If I where to give you only one dietary advice to improve your long-term health my choice of advice would be easy. Not that there are few options, nor because this is a cure all, be all tabloid kind of advice but simple because it is related to a dietary component so clouded in misinformation that most people view it as a critical health booster, unknowingly feeding a wide range of welfare illness.
So here it is: No dairy products.
Yes, that means milk, cheese, butter, cream, ice cream, and more. Why? Because dairy is full of growth hormone, bacteria and mucus and linked to illness such as cancer, osteoporosis, Crohn’s and many more. Before we break it down and look at the illnesses linked to dairy let’s have a brief look at the dairy industry.
Dairy is big business
The dairy industry in US turns over 100 bnUSD (source) with the 50 largest companies accounting for 75bnUSD. It’s not only a highly concentrated business but also highly industrialized. The number of farms with less than 500 cows continues to drop annually, from 2001 to 2009 the number of small farms dropped by 33,000! At the same time farms with more than 500 cows continued to grow with the mega farms, more than 2000 cows, grew a whopping 128% (source). 50% of the annual US milk production come from 3.7% largest farms (source). Due to the high level of industrialization the US dairy farms only employs around 140.000 full time employees (source), keeping in mind that the smaller farms typically are a family business without hired labor.
Just over 12% of the American food budget is spent on dairy products (source). The average American consume around 200 pounds of milk (fluid milk and cream) per year (source), that’s approx 200 pints per year (95 liters) so around half a pint per day (2,6 deciliter per day). The US dairy consumption per capita is still only half that in Northern Europe, Finland leads the pack with 184 liters per capita, followed by Sweden at 146 liter, Ireland 3rd with 130 liter and then the Netherlands with 123 litres (source). Simplified but quite accuratly one can say that the “richer” country the higher milk consumption per capita.
What’s the problem?
Well, where to start… Firstly, isn’t it a bit odd that the human is the only animal on the plant requiring milk from another animal to be healthy? Yet, we have only domesticated cattle and started drinking their milk in the last 10.000 years. Thus, our default design clearly doesn’t require dairy to survive. And as established above high milk consumption correlates very well with a country’s level of welfare. In other words, high milk consumption correlates well to the prevalence of welfare diseases. In a series of articles we will look at couple of the typical welfare diseases and the link to milk consumption.
Stay tuned.
About Fredrik Lyhagen
Fredrik Lyhagen is one part of the tag team running
Reintegrate. Fredrik draws on his experience from an international career in sales and management and combines it with his passion for eating clean, moving freely and living consciously to inspire and assist people on their inner journey. You can also follow Reintegrate on
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