Hi All,
A week after embarking on my Vegan adventure, I experienced a sudden bout of dizziness and muscle pain. A brief Google search revealed a possible cause – Dairy Detox. I had no idea that such a thing existed. I’ve gone off coffee before and experience awful headaches for a couple of days during the detox process and I’m aware that when one cuts sugar out of their diet they can experