Milk & Ayurveda
Traditionally pure milk has been advocated in Ayurveda for many conditions. Ayurveda also prescribes the diet for the cow and says that cows should be treated with love & respect, so the milk we get is "Sattvic" (pure). Milk is said to suppress the stomach fires and cause heaviness and sleepiness. So milk is used in Ayurveda to soothe the stomach for peptic ulcers, heartburn etc. It is also used to induce sleep and to calm down the person. It is used to induce weight gain in children & invalids especially in those people with a Kapha (watery) constitution.
Milk is known in Ayurveda to increase "Kapha" or phlegm and is thus stopped as a part of the treatment of conditions like cough, sinusitis, bronchitis, asthma, colitis, diarrhoea, obesity etc. In traditional folk medicine in India it is usual to stop milk when ever a patient has any of these complaints. Current western research substantiates this belief and has found a strong association between the consumption of dairy products and ear infections, sinusitis, bronchitis, eczema and asthma.
Milk, Heart Disease & Cancer.The expert panel of the US Department of Agriculture constituted to review advertisements for milk, concluded that whole milk consumption, was associated with an increased risk for heart disease & prostate cancer. They recommended that advertisements promoting whole milk, should indicate these health risks, as more than 16 studies had shown a conclusive link between milk consumption and these conditions.
Milk from many commercial dairies contains bovine growth hormone which is injected into the cow to increase its growth and milk production. This is associated with an increased risk of diabetes, breast and colon cancer.
Intolerance to milk can be a result of lactose (milk sugar) intolerance or an allergy to any of its other constituents. Today the commonest allergies are to milk proteins like casein, lactalbumin and lactglobulin resulting from the increasing use of pesticides on the cows' fodder and also from antibiotics added to the fodder. The cow eats large quantities of grass and tends to concentrate pesticides in its body which is then secreted in the milk. If the grass contains 10 parts of pesticide per million and the cow eats 20-50 kg of grass a day over 3-4 years the concentration of pesticide in the cow's meat rises to 500-1200 parts per million which is well over the toxic limit. Some samples of cow's milk have a few hundred parts per million compared to the "acceptable if still unsafe" limit of 5 parts per million.
Allergies to milk fat are less common. Butter and cheese are concentrated from milk and as most pesticides are fat soluble most of the free pesticide in milk is carried in the fat content. As the fat content in cows milk is about 3.5 % the preparation of butter concentrates this by 25 times and gives you up to 25 times more pesticide than drinking cows milk! This dissolved pesticide is able to be absorbed into the body relatively easily and damage the liver and immune system, greatly increasing the risk of cancer. Hence labeling of butter, cheese and ghee should carry a mandatory analysis of the pesticide, hormone and antibiotic content in each batch.
Cheese contains between 20-60% of fat and hence contains 6-20 times more pesticide than the milk from which it was prepared. Low fat cheeses are likely to contain less pesticide than high fat cheeses but more prone to cause allergic reactions because of the higher protein content.
Some people who are unable to tolerate milk are able to tolerate cheese and yogurt. This is because the milk protein is broken down by an enzyme called rennet, during the process of making cheese, into smaller pieces which are too small to be recognized by the body's immune system. Similarly they may also be able to tolerate yogurt, because the fermentation of milk by lactobacillus breaks down the milk protein & lactose into smaller segments which do not react with the antibodies. A safe recommendation is if you are allergic to milk, avoid all dairy products.
Traditionally pure milk has been advocated in Ayurveda for many conditions. Ayurveda also prescribes the diet for the cow and says that cows should be treated with love & respect, so the milk we get is "Sattvic" (pure). Milk is said to suppress the stomach fires and cause heaviness and sleepiness. So milk is used in Ayurveda to soothe the stomach for peptic ulcers, heartburn etc. It is also used to induce sleep and to calm down the person. It is used to induce weight gain in children & invalids especially in those people with a Kapha (watery) constitution.
Milk is known in Ayurveda to increase "Kapha" or phlegm and is thus stopped as a part of the treatment of conditions like cough, sinusitis, bronchitis, asthma, colitis, diarrhoea, obesity etc. In traditional folk medicine in India it is usual to stop milk when ever a patient has any of these complaints. Current western research substantiates this belief and has found a strong association between the consumption of dairy products and ear infections, sinusitis, bronchitis, eczema and asthma.
Milk, Heart Disease & Cancer.The expert panel of the US Department of Agriculture constituted to review advertisements for milk, concluded that whole milk consumption, was associated with an increased risk for heart disease & prostate cancer. They recommended that advertisements promoting whole milk, should indicate these health risks, as more than 16 studies had shown a conclusive link between milk consumption and these conditions.
Milk from many commercial dairies contains bovine growth hormone which is injected into the cow to increase its growth and milk production. This is associated with an increased risk of diabetes, breast and colon cancer.
Intolerance to milk can be a result of lactose (milk sugar) intolerance or an allergy to any of its other constituents. Today the commonest allergies are to milk proteins like casein, lactalbumin and lactglobulin resulting from the increasing use of pesticides on the cows' fodder and also from antibiotics added to the fodder. The cow eats large quantities of grass and tends to concentrate pesticides in its body which is then secreted in the milk. If the grass contains 10 parts of pesticide per million and the cow eats 20-50 kg of grass a day over 3-4 years the concentration of pesticide in the cow's meat rises to 500-1200 parts per million which is well over the toxic limit. Some samples of cow's milk have a few hundred parts per million compared to the "acceptable if still unsafe" limit of 5 parts per million.
Allergies to milk fat are less common. Butter and cheese are concentrated from milk and as most pesticides are fat soluble most of the free pesticide in milk is carried in the fat content. As the fat content in cows milk is about 3.5 % the preparation of butter concentrates this by 25 times and gives you up to 25 times more pesticide than drinking cows milk! This dissolved pesticide is able to be absorbed into the body relatively easily and damage the liver and immune system, greatly increasing the risk of cancer. Hence labeling of butter, cheese and ghee should carry a mandatory analysis of the pesticide, hormone and antibiotic content in each batch.
Cheese contains between 20-60% of fat and hence contains 6-20 times more pesticide than the milk from which it was prepared. Low fat cheeses are likely to contain less pesticide than high fat cheeses but more prone to cause allergic reactions because of the higher protein content.
Some people who are unable to tolerate milk are able to tolerate cheese and yogurt. This is because the milk protein is broken down by an enzyme called rennet, during the process of making cheese, into smaller pieces which are too small to be recognized by the body's immune system. Similarly they may also be able to tolerate yogurt, because the fermentation of milk by lactobacillus breaks down the milk protein & lactose into smaller segments which do not react with the antibodies. A safe recommendation is if you are allergic to milk, avoid all dairy products.