If you're like most people, you've been raised on cow's milk and probably continue to think that it's a healthy food that's a staple of the bodybuilding diet. Milk is inexpensive, tasty, rich in vitamins and minerals, and contains muscle-building protein. It is, simply, "nature's perfect food."
If only this were true.
If you believe the description of milk presented in the opening paragraphs of this article, then what I'm about to tell you will forever smash your long held views on cow's milk. Because, here's the truth: much of the cow's "milk" that's produced today isn't really milk at all, but is a toxic soup of harmful chemicals that will destroy your health.
Read on if you want to know what you're really drinking every time you sit down for a glass of "milk." Your views on cow's milk will be forever changed.
This Is Your Milk On Drugs
Milk production used to be time consuming and labor intensive, but today's farmer can collect more milk in less time than ever before. While modern farming technologies have resulted in increased milk output, drugs are the real reason why milk production is at an all time high.
"Modern Farming Technology" Increasing Output?
Drugs Are The Real Reason.
North American dairy cattle are routinely injected with rBGH - recombinant bovine growth hormone - to increase milk production. These injections frequently lead to utter infections that require aggressive antibiotic treatment therapies. Unfortunately, while rBGH injections result in increased milk production1, these drugs survive the pasteurization process.
What's worse, the antibiotic treatments and the infectious white blood cells (pus resulting from rBGH injections) leak into the produced milk, and also survive the pasteurization process.
Eventually, these contaminants find their way into your stomach and the stomachs of those you love when you drink milk.
The bottom line? Today's cattle are like today's bodybuilders - chemically assisted. And, the use of milk producing drugs elevates the risk of health complications for human and animal.
The Consequences Of IGF-1 & Other Hormones As Contaminants
rBGH is injected into cows in order to elevate IGF-1 levels and increase milk production. Human and bovine IGF-1 is chemically identical,2 and this is important to note because when IGF-1 levels are elevated in injected cows, IGF-1 is secreted into the milk you drink. This IGF-1 also survives the pasteurization process.3 This means: your IGF-1 levels become elevated when you drink milk from a cow that's been injected with rBGH.
Increased Levels Of IGF-1 Are Used To
Bulk-Up Milk Production.
Click To Enlarge.
But, hold on. Before you buy thirty gallons of infected and contaminated milk in the hopes of building more muscle mass, you must know that elevated IGF-1 levels in adults is linked to many cancers and tumors.4,5,6,7,8,9
Even children are not immune from the health effects of elevated IGF-1 levels, which can include childhood bone cancer.10 Sadly, diseases in youth associated with elevated IGF-1 levels don't end with bone cancer. Other side effects can include juvenile onset (Type I) diabetes (by destroying insulin-producing pancreatic cells), allergic reactions, allergy, ear and tonsillar infections, bedwetting, asthma, and intestinal bleeding.
The side-effects of drinking contaminated milk vary because, aside from IGF-1 contamination, your milk may be contaminated with one (or all) of the following hormones: estradiol, estriol, progesterone, testosterone, 17-ketosteroids or corticosterone.11 The packaging of milk in plastic containers has increased contaminant levels.
So, while the injection of cows with hormones and antibiotics is good news for major pharmaceutical companies and dairy farmers, the presence of these contaminants in your food supply is detrimental to your health.
Drink More Milk?
The scientific evidence so far presented is a challenge to dairy industry calls to increase milk consumption. Recent statistics show that 20% of all US produced dairy cow milk is contaminated.12 Given these alarming numbers and the dangers they represent, why would anyone want to consume liquid milk?
Usually, the dairy industry and the medical profession recommend increasing milk intake to ensure adequate calcium intake. Calcium intake is critical for the prevention of degenerative bone diseases like osteoporosis and its related health effects.
But is dairy cow milk a good source of useable calcium?
Consider The Following:
Bovine milk causes sickness in the majority of the world's population.
Epidemiological data show that calcium deficiency and osteoporosis rates are lower in non-milk consuming countries than in Westernized and industrialized milk-consuming nations.
Human consumption of cow's milk is a recent development in evolution. Pre-humans and human ancestors did not drink cow's milk. Early fossil evidence shows no signs of osteoporosis.
Milk is a source of calcium, but not the best source of absorbable calcium - other foods are better.
As a source of protein, liquid milk is less than ideal - other foods are better.
The majority of the world's population does not drink cow's milk. While ancient epidemiological data is scarce, fossil evidence shows that osteoporosis rates in ancient times were low, and modern data show that osteoporosis rates continue to be low in countries where milk consumption is limited.
The Drinking Of Cow's Milk Is A Modern Habit.
