Using Organic Dairy Products
May Just Save Your Life!
We strongly recommend that everyone switch to organic dairy products specifically organic milk and organic cheese. That is unless you don't mind an overdose of IGF-1 and know for a fact that you and your family are immune to serious medical problems.
All milk based products, whether they're non organic dairy products or organic milk and organic cheese, contain a certain amount of IGF-1.
The following is an overview of something we consider to be of great importance to anyone who uses dairy products. Let us show you why you need to stop using non organic dairy products. Why you need to make the switch to organic dairy products to reduce you possible exposure to excessive levels of IGF-1.
What's that, you want to know what IGF-1 is? We'll get to IGF-1 in a bit, but first we need to give you some information on how it gets in dairy products to start with.
All cattle produce a substance known as Bovine Somatotropin (BST) more commonly known as Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) which is a natural occurring growth hormone produced by a cow's pituitary gland.
As BGH passes through the bloodstream of a cow some of it is converted, by the liver, into a naturally occurring endocrine hormone known as Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1).
This naturally occurring IGF-1 hormone found in cattle is identical to the IGF-1 hormone found in humans. Be patient we have more on IGF-1 in a bit.
There is a man made synthetic version of BGH produced, by Monsanto Corp., through a process called recombinant DNA technology.
The synthetic version is known as Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) which is a genetically engineered copy, or GMO, of the naturally occurring hormone. You may also hear rBGH referred to as Recombinant Bovine Somatotropin (rBST).
WHY IT'S SO IMPORTANT TO USE ORGANIC DAIRY PRODUCTS
As part of the FDA approval process for rBGH, Monsanto was required to submit a report showing all of their research and the results of that research.
One of the members of the Monsanto dairy research team was a lady by the name of Margaret Miller. Margaret Miller was not only one of the researchers but she also compiled and authored the report of findings.
A short time before Monsanto was to submit the report to the FDA, Margaret Miller resigned her position at Monsanto. You see Margaret had new job opportunity within days she reported to her new employer, the FDA.
One of Margaret's first duties in her new position with the FDA was to review with the assistance of Susan Sechen, another former Monsanto researcher, a report from Monsanto on one of their new products, rBGH.
Margaret Miller was given the responsibility, by our government's FDA, of either approving or rejecting her own report. What do you think her decision was?
Margaret Miller knew from her research that cows were getting sick, they were getting mastitis. Because of the mastitis higher doses of antibiotics were required.
Because of the higher doses the levels of antibiotics in the milk from those cows also increased. As a matter of fact the levels raised significantly, enough to put them over the government mandated limits.
Another area of responsibility included in Margaret's new job was to review the old FDA allowable antibiotic limits in non organic dairy products and to make any necessary adjustments.
Adjust them she did. Margaret adjusted the FDA acceptable levels of antibiotics in milk from 1 part per 100 million to 1 part per million. In other words she increased the acceptable limits of antibiotics in milk by 100 times.
In 1993 the FDA approved the use of rBGH in dairy herds in the US.
Even before rBGH was released in 1994 there were strong allegations that the testing was not only inadequate but that it and the FDA approval were both biased.
Another individual at the FDA involved in approving the use of rBGH was Michael Taylor.
Michael Taylor, former Monsanto attorney and vice-president for public policy, served as the FDA Deputy Commissioner for Policy from 1991 to 1994 and was complicitous in the FDA approval of rBGH.
As part of his duties, Taylor made the final decision for the FDA, that rBGH derived dairy products did not need to be labeled as such.
Under normal circumstances dairies which use rBGH inject their cattle every 2 weeks thereby artificially maintaining higher levels of "BGH" at all times as well as increasing IGF-1 levels. More on IGF-1 in a bit, I promise.
Their justification, if there is any, for the use of rBGH is that it increases milk production.
In reality rBGH circumvents a cow's naturally occurring lactating/dry cycles forcing it to continue milk production during what should be the dry portion. This increases the annual milk production by 10% to 15%. But it also short circuits a cow's natural cellular regeneration process.
Veterinarians and researchers nationwide voiced major concerns about routinely injecting cattle with rBGH. Of primary concern was that rBGH would cause cattle to be prone to development of infections such as mastitis, reproductive and digestive disorders and reduction of overall physical condition.
The one concession so far is that Monsanto is now required to list approximately 20 health risks to cattle on their product label.
However, the FDA still does not require labeling of dairy products that come from cattle treated with rBGH. As a matter of fact, Monsanto has established a lobby group that is trying get state lawmakers to force dairies to stop advertising that they are rBGH free.
In his book, Got (Genetically Engineered) Milk?, Dr. Samuel Epstein of the Cancer Prevention Coalition reports from his research that among other problems:
• rBGH milk often contains pus from mastitis caused by the rBGH
• rBGH milk contains traces of antibiotics used to treat the mastitis
• rBGH milk is chemically and nutritionally different from natural milk
• rBGH milk has higher levels of IGF-1 than natural milk
A study, done in Wisconsin, by the Family Farm Defenders found an annual death rate of 40% for cows routinely injected with rBGH. This means that rather than living their normal 15 to 20 year life span cows injected with rBGH were dead after and average of 2 1/2 years.
Cattle from the dairy industry which die account for approximately 40% of the ground beef in the US. Is that really what we want to be feeding our families?
It appears that, for the most part, the concerns voiced prior to the release of rBGH have turned out to be justified.
For all of these reasons, and more, rBGH is banned in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and all 27 member countries of the European Union.
The use of rBGH in dairy herds has lead to an increase in the levels of a substance known as IGF-1 in their milk. There are measurably higher levels of IGF-1 in these milk products and the meat of these cows than those found in organic dairy products and their cows.
This substance, IGF-1, occurs naturally in both cows and humans and they are identical, can't tell one from the other. The IGF-1 found in organic dairy products is at levels that are beneficial to the development of young human bodies.
The main responsibility of IGF-1 is cell production, growth and division. In its function of assisting with cell production, growth and division IGF-1 promotes the growth of both normal and abnormal cells.
IGF-1 is also a strong inhibitor of normal cell death, thus the change in a dairy cow's cycle.
IGF-1 is only one part of the natural growth, development, death and replacement cycle of cells in the bodies of both humans and cattle. There is a delicate balance between all parts of the natural cell life and death cycle.
This cell life and death cycle is what controls the constant physical changes during human fetal development. If the process is out of balance birth defects occur. IGF-1 also helps regulate the growth and development of the body after birth.
Normally the highest levels of IGF-1 in humans are found during the teenage "growth spurt" time frame.
High levels of IGF-1 are also found in men with prostate cancer, women with breast cancer and individuals with colon cancer. Research to determine if the elevated levels of IGF-1 are the cause or an effect of the cancers is still not completed. However, the evidence is pointing to it being a contributing factor rather than an effect of the cancers.
All of this should be raising questions for those of you who are using non organic dairy products. The questions being:
• Are the higher levels of IGF-1 in these products causing cancer?
• Why wasn't this research done first?
• Might IGF-1 promote other types of cancers?
• Is this exposing children to unnecessary cancer risks?
• Do you really want to take this chance?
So, it would appear that there are dairy farms all across the US that are willing to poison their cows to gain a little volume while seriously degrading the quality of their milk.
The American public is being exposed to chemically altered dairy products simply so Monsanto can make a profit. There is no real quality benefit for anyone found in the use of rBGH.
Our advise, find a local dairy or grocery story that carries organic dairy products and make the switch to organic milk and organic cheeses.
Once we made the switch we realized just how much better unaltered organic dairy products taste.
Are you using organic dairy products? If not, WHY?
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