Why No Milk?

A place to get your questions answered from McDougall staff dietitian, Jeff Novick, MS, RDN.

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Why No Milk?

Postby Jaggu » Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:07 am

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for helping us in understanding the nutritional science. After Oil now it is Milk's turn. :cry:

This is context of someone with diagnosed CVD trying to reverse the progression.

I understand that whole milk contains lot of calories and dietary cholesterol.

So those of us who trying to keep their weight in check and keep the cholesterol numbers in check, it is counter productive.

What about Fat free skim milk and skim yogurt? They don't have any fat and only unwanted element in them is 5 mg/cup of cholesterol.

So what's downside of consuming skim milk and yogurt in small amount? Let's say a cup per day?

Is there anything else we need to pay heed to nutritionally speaking?
Jaggu
 

Re: Why No Milk?

Postby JeffN » Wed Mar 05, 2008 8:21 am

Jaggu wrote:Hi Jeff,

Thanks for helping us in understanding the nutritional science. After Oil now it is Milk's turn. :cry:

This is context of someone with diagnosed CVD trying to reverse the progression.

I understand that whole milk contains lot of calories and dietary cholesterol.

So those of us who trying to keep their weight in check and keep the cholesterol numbers in check, it is counter productive.

What about Fat free skim milk and skim yogurt? They don't have any fat and only unwanted element in them is 5 mg/cup of cholesterol.

So what's downside of consuming skim milk and yogurt in small amount? Let's say a cup per day?

Is there anything else we need to pay heed to nutritionally speaking?


Hi Jaqqu

Your welcome.

There is much more to the problem besides the cholesterol and calories, including the protein (which goes up as a percent of calories when the fat is removed).

I will direct you to the many writings Dr Mcd has at this website on the topic. No sense in re-inventing the wheel.

http://www.drmcdougall.com/med_hot_calcium.html

Did you know that Dr Walter Willett, the head of Harvard School of Public Health, recommends that we consider other sources of calcium instead of milk because of the health issues associated with it?

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Postby Jaggu » Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:36 pm

Hi Jeff,

I have read the artciles you pointed out and numerous articles written by Dr McD on dairy and milk.

I see his and your point if you are consuming lots of cheese, milk and yogurt etc they all have lost of fat and lots of dietary cholesterol.

But what about if someone is consuming just a cup of fat free milk or cup of fat free yogurt and no cheese and other dairy products.

The above won't involve fat obviously as it is fat free and since the quantities are so small that it won't involve lots of cholesterol and animal proteins.

What do you think? Does this in any way affect reversal of CVD if otherwise the diet is low fat, plant based, fruits and consists of vegetables, legumes, whole grains etc
Jaggu
 

the 5%

Postby JeffN » Wed Mar 05, 2008 4:19 pm

Hi Jaqqu

With all due respect to you and your questions, I am going to address this from a different perspective because I think you are missing the main point here.

I can not speak for anyone else, but I do not think you can find anywhere where I have said that consuming anything in a small amount is harmful. But I do not understand why people focus on and argue for that issue (how much can i get away with), more so than doing the right thing. Especially if they have a serious disease, and even more so if it is heart disease, the known number one killer in America.

But that is not the point with almost anyone I have talked to, worked with, or seen over the last 3 decades. The problem is that, few people, if any, consume any of these things in small amounts, and at the same time, they do not consume the good things is large enough amounts. Most people consume much more then they think of the things that should be limited/eliminated, and they consume much less then they think of the good things that should consume a lot more of.

But, they keep arguing for these exceptions and before you know it, they have included so many exceptions that the exceptions have become the rule and the healthy foods have become the exception.

Now, you may be the exception but it seems like people want to debate, what about a little oil, or a little dairy, or a little chocolate, or a little wine, or a little soy, or a little cheese, or a little fat, or a little meat, or a little sugar, or a little, salt, or a little tropical oils, or a little butter, or a little eggs etc etc. And, of course, we can prove that little bit of anything, in and of itself, is not going to hurt anyone in the context of an otherwise optimal diet. After all, the human body is amazing.

But, what I see in most people is not anyone consuming a little bit of any of these on occasion but instead I see people consuming lots of these on a frequent regular basis.

We use the French as an argument to drink wine and then we use the Greek as an argument to use oil. But, the French use little oil and the Greek drink little wine. But we just want to pick and choose from each one the items we like and in the end, we have not used these cultures as examples to learn healthy habits, but as rationale to defend our unhealthy habits.

