseinate
cheese
condensed milk
cottage cheese
cream
cream curds
custard
dry milk
dry milk solids
evaporated milk
flavoring (this may contain milk products, so make sure it's dairy free)
ghee
goat's milk
half-and-half
high protein flour
hydrolysates
hydrolyzed casein
hydrolyzed milk protein
iron caseinate
lactalbumin
lactalbumin phosphate
lactate
lactic acid
lactoferrin
lactoglobulin
lactose
lactulose
low-fat milk
magnesium caseinate
malted milk
margarine (this may contain milk products, so make sure it's dairy free)
milk
milk derivative
milk fat
milk powder
milk protein
milk solids
natural flavoring
nonfat milk
nougat
potassium
potassium caseinate
powdered milk
protein (this ingredient could be milk; check to be sure) rennet casein
Simplesse
skimmed milk
sodium caseinate
sour cream
sour cream solids
sour milk solids
whey
whey, delactosed
whey, demineralized
whey powder
whey protein concentrate
whey protein hydrolysate
whole milk
yogurt
zinc caseinate