While the dairy industry claims that liquid milk is the ideal source of calcium, science shows that excessive dairy intake interferes with calcium absorption. Not only that, but the calcium to phosphorus ratio of liquid milk poor, and this makes calcium absorption from milk minimal at best.
Liquid Milk Vs Milk Proteins
A critical distinction between liquid milk and milk proteins must be made here.
While liquid milk is not an ideal protein source, liquid milk does contain milk proteins (edible acid casein) that have beneficial health effects - provided that you do not have a milk protein allergy. The key difference between contaminated liquid milk and milk proteins harvested from liquid milk is this: while liquid milk can be contaminated, isolated milk proteins - once removed from liquid milk - are purified by chemical processes.
When liquid milk sours, milk proteins form curds on the liquids surface. These curds are removed, and dissolved into a hydroxide solution. They are later dried. This process completes the removal and purification process. Once they are removed, they are either agglomerated, lecithinated, or both - a process known otherwise as instantization.
The distinction between milk proteins and liquid milk is critical, because while the liquid milk that milk proteins come from can be contaminated, once purified, isolated milk proteins are NOT contaminated.
The separation and purification process above described breaks down milk proteins into amino acids that are not hormonally contaminated, and this is why using milk proteins in protein powder is safe, and drinking liquid milk is not!
Your Liquid Milk Alternatives
It's not difficult to get enough daily protein and calcium.
Uncontaminated lean meats are an excellent source of protein, and green leafy vegetables are an excellent source of calcium that are also high in fiber and cancer fighting antioxidants.
If eating green vegetables does not appeal to you, you can always supplement with a natural calcium product. Natural calcium is better absorbed than synthetic, so you won't have to take as much to see beneficial effect.
If you feel that drinking liquid cow's milk is critical to your bodybuilding gains, then consume it in moderation with the information presented in mind.
Final Thoughts
Today's cow's milk can have serious health effects. While the protein in milk may have beneficial effects on muscle gain, the side-effects that result from contamination can end up doing more harm than good. Unfortunately, this reality is unlikely to change because modern farming practices and pharmaceutical drugs are here to stay.
While liquid cow's milk is a questionable food choice for bodybuilders, the good news is that you can still get enough calcium from vegetables, and you can use milk proteins from quality protein powders to build muscle and enhance health.
nodiggitydave said:so make milk from milk powder as opposed to buying in the liquid form?
nodiggitydave said:Tatyana I've seen a few posts from you now, are you a female bodybuilder, is that you're avatar? Nice to see a fellow Brit on here anyway
Nice one for the feedback.
snorkles said:milk while bulking is bad? I have 1/2 or maximum 3/4 of a litre litre a day..
Sim882 said:Milk is the most controversial food out there - some say it makes you fat, other studies saying the reverse.
It's high insulin index and excellent amino acid profile (BCAA, glutamine) makes it useful when time around exercise IMO during maintenance and especially during bulking.
Furthermore, if you haven't planned well, and your out shopping or something, 1 litre of skim milk is an OK meal replacement.
However, this is how it may work: 2 litres of milk is 110 lactose, which = 55 galactose.
Now, I don't know if this is true because I read this less often, but I think galactose is like fructose - it can only enter the liver. The liver can only process 50 grams of carbs a day, any more turning to fat. When you consider that sucrose and fructose is cotained in veggies and fruit (even brocolli), this may mean that your over it doing it with the milk sugar.
I would be interested in confirmation/repudiation of this analysis. I myself have had periods where I have drunk this much milk though
Tat, can galactase enter muscle glycogen?
Tatyana said:Interesting question, and one for the biochem textbooks.
I will have a look at some biochem pathways and let you know the fate/digestion/metabolism of lactose.
So cool I am having to review so much of my biochemical pathways and metabolic processes.
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Tatyana said:Galactose is only metabolised in the liver, it used to be used as a test of liver function.
Once it is converted so it can enter glycolysis, which is present in most cells in the body (except red blood cells).
So galactose does not directly enter your muscle.
As the info below suggests, the metabolism of glucose and galactose are under hormonal control, which means that insulin will direct nutrients to be stored, or released under the actions of glucagon. (Also cortisol, gh - growth hormone (somatropin) - , thyroxine, adrenaline, nor-adrenaline either directly or indirectly)
I do wonder once the conversion of galactose occurs, if any of these metabolites are shifted to any of the other cells besides the liver.
A few bits I found on line:
Note also that it is the liver that has fructokinase and galactokinase activity. The liver is the only organ that actively metabolizes these sugars. I
Aside from sperm, no other organ has an active fructokinase. No other organ is perfused with concentrations of fructose large enough to allow reaction with hexokinase.
The liver very effectively removes absorbed fructose from the portal blood. In fact, this is necessary for uptake of fructose in the gut. Remember that transport there is passive, relying on a steep concentration gradient to drive fructose uptake.
Fructose is not a direct energy source for muscles and the brain as many of its producers claim. These tissues rely on the hexokinase catalyzed phosphorylation of glucose for energy metabolism. Sorry, but you do not become stronger and smarter by eating fructose.
Carbohydrates in food give us only three monosaccharides that are taken up from the intestine and metabolized further -Glucose, Galactose and Fructose.
Remember, sucrose (table sugar) gives us equal amounts of glucose and fructose, lactose (milk sugar) gives equal amounts of galactose and glucose.
Galactose is almost identical to glucose; remember it is only the position of the hydroxy group on carbon four that differs here. That "little" difference is enough to markedly reduce binding of galactose to hexokinase.
A specific enzyme, galactokinase, is essential to initiate galactose metabolism. Galactokinase reacts with galactose and gives us galactose-1-phosphate.
There is no direct oxidative pathway for galactose-1-P. It has to be converted to an intermediate in glucose metabolism to come further. We have an activated form of glucose, uridine diphosphoglucose (UDPG) that reacts with gal-1-P.
UDPG has a glucose-1-P "tail". Using UDPG-gal-1-P transferase, we simply exchange that "tail" with gal-1-P and convert the Gal-1-P to glucose-1-P. Another enzyme, UDPGal-UDPG isomerase "wins" back that UDPG for us and the process can start up again.
Unlike fructose metabolism, glucose and galactose metabolism are subject to precise allosteric and hormonal control. Metabolism of these sugars goes through phosphofructokinase and FDPase, two enzymes under exacting hormonal and allosteric control.
fructose is in a special class.
We are "constructed" to conserve energy. The rapid entry of fructose into glycolysis leads to fatty acid synthesis in the liver. Because fructose metabolism "fills" glycolysis with substrate at a very high rate, frequent use of sucrose (remember sucrose is a dimer of fructose and glucose) or fructose promotes fat production
Tatyana said:![]()
Interesting stuff Simm.
Where did you find the info on the types of carbs in veggies?
I would love to have a look at that.
I have recently been reading a book called natural hormonal enhancement, and in it he describes functional carbs, which is the total carbs minus the carbs from fibre.
So in fibrous veg such as brocolli, the impact of any fructose would be minimal.
The same goes for things like blueberries, I think there is only 9 g of carbs per 100 g.
I also found this, you may be interested
http://www.msu.edu/course/lbs/145/luckie/inquiriesF2003/teamcaffeine.html
Jocephus said:Who is funding all this research on milk? The Citrus Growers of America...... I personally drink 1 pint to 1 quart a day. Usually at breakfast time.
No study has indicated that consumption of rBST-produced milk increases IGF1 levels, nor has any study demonstrated an increased risk of any disease between those consuming rBST and non-rBST produced milk. In 1994, the FDA has concluded that no significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rBST-treated and non-rBST-treated cows, nor does any test exist which can differentiate between milk from rBST-treated and non-rBST treated cows.
NJL52 said:My conclusion about milk;
There is a reason that mammals drink excessive amounts of milk during the time of life where you grow the most. Milk is one of nature's best tool for growth.
And it tastes good. Gimme more milk please =P
Sim882 said:Agreed.
It shits me when you get a teenager on the site, and the anti-milk crowd tells them to avoid milk.
This annoys me because realistically the teenager is consuming coke etc and milk is infinitely better.
Tatyana said:In MD mag this month - Bodybuilding Science
How to increase IGF-1 levels naturally
Here are the key points
- IGF-1 is a powerful anabolic anti-catabolic hormone
- Milk has a low glycaemic index but a high insulinaemic index
- Large scale studies have show that higher milk consumption is associated with higher IGF-1 levels
- Milk consumption increases IGF-1 levels through many possible pathways (amino acids, minerals, IGF-1 in milk, insulin)
- Caffeine may increase IGF-1 levels
- Large amounts of lycopene consumption or lycopene extract can decrease IGF-1
YAH cafe lattes![]()
Sim882 said:During cutting then, is milk particularly useful PWO because its insulin content is disproportionate to its carb and GI content, i.e., your getting a lot of insulin per carb. Does cottage cheese have a similar insulin effect?
Sim882 said:Soy and Vegan Institute I suspect funds a lot of the "anti-milk" studies.
NJL52 said:My conclusion about milk;
There is a reason that mammals drink excessive amounts of milk during the time of life where you grow the most. Milk is one of nature's best tool for growth.
And it tastes good. Gimme more milk please =P
Sim882 said:Agreed.
It shits me when you get a teenager on the site, and the anti-milk crowd tells them to avoid milk.
This annoys me because realistically the teenager is consuming coke etc and milk is infinitely better.
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