Does Milk Really Do Your Body Good?

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As a child you were most likely bombarded with people reminding you to drink your milk; your parents harping that milk makes you bigger and stronger or the American Dairy Farmers ever present slogan of the 1980’s, “Milk it does a body good” or the most recent “Got milk?” (Rosenburg). Contrary to the preaching about the benefits of milk and what you may have seen or heard on billboards and television commercials, the reality is that milk does your body more harm than good with the use of hormones and the adverse effects that milk has on your body.
Why are so many people consuming milk on a daily basis? Milk for many cultures has been a long time food staple from birth to adulthood dating back 7,500 years. (Is Milk Good for You). Today milk is one of the most widely used culinary ingredients, it is used on cereal, drank plain or may have flavoring added to make it taste like chocolate or strawberry. “It provides other food sources such as cheese, yogurt and butter” (Is Milk Good). There are many minerals and vitamins in milk that the body uses to maintain a healthy homeostasis, such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium and sodium. These minerals help with maintaining bone strength, generating energy for cells, regulating body fluids and assist with nerve stimulation (Tod). The most notable vitamin in milk is “vitamin D, which promotes the absorption of calcium and phosphorus, and influences bone mineralization, the strengthening of bones” (Tod). Milk also contains high levels of proteins that are used to build and repair muscle, maintain healthy skin, and help in the resistance of infection (Tod). Physicians strongly emphasize the importance of dairy in one’s diet, mainly pertaining to the intake of calcium and vitamin D ...

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...level. Once the body expels the calcium the intake is actually a deficit causing weaker thinner bones that will fracture easier and make one’s skeletal system more susceptible to osteoporosis (Goldschmidt).
People drink milk thinking it is the ultimate health drink that will make them stronger, healthier and prevent disease. Most people drink milk primarily for the calcium, however, milk actually deprives the body of calcium because the body is forced to neutralize the animal proteins that make milk acidic (Goldschmidt). Milk introduces an excess of hormones that force the body to produce an excess of new cells, thereby causing cancer. Populations that consume more milk have a higher rate degenerative bone diseases (Kradjin). While dairy farmers may want you to believe that milk does a body good the reality is that milk does your body more harm than good.

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