The Hazards of Milk

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The USDA say that the average person needs to drink 2-3 fluid cups of milk per day, depending on age and gender, to maintain a healthy diet (USDA), “claims, which are misleading in the extreme" (Cancer Prevention Coalition, Para3). Milk is a beverage that can cause various levels of diseases that the process of pasteurization does not filter, along with additive hormones that also effects cows that are treated with these hormones and all the while, there are people in the world that have little or no dairy intake that find calcium in places other than dairy and who are generally a more healthy people.

What is in milk? Have you ever stopped to think? Growth hormones and pasteurization dramatically change milk for the worse. In milk there are natural components, and some elements in milk that are added in, some of which that can be hazardous to a person's health. Growth hormones called rBGH, recombinant growth hormone, are chemicals manufactured by companies such as Monsanto and American Cyanamid, which are put into the cows, along with insulin growth factor-1 (IGF-1), to stimulate the production of milk (Cancer Prevention Coalition).

Unpasteurized milk or dairy product is also a factor to a body's health because unpasteurized dairy can be vehicles for the spread of pathogenic microorganisms (Cancer Prevention Coalition). Also IGF-1 is not destroyed in the pasteurization process; the pasteurization process actually increases IGF-1levels in milk. IGF-1can also be absorbed into the bloodstream and effect other hormones (Cancer Prevention Coalition). Pasteurization also cuts in half the value of calcium milk could potentially have. The nutritional quality of milk and cheese is altered in the pasteurization process and fat is increa...

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...nerally a more healthy people. Milk has many hazards that are veiled from the public and pose many grave risks to a consumers health.

Works Cited

Cifelli, Christopher J., Isabel S. Maples, and Gregory D. Miller. "Pasteurization: Implications for Food Safety and Nutrition Personal." Nutrition Today 45.5 Sept. (2010): 207-13. WilsonWeb. Web. 8 Feb. 2011. .

"FDA allows Genetically-Modified rBGH to Endanger Milk." Cancer Prevention Coalition. CPC, 27 July 1989. Google. Web. 8 Feb. 2011. .

Lagerquist, Ron, and Tom McGregor. North American Diet. N.p.: International Bible Society, 1984. N. pag. Google. Web. 8 Feb. 2011. .

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