Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Day +76

I am fine today. I would like to continue talking about health again. I must say that my view might not necessary be correct. I am just tried to be a little bit "naughty" to provide some alternative views to the “alternative” views (those practices advocated by alternative therapist or nutritionist), which many people just accept them without questions.

One of the "alternative" views is that we should not drink cow milk because cow milk is for the cow, not for human. One "professor" who called himself the "Father of Detoxification" even claims that "You are what you eat." So this gives people impression that if you drink cow milk, you are cow :-) Since many people don't want to be a cow, they stop taking cow milk. But if you ponder a little more on that statement, you will sooner or later get this incredible conclusion, "We have to eat human to be human." :-)

The other reason commonly cited is cow milk cause allergy (lactose intolerant). But the question is how common does this happens? If most people, especially adult, are not allergy to cow milk, there is no reason to avoid cow milk. I totally agree that breast milk is the best, but we can't expect adult to drink breast milk.

Some of other claims include cow milk causes cancer, heart attack and many other problems. These claims might be supported by some researches which are not conclusive. So we have to be very careful of being selectively presented with research reports that support the claim only, while there are many other research reports that go against the claim.

While the internet is saturated with anti-milk claims, I referred you to this article on MSN called "Milk Stirs Debate". Another article in Chinese “牛奶,到底还能不能喝?” (Can we drink cow milk?). I hope these articles will provide you a more balanced view of the claim.

I will share with you my experience with milk tomorrow.

See you next post.

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