From: dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
Subject: Re: Quitting milk, another reason (was: winning argument w/meat eater)
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 03:26:13 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.181926.1918@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu> red_trek@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu writes:
>To add to the ethical reasons for not consuming milk:  there are
>good health reasons too.
>Chances are, if you drink milk and eat cheese, you do so as a way
>of getting calcium.
>This is the most incredibly self-defeating thing you can possibly do.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

>1)  The kind of calcium present in milk is apparently not in the 
>best form for your body to absorb it anyway (I'm not clear on this,
>someone please follow up to this and add more info:  is it something
>to do with the lactose and the fact that 3/4's of the population
>can't absorb lactose?  What the heck does lactose have to do with
>calcium?!!).

Actually, if you're not lactose intolerant, the calcium in milk
products is quite well absorbed.  If you're lactose intolerant, you get
diarrhea and cramps if you eat too many milk products because you don't
produce enough on an exzyme called lactase which digests the
disaccharide sugar into the simple sugars glucose and galactose.  If
lactose is not digested before it reaches the large intestine, it
becomes a feast for your colonic bacteria (Remember them?  Hi guys!)
The resulting organic acids and gases from its bacterial digestion
cause the problem.  I don't know what the percentage is of lactose
intolerance off-hand in different racial/ethic groups.  Essentially,
you'll know it if you are intolerant and you've eaten a milk product
lately.  (Can you spell "colon cleansing"? :-))  Some people find that
yoghurt not only can be tolerated, but that it has a protective effect,
perhaps because the bacteria in yoghurt will continue to digest any
lactose in foods eaten along with the yoghurt.

>2)  If you consume too much protein (i.e. more than the minimum
>your body needs to remain healthy) your body starts leeching calcium
>from your bones to process the protein.  You probably get all the
>protein you need from all those beans, rice and veggies you eat 
>each day (or tofu, tempeh etc if you go for that sort of thing --
>though you'd better eat plenty of beans too simply for the fiber).
>Drink milk too, and you start getting excess protein.  The more
>milk you drink, the more calcium your body loses!

I really have to dispute how strongly you are making this assertion.
This seems to be the new truism among vegans, but it seems to be based
on a rather controversial interpretation of some epidemiological
studies.  And, another point is that mainstream nutritionists and
specialists on osteoporosis don't even reference such studies, nor is
overconsumption of protein ever, ever, ever considered as a contributing
factor in calcium balance or osteoporosis.  In most cases, mainstream
medicine and vegetarian wisdom are concordant in their understanding,
but this is an example where the two are wildly out of sync.  This
ought to sound a bit of a warning bell to anyone who thinks that conven-
tional medicine isn't completely a crock.  In this particular case,
I'm not going to say that the vegans are wrong (mainly because I
haven't looked at any of their assertions or their supporting studies
critically enough), but I worry that their conclusions are suspect.

Now, if this were simply a matter of taste, it wouldn't be an issue.
However, when people make dietary recommendations which might have
physiological consequences, it becomes a bit more serious.  For example,
there have been studies that point to the time around puberty and the
teenage years as being crucial for women to develop adequate bone
density.  A poor calcium intake, measured in the study by dairy intake,
leads to a condition where a woman might be more prone to osteo-
porosis later on, after menopause.

>So:  try soymilk on your cereal in the morning.  It has less calcium,
>true -- but your body probably absorbs more of it, so in practice
>it comes out to around the same, if not better, than milk in terms 
>of the calcium your body absorbs.

Soymilk has about 1/7 the amount of calcium as milk according to
my references (55mg/cup versus 325/cup).  Anyone looked at the side
of a soymilk container for calcium content lately?  What's it say?

>If you stay away from meat, deep fried stuff, heavy oils, heavy use
>of butter (even vegan butter), eggs, and cheeses, and you don't eat
>a lot of fatty candies, cookies etc, then you may be getting so
>little fat you may actually *want* to have 1% or 2% soymilk
>(not the nonfat soymilk which seems pretty much impossible to find
>anyway) to make up for it:  you do need, as I unerstand, to maintain
>a diet in which about 10% of your calories come from fat, esp.
>unsaturated fat, so your body can absorb vitamins more efficiently.
>So if you've been procrasinating making the switch because you can't
>find nonfat soymilk -- fear no longer!

Weall, it would be difficult indeed to eat a diet much lower than
5% calories from fat, and 10% is a stretch for many people, even
vegetarians.  I'd invite them to do the arithmetic and decide.

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg