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Milk and dairy products: good or bad for human health? (2016)
- xrayarx 4y agoTl;dr: good
- candiddevmike 4y agoThe conflict of interest stuff at the bottom is interesting, especially with the rise of non-dairy milk alternatives surging in popularity. I personally think dairy milk production is abhorrent, worse than meat production even, and hope we as a society can move past it.
- eloff 4y agoI think dairy in a lab would probably beat meat in a lab to market. It seems like a simpler problem. I think we will almost certainly move beyond both in the next thousand years, maybe even the next hundred. You’ll get your wish.
- jvanderbot 4y agoAs has previously been pointed out, I don't think Toyota would pay for a study in dairy product healthiness. But the bit about non dairy milk seems crowbarred in since they didn't really compare.
- Gordonjcp 4y agoI guess you live in the US? Maybe you could just change your farming practices to be more like the rest of the world.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- yesenadam 4y ago> dairy milk production is abhorrent, worse than meat production even What makes you say this? (I'm genuinely curious.)
- jamincan 4y agoI don't know that I'd call it abhorrent - dairy cows in Ontario seem to have relatively decent conditions compared to pigs and chickens, for example. The thing that makes me reserved about it is the very high water and energy cost per calorie of milk. While I'm okay with oat milk in my coffee, though, other dairy substitutions don't work nearly as well in my experience.
- candiddevmike 4y agoAnimals bred for meat production are mostly left alone, dairy cows are constantly impregnated and typically have their young taken from them.
- morninglight 4y ago> > the rise of non-dairy milk alternatives surging in popularity. > I purchased a half gallon of "Soy MilK" out of curiosity and now I understand the popularity. It tasted like a milkshake and seemed to have about the same sugar content. This product was designed for addiction. There is no way that I would ever give this to my kids.
- pell 4y agoThere are tons of milk alternatives many of which do not have any added sugar or amounts far far below a milkshake.
- reducesuffering 4y agoYes, there are, but isn't it sad that when people forgo dairy for purported health reasons, most of the time they switch to the standard alternatives that are heaps of cane sugar (Silk soy/almond) and/or vegetable oil (Oatly / oat milk)?
- officeplant 4y ago>most of the time they switch to the standard alternatives that are heaps of cane sugar (Silk soy/almond) and vegetable oil (Oatly / oat milk)? If they lack reading comprehension sure. It isn't difficult to compare nutrition labels and get something healthy.
- reducesuffering 4y agoIt's not difficult, but they're still the most popular. Everyone drinks the standard vegetable oil Oatly. It's like a liquid oatmeal cookie.
- officeplant 4y agoI've never heard of Oatly, but then again I just sorta grab whatever unsweetened almond milk is on sale when I'm in the rare mood for milk. Looking up Oatly makes me feel like I live under a rock for not recognizing it.
- blakesterz 4y agoThe totality of available scientific evidence supports that intake of milk and dairy products contribute to meet nutrient recommendations, and may protect against the most prevalent chronic diseases, whereas very few adverse effects have been reported. I'm going to just go ahead and draw the conclusion that this also INCLUDES ice cream and milkshakes!
- Gordonjcp 4y ago~~Coffee~~ Chocolate comes from beans, so a mug of hot chocolate is basically vegetable soup. Edit: it's been a long day.
- hooverd 4y agoCoffee comes from a stonefruit. Vanilla is a fruit. Maybe if you used soy milk!
- ask_b123 4y agoHmm, coffee or chocolate?
- Gordonjcp 4y agoYes, sorry, typo. Chocolate is a bean.
- danrochman 4y agoAnd a vanilla soy latte is a three-bean soup!
- dilap 4y agoFun fact: Ice-cream is the food that most closely resembles breast-milk, nutritionally. So how bad can it be? ;-) (I guess the answer depends mostly on what you think about saturated fat and sugar. If you believe both of those are fine, ice-cream is A-OK. I eat it a lot and seem to do alright.) (At least, ice-cream in the traditional sense -- milk, sugar, maybe eggs, whatever flavors. Sadly many of the ice-creams you'll see on the shelves these days have all kinds of weird fillers and stuff; whether those are healthy or not is a whole 'nother question.)
- tpush 4y ago> Anne Raben is recipient of research funding from the Dairy Research Institute, Rosemont, IL, USA and the Danish Agriculture & Food Council. > Tine Tholstrup is recipient of research grants from the Danish Dairy Research Foundation and the Dairy Research Institute, Rosemont, IL. > Sabita S. Soedamah-Muthu received funding from the Global Dairy Platform, Dairy Research Institute and Dairy Australia for meta-analyses on cheese and blood lipids and on dairy and mortality. > Ian Givens is recipient of research grants from UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), UK Medical Research Council (MRC), Arla Foods UK, AAK-UK (both in kind), The Barham Benevolent Foundation, Volac UK, DSM Switzerland and Global Dairy Platform. He is a consultant for The Bio-competence Centre of Healthy Dairy Products, Tartu, Estonia, and in the recent past for The Dairy Council (London). > Arne Astrup is recipient of research grants from Arla Foods, DK; Danish Dairy Research Foundation; Global Dairy Platform; Danish Agriculture & Food Council; GEIE European Milk Forum, France. > He received financial support from dairy organisations for attendance at the Eurofed Lipids Congress (2014) in France and the meeting of The Federation of European Nutrition Societies (2015) in Germany. Emphasis mine.
- josephcsible 4y agoHow is your comment anything other than an ad hominem/poisoning the well?
- jonplackett 4y agoHow is it anything other than a fact?
- josephcsible 4y agoIt is factual, but that doesn't make it not poisoning the well.
- jonplackett 4y agoSources are still important. Biases are real no?
- roland35 4y agoBad for me! Lactose intolerance sucks :(
- szundi 4y agoAnd these days they spoil palm oil with dairy!!
- edgefield 4y agoTry Culturelle and dairy with probiotics like yogurt. This seemed to resolve my lactose intolerance and IBS type symptoms.
- mey 4y agoMy wife is lactose intolerant. Over the last 10 years, many manufactures are starting to provide dairy products that are lactose free. Lactase drops makes it simple to convert milk and cream cheese to being lactose free at home. Green Valley has butter, cheddar and mozzarella! We've tried making lactose free mozzarella before at home, but it was always a disaster. Breyers has lactose free ice cream. Organic Valley makes most of it's dairy products in a lactose free variety.
- jmartrican 4y agoI been drinking lactose free milk. tastes great. no stomach issues whatsoever. my local super market has about 4 different brands of lactose free milk.
- burnished 4y agoThey tend to be sweeter but my experience is similar - it is identifiably milk and I’m not sure I’d notice in a blind taste test. Oat milk is another alternative I’d recommend. It isn’t a substitute per se, you are going to notice a difference, but it has similar mouth feel, tastes good, and I’ve used it in all the same places as milk (cereal, cookies, hot chocolate) and been pleased with the result.
- adamredwoods 4y agoLactose free milk also lasts longer against spoilage. There was a time the lactose-free choices in the US were very low, I love seeing major brands now carrying lactose-free products. Especially Breyer's ice cream, that was an eye-opener.
- jdmoreira 4y agoLindy effect strikes again.
- browningstreet 4y agoJust this morning I was watching a YouTube video with Peter Attia and Layne Norton. Attia asked Norton for 3 things related to nutrition that he has changed his mind about in the last few years and which have led him to a change in coaching advice or protocols. Norton said he no longer aligns with people who discount the risks of LDL and argue for the LDL/HDL ratio instead. Layne recognizes the linear relationship between LDL and heart attack risk. Layne also said he’s on statins. Which blew my mind. Given his age and PhD he’d still rather eat meat — against his own concerns for LDL — and take a pharmaceutical instead of directly addressing the source of his cholesterol issues. Relevant because of the prevalence of dairy and meat as the source of cholesterol in the modern diet. The video: https://youtu.be/jmYeMmUjBrE https://youtu.be/jmYeMmUjBrE
- dilap 4y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but dietary cholesterol is not main driver of serum cholesterol, right? Very easy to eat a vegan diet and have very high cholesterol. And vice-versa.
- browningstreet 4y agoLots of lifestyle issues with serum cholesterol, but per the Mayo clinic plenty of dietary sources contribute to high serum cholesterol too, including meat and dairy: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-cholesterol/in-depth/reduce-cholesterol/art-20045935 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-ch... Presumably Norton isn’t having issues with a lack of exercise or high body fat.
- horns4lyfe 4y agoI listened to the same podcast, and your making a huge jump in logic from your second to third paragraph with a lot of assumptions that weren’t discussed there.
- browningstreet 4y agoHe's written a book, documents his lifting on Youtube, and has been tweeting his own very opinionated positions on nutrition and food intake for many years. Maybe there's a jump on my part, but "huge jump in logic"?
- dieselgate 4y agoThere is a textbook on bovine health and the first few lines of the preface say: "This book is not dedicated to my wife. Nor is it dedicated to one of the many colleagues who have been instrumental in bringing it into existence. Instead, it is dedicated to the foster mother of the human race... the dairy cow."
- eitland 4y agoI thought about it many times, and my conclusion has been that at least up here in the north were people barely survived year after year, - if giving up the farm animals and living from potatoes fruits and berries alone had been healthier, someone would hqve accidentally discovered it and everyone would have saved an awful lot of hard work. So, clearly it has been useful. For me it is today too: I often replace my lunch with 1/2L of whole milk, and if I have to a few hours extra after dinner, 1/2L of milk is often my solution then too. But I admit this might not be for everyone.
- mertd 4y agoIs that a fair comparison? Did everyone or anyone have unlimited options for substitute calories and nutrients without milk? How does modern factory farmed dollar per liter milk compare to the milk back then?
- eitland 4y ago> and my conclusion has been that at least up here in the north That is partially why I am trying to hedge my bets here.
- burnished 4y agoCows convert material that is inedible to humans (grasses) to materials that are edible to humans (cows). Modern farming has made things much easier - crops are highly modified and farming techniques have advanced to produce huge yields. Consider also that redundant food supplies protect against famine - if your potato crop all dies then ol’ Bessy means you still have options.
- fmajid 4y agoCows also represent an astounding fraction of Earth’s biomass, livestock is 5% of all animal biomass, twice as much as humans and 10x more than all wild mammals combined: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/humans-make-110000th-earths-biomass-180969141/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/humans-make-110000...
- csdvrx 4y agoWhat if "milk and dairy" was a bad abstraction? What if we should consider cows (or chicken for eggs) as transformation mechanism where the inputs matter as much as the outputs? I think there are studies showing chemical differences depending on the feed - at least for chicken roaming freely vs kept in a cage. I wouldn't be surprised if similar differences were found for milk and dairy, depending on grazing freely vs being fed some premade mix.
- dnissley 4y agoI've been experimenting lately with different forms of dairy. For as long as I can remember, cow's milk has given me issues with acne and other related skin/inflammation issues. It's not lactose intolerance, since I get no stomach issues, and drinking lactose free milk is no better (even ghee still gives me problems). So then I tried sheep dairy. No such symptoms. Then I tried goat dairy -- but was not so lucky. The confounding factor here though is that both my cow and goat dairy were purchased at a regular grocery store and my sheep dairy was purchased by some guy selling direct at the farmer's market.
- amriksohata 4y agoIn Ayurveda warm milk was always the go to cure for Indian Hindu sages for centuries, mixed with Haldi (tumeric) and Adarak (ginger). However more recently Cows are injected with growth hormone, estrogen, then fed masses of pesticide and fertislier ridden crop to fatten then, followed by large scale antibiotics. All of this is now making milk an inferior product. Watch cowspiracy, game changers and fed up for more info.
- twobitshifter 4y agoanyone drink a2 milk? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2_milk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2_milk Seems like an interesting product journey, someone in 1990 finds a1 is associated with disease and a company is launched in New Zealand, years later the EU finds no effect of A1, but it keeps getting sold regardless.
- rjuyal 4y agoUnrelated/extra info: I drank milk throughout my life ( Milk is part of daily meal in Asia ). I never had any problem related to milk. Then few years ago I moved to USA. First thing I noticed was milk. It felt like drinking heavily diluted milk. I tried 1%, 2%, whole milk, milk with Vitamin D, Organic milk. You name it , I have tried it. It also gave me stomach ache, constipation. I got to know that I am lactose intolerant. That was weird to know since I drank milk my whole life and never had any problem. Recently one of my friend suggested A2 brand milk saying he also felt all milk in USA tastes watered down milk. And oh my god it tastes exactly like what I used to drink. I don't have any issue like constipation or stomach ache. So I am guessing no more lactose intolerant! It's been more than 2 years I am on A2 brand milk. Recently Costco stopped selling A2 brand milk and instead started selling Kirkland brand A2 milk. That milk is horrible but for now I dont have any other option.
- fmajid 4y agoHuh? I thought lactose intolerance was most widespread in Asia.
- VoodooJuJu 4y agoAll nutritional science is everything but science. Ignore studies. Eat Lindy. Eat no fruits from the past one thousand years, drink nothing from the past four thousand. Drink your milk (if your ancestors did).
- carabiner 4y agoLindy?
- VoodooJuJu 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
- qohen 4y agoGuessing it's actually this: https://twitter.com/lindydiet/status/1297211546934939651?lang=en https://twitter.com/lindydiet/status/1297211546934939651?lan...
- officeplant 4y agoShe tastes terrible, but I've heard she's good for you.
- warkdarrior 4y ago> Eat no fruits from the past one thousand years, drink nothing from the past four thousand. Drink your milk (if your ancestors did). Where do I find all of this expired food?
- mensetmanusman 4y agoA perfectly healthy-for-all elixir of pure human energy and nutrients: is it possible?
- parthianshotgun 4y agoSoylent?
- lizardactivist 4y agoThe dairy industry wants us to think that humans are weak and frail, with crumbling bones and teeth, and we can only be strong and healthy if we live in symbiosis with the bovine and drink their mothers milk. A bit dramatized for effect, but that's about how milk was pitched when I was growing up. Personally these days I think it's a tough idea to sell.
- tmpburning 4y ago[dead]