Unless someone has optimal health and on an optimal diet, is the purpose to see how much we can get away with, or how healthy we can become. If you want to climb a mountain should you be more concerned with how to do it as safely as possible and do everything you can to eliminate any risk, or do you want to climb the mountain with as little safety equipment you can get away with and by walking along the edge of the cliff the whole time?

If you had lung cancer, would you be more interested in stopping smoking or more interested in just how many cigarettes you could get by with each day.

If someone has lung cancer the only safe amount of cigarettes is none.

Now, do not take this personally, as you are expressing issues that seem to be inherent to most humans. But, I just want you to consider them as you go forward.

Now, if you were someone who had no health or medical problems, all your biomarkers were excellent, and your intake was 95% or more whole natural unrefined whole plant foods, and you wanted to know what was the problem, then you would need to consider that...

A cup of dairy is 90 calories.

A TB of oil is 120 calories

A TB of sugar is 50 calories

A oz of chocolate is 130 calories

A glass of wine is 120 calories

An egg is 70 calories

etc, etc, etc,

People argue for each one individually but then include all of them everyday. The total of just the ones I listed above is about 600 calories which would be 1/3 of an 1800 calorie diet and 1/2 of a 1200 calorie diet. And that is for just one serving of each.

Here is something to think about.

Smoking is the number one killer in the world. Excess calories (or body weight) are now number two. Not eating enough fruits and veggies is said to be number three. Sedentary lifestyle is said to be number four.

When 140,000 American were surveyed and asked how many of you 1) Do not smoke, 2) are at your healthy weight 3) eat at least 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day (which i think is low), 4) get in the minimum amount of recommended exercise a week (which i also think is low).,

Guess how many did all 4?

Less than 3%.

Guess how many ate the minimum fruit and veggies and got the minimum exercise.

Less than 14%.

Yet, just those 2 were recently shown to add 10-14 years to your life.

Think about it.

Our attention, direction, energy and efforts are all misdirected and most of it is because we confuse marketing and advertising with accurate health information.

We are all on a freight train that is racing towards the edge of a cliff and as we approach it, we are debating over whether cloth or leather seats are more comfortable and/or more protective in an accident.

So, while I am not really worried about what someone does with 5% of their calories, I am really worried about what people do with the other 95% of their calories.

Focus on the 95% first, and do not worry so much about the 5%, no matter what you want to put in the 5% category.

However, if you were really sick and wanting to get well, I would strongly encourage you to focus on the 100% till you recovered your health and were cruising along safely again.

If you are looking for a rationale to support the consumption of unhealthy and unnecessary products, you will not get it from me. However, I will not stop you from consuming any of them either.

It is your life, and your choice.

We do not get any do-overs. :)

So, how are you doing on the other 95%?

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Postby Jaggu » Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:51 pm

Hi Jeff,

I'm glad you answered with a different perspective.

What a post? Your summary and analysis of little bit of dairy or little bit of oil or little bit of eggs is an excellent one. I hope Dr McD gets to see the above post and I beleive it should go in one of the hot topics or sticky newsletters that are out there on McDougall website for people to read.

I will tell you why people( at least why I) ask these questions.

1. As Dr McD wrote in his book, people like to hear good things about their bad habits.

2. We all are accustomed to eating certain food and have developed some taste over a period of time. For e.g. I like to drink tea with milk in the morning, Before my heart attack I used to have a cup of tea with whole milk and then another cup of whole milk with cereal, then I would have tea with milk again when I come back from work, After I had heart attack and came across wonderful resources such as this, we switched from whole milk to fat free milk and restricted it to 1/2 cup of tea with very little sugar in the morning only.

3. There are so many things researchers like yourself have brought to the surface, yet there are so many Grey areas, sometimes you hear fat is good, it raises your HDL, sometimes you read fat is no good. So people get confused and do not know what to do. Whether heart disease or cancer, there are risk factors but nothing is carved in hard stone. For e.g someone eating low fat vegetarian food and no dairy could have heart attack and someone eating double cheese burger and gallon of milk everyday may not have any problem. If there was a clinching evidence that if you eliminated oil or milk, you would reverse the atherosclerosis for sure then people would not have touched it even with the long pole.

That's the dilemma but your above post did a nice job of calling spade a spade. Thanks!
Last edited by Jaggu on Wed Mar 05, 2008 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby susie » Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:03 pm

I fail to see the point of these 'debates'. Jaggu you are simply going over ground that can easily be researched in any of Dr McDougalls books. Most of us have accepted the rational and moved on.

