Milk part 1

I am sure most people, by now, have heard of the book "Skinny Bitch"...the latest in dieting trends. I own this book and have flipped through it, but not read it in it's entirety. I do know a few people who have though.

As with all other fad diets, this one is quite an extremist point of view, with some good ideas mixed in. I like to read things like this and go on the "with a grain of salt" approach. Unless written by a doctor or nutritionist (even then it can be biased), we have to understand that, like religion, you cannot simply go on blind faith.

One of the points of the book is that you should stop drinking milk. It claims that it is not natural for cows to produce milk constantly and that their teats can get infected leaking pus into milk. Anyways, there were plenty more claims as to why milk should be banished from your diet.

This really got me thinking. I love milk. Love it. I drink it by the pint glass, so the thought of deleting it from my life was a hard one to swallow. I had dinner at Emma and Kevin's recently and realized I was in perfect company to get to the root of all of this. Kevin works in bovine nutrition and Emma is writing her PhD thesis on cows and milking cows more specifically. Emma and I ended up talking about this for probably an hour and she provided me with so much insight into the fallacies that Skinny Bitch was preaching. "Milk is one of the most perfect foods", she tells me. The treatment of milking cows is a science and art in itself. After much more discussion, she referred me to PubMed and has printed off some articles of scientific studies directly related to milking cows, treatment, illness, etc. and I'm anxiously awaiting to pour through them. Milk Part 2 will be up in a few days once I've gathered more info and can adequately sum up what Emma told me in conjunction with these other studies.

I think my main point in blogging about this isn't directly related to milk but more that people don't spend enough time looking further into something, they are willing to just buy into a fad and change their habits because a pop culture book says so. I am a fact seeker, a scientist at heart so I constantly delve deeper into issues and immerse myself in facts so that I am truly informed from all points of view. To me, doing anything but that would be like walking into a debate without even researching your topic. Blind faith may work for some people and may have a place in religion, but when it comes to science, nutrition and your health, it is only right to truly investigate claims especially when one of the sources is a "self made know-it-all".

Milk Part 2 coming soon.