Hacker News Reader

Comment by vfc1 | Hacker News Reader

Cow's milk is full of growth hormones and fat, including saturated fat and cholesterol, but I think the worst is probably that it's a cocktail of bovine growth and female hormones.

It is highly allergenic and linked to asthma and acne for example.

Those bovine growth hormones throughout our lives can't be good, making some tissues grow continuously that should not grow past adolescence, like the prostate.

Here is a series of videos on the multiple issues that milk has been linked to, from cancer to more - https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/milk/

As an alternative to plant milk, water in this breakfast also works great, the plant milk doesn't really change that much the flavor.

View on HN

This may be specific to US non-organic milk.

I know someone who considered herself lactose-intolerant in the US due to bad reactions from drinking milk, came to the UK to live for a while and realised she didn't get a reaction from the milk, and then worked out that it was exactly what you're talking about - the extent to which US cows are fed on all sorts of things that are allergenic.

There could be all sort of reasons, but cow's milk no matter what we feed the cow it's still a cocktail of bovine hormones.

The cow just gave birth and its in lactation period, so its hormones are through the roof no matter what. Plus the cow is often already pregnant with the next calf, which further enhances the female hormonal content.

The growth hormones naturally present in the milk are meant to boost a calf from birth to 500 pounds in less than a year, let's think about that.

That bovine hormonal content and fat content is not meant for human consumption, humans only adapted to digest it about 10K years ago, and most humanity is still lactose intolerant.

It's just not normal to drink the milk of another species, especially in the massive amounts that we do.

> That bovine hormonal content and fat content is not meant for human consumption, humans only adapted to digest it about 10K years ago

10,000 years isn't a short time. The same could probably be said about potatoes or cereals.

> most humanity is still lactose intolerant.

It really depends where. Eg. among Northern Europeans it affects only about 5% of the population.

>It's just not normal to drink the milk of another species, especially in the massive amounts that we do.

I may be mistaken, but the backlash against cow's milk seems to often have an ideological component to it.

Tubers like potatoes have been eaten since forever, those starchy foods that only humans (through cooking) and very few animals digest have been a staple since forever. Also, wild grains were consumed before that.

Yes but northern europe is only a tiny fraction of mankind, I believe most africans, asians and native americans are lactose intolerant.

This means that digesting milk is something new enough that the majority of mankind is not adapted to it. Also, lactose intolerance comes in various degrees and gets worse over age, so even people that don't have it might develop it.

I don't think that there is a mainstream backslash against milk, but if it would I think it would be scientifically based more than anything.

There is just so many scientific links between excessive consumption of cow's milk since birth to all types of illnesses.

Yes, some of us can digest it, but is it healthy food to be consumed every single day, under the form of yogurt, cheese, etc.?

Besides the high hormonal and fat content, it contains casomorphines that are addictive and are meant to keep the calf constanly next to the mother.

I think the idea that we were sold that milk is one of the best foods available and that it makes strong bones (it's actually linked to osteoporosis) is just pure marketing.

The food wheel we were taught growing up was in many places made by the food industry themselves, which I hope would be forbidden by now.

The official recommendations are adapting, did you see the latest food wheel from Canada? https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/

> Cow's milk is full of growth hormones

This is true in the US, but not everywhere.

Are you thinking of recombinant growth hormones? Milk naturally contains growth hormones, no matter which country the cow resides in, which is what the parent is referring to.

> Are you thinking of recombinant growth hormones?

I might be yes, I could be mistaken.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com