Jeff opf course most McDougallers would be jumping up and down yelling I do all those things. I know I was. :lol:

I disagree with you Jaggu, when you say that just 1 cup of skimmilk does not have a lot of protein. In fact I believe I read that when you take out the fat, the protein content increases.

When I was a kid all milk was raw. Then after several polio epidemics, milk was sterilised and later homogenised. The milk I drank was a lot different to the skimmed milk available today and as my mother only got a pint for the whole day, we didn't drink much of it at all. This was because we did not have a refrigerator and the milk tasted somewhat off by nightfall. I remember being staggered by how much milk was given to American kids. Here kids either drank water, or if like me your mum was English, very weak tea. I remember my mother yelling at us for drinking water straight from the garden tap.

Anyway enough of the rambling. Please cut Jeff some slack. I will bet he has many other things he could be doing other than rationalise his stance for our amusement.
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Postby Jaggu » Wed Mar 05, 2008 7:56 pm

Susie,

Why don't you take your rambling and preachy post somewhere else? I'm grateful to Jeff for helping me and others understand all this. I'm not disagreeing with Jeff's rational, just trying to understand the logic and reasoning behind all this. That is why we have this discussion board. If you have read all the books and there is nothing new for you to know, what are you doing rambling here?

Where did I say a cup of milk did or didn't have high protein? Although I'm trying to understand what consequences a cup of milk can have and how?
Jaggu
 

Postby susie » Wed Mar 05, 2008 8:28 pm

:D
Last edited by susie on Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby JeffN » Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:10 pm

Jaggu wrote:Hi Jeff,

I'm glad you answered with a different perspective.

What a post? Your summary and analysis of little bit of dairy or little bit of oil or little bit of eggs is an excellent one. I hope Dr McD gets to see the above post and I beleive it should go in one of the hot topics or sticky newsletters that are out there on McDougall website for people to read.


Thanks. Glad it was helpful

Jaggu wrote:I will tell you why people( at least why I) ask these questions.


Thanks for your explanation. I was being a little rhetorical in my question as to why people do these things as I do understand why people make these choices (as I said, it is part of being human so do not take it personally) but by asking the question, I am just trying to get people to stop and think about not just their question, but what is going on behind their question. Knowing this, and looking at this, often helps people put things in a better perspective and helps see things differently. I appreciate your personal response though.


Jaggu wrote:That's the dilemma but your above post did a nice job of calling spade a spade. Thanks!


Thanks!

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Postby JeffN » Wed Mar 05, 2008 9:17 pm

Susie,

susie wrote:I fail to see the point of these 'debates'.


We are all human and are at different points and all struggle with these issues and other issues. It is part of the human dilemma and as long as there are humans, there will be these debates/discussions. Otherwise, we would all just do the right thing.

While for some, they are frustrating, and/or annoying, for others they are eye-opening. I have to remember, that while I may know this stuff well and have settled these dilemmas in my mind, many others haven't or are just starting to discover these issues.

susie wrote: Jeff of course most McDougallers would be jumping up and down yelling I do all those things. I know I was. :lol:


See. :) We humans are funny creatures.

susie wrote: I will bet he has many other things he could be doing other than rationalise his stance for our amusement.


Thanks. I do not mind stating my stance and also the rationale behind it.

And, now it is officially here, so we can always refer back to it, without having to repost it. So, it was worthwhile.

Thanks Everyone!

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Thank you Jaggu and JeffN

Postby gail f » Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:55 am

I would like to say that as a person who has just this week turned to the McDougall diet in response to seriously high cholesterol #'s, I have found your exchanges to be extremely helpful...both on the issue of dairy products and oil. The questions posed by Jaggu are questions which I have shared. (I suppose my questioning is a part and parcel of being new to all this, and a part of my resistance to the reality that I have suddenly given up most of the foods I especially love, like shellfish and sitr fry. I am still not completely sure why I am doing this.)
It has been extraordinarily helpful to find answers and indepth reasoning in one place...and I don't mean to sound like a paid advertisement when I say this.
I suppose that for some of those who have been with the program a while, the questions and answers here may seem to repeat what they have already learned, but one of my frustrations as a newcomer has been trying to piece everything together from Dr.McDougall's various postings on the website. This has been a high anxiety week for me, and I am not entirely happy to find that I have to make a drastic change (let alone, a change which is not the statins that my doctor advised.) Having a place to find indepth newbie answers has been a godsend. Many thanks to you Jaggu for thoughtful well-articulated questions, and to JeffN for your carefully crafted answers. From the heart.
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Postby Nettie » Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:04 am

Jaggu wrote: Although I'm trying to understand what consequences a cup of milk can have and how?


The protein in milk is casein, and casein has absolutely been linked to prostate, breast and ovarian cancer.

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cows milk is for calves

Postby Caroveggie » Thu Mar 06, 2008 2:01 pm

Cows are kept continually pregnant to increase the yield of milk production. They are milked while pregnant, given antibiotics, hormones, and who knows what else to increase their milk production and prevent and fight off their diseases. Cow's milk thus has a lot of hormones in it (and IGF-1 - insulin-like growth hormone) which cause cancer cells to grow. (This is in addition to the hormones already in it in a proper amount for a calf.) Their feed is pretty terrible too; calcium is supplemented into their food. They're not chomping on grass any more.

Dr. McDougall does a good job of explaining why milk is perfect for calves but very wrong for humans. You can check out his Marketing Milk & Disease or his books for more info.

Those who abstain from eating animals for ethical reasons but have dairy support the meat industry. The male calves from the pregnant dairy cow mothers become part of the veal industry. Not to mention the suffering and slaughter ahead for the female calves and dairy cows themselves.
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Re: Thank you Jaggu and JeffN

Postby Jaggu » Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:36 pm

gail f wrote: Many thanks to you Jaggu for thoughtful well-articulated questions, and to JeffN for your carefully crafted answers. From the heart.


Hi gail f,

Anyone could ask the questions I asked, what's difficult is to have someone knowledgeable answer them so passionately and persistently without any apparent benefit to them other than personal satisfaction that they may derive from the cause they deeply so believe in.

We are fortunate to have Jeff answer some of these questions as time permits.
Jaggu
 

Postby JeffN » Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:07 am

Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2007 Dec;16(12):2623-30.

Dairy products, calcium intake, and risk of prostate cancer in the
prostate, lung, colorectal, and ovarian cancer screening trial.

Ahn J, Albanes D, Peters U, Schatzkin A, Lim U, Freedman M, Chatterjee
N, Andriole GL, Leitzmann MF, Hayes RB; Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and
Ovarian Trial Project Team.

Higher intakes of calcium and dairy products, a major source of dietary
calcium, are reported to increase the risk of prostate cancer,
potentially due to reductions in circulating vitamin D with increasing
calcium intake. We prospectively examined the association of dairy
product and calcium intake with prostate cancer risk in 29,509 men,
including 1,910 cases, in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian
Cancer Screening Trial. We also evaluated the relation of calcium intake
with serum 25-hydroxy-vitamin D [25(OH)D] and 1,25-dihydroxy-vitamin D
[1,25(OH)(2)D], in a Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Trial
substudy (n = 275). Dietary intake was assessed using a food frequency
questionnaire. Baseline serum 1,25(OH)(2)D was determined by RIA.
Greater intake of dairy products, particularly low-fat dairy products,
was weakly associated with increased risk of prostate cancer [relative
risk (RR), 1.12; 95% confidence intervals (CI), 0.97-1.30; P trend =
0.06 for >2.75 versus < or = 0.98 servings of total dairy/day; 1.23
(1.07-1.41) for low-fat dairy]. Greater dietary calcium intake was
associated with increased risk of prostate cancer (RR, 1.34; 95% CI,
0.93-1.94; P trend = 0.02 for >2,000 versus <1,000 mg/day), but greater
supplementary calcium intake was not associated with the risk.
Associations of dairy product and dietary calcium intake were evident
for nonaggressive disease (RR, 1.20; 95% CI, 0.99-1.46; P trend = 0.01
for dairy products; 1.64, 1.04-2.57; P trend = 0.002 for dietary
calcium), but not aggressive disease (RR, 1.02; 95% CI, 0.81-1.28 for
dairy products; 0.94, 0.49-1.80 for dietary calcium). Calcium intake was
not associated with serum 25-hydroxy-vitamin D and 1,25(OH)(2)D
concentration. In this large prospective study in a prostate cancer
screening trial, greater dietary intake of calcium and dairy products,
particularly low-fat types, may be modestly associated with increased
risks for nonaggressive prostate cancer, but was unrelated to aggressive
disease.
Furthermore, we found no relationship between calcium intake
and circulating vitamin D.


Aggressive or not, I do not want to increase my risks for any prostate cancer.

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