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What Is Milk?

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What is milk? Milk is the first food we taste. It is therefore associated with comfort and strength. We live in a milk consuming society where infants, adolescents, and adults drink milk. Milk sales reach eleven billion dollars annually in the United States alone (McDougall). Incredible advertising campaigns, such as “got milk?” portray celebrities and beautiful, healthy people who ensure us that milk is essentially good for us. In 1999 alone, this campaign cost one hundred and thirty million dollars and raised sales by 0.7 percent (Nestle 79). Other forms of advertising for milk and its imperative importance in our daily lives, include page long ads constructed as articles on accredited magazines, such as The New York Times, claiming …show more content…

First of all, none of the authors spoke of cow's milk as an excellent food, free of side effects and the 'perfect food' as we have been led to believe by the industry. The main focus of the published reports seems to be on intestinal colic, intestinal irritation, intestinal bleeding, anemia, allergic reactions in infants and children as well as infections such as salmonella. More ominous is the fear of viral infection with bovine leukemia virus or an AIDS-like virus as well as concern for childhood diabetes. Contamination of milk by blood and white (pus) cells as well as a variety of chemicals and insecticides was also discussed… Many of these diseases can be accredited to the drugs that are found in milk. Today’s cows produce twenty five times more pounds of milk a year than twenty five years ago (Kradjian). This was achieved by giving the cows drugs, hormones, antibiotics, and forced feeding plans. When the FDA tested milk using very lenient standards, their data showed that fifty one percent of the samples had drug traces. This is why dairy products have been among the most recalled foods by the FDA due to contamination (McDougall). Unfortunately, today, this has even affected mothers’ milk, which can now be infected with pesticides (Kradjian). Pesticide residues are an important subject because they are directly linked to cancer and chronic fatigue. Also, hormone residues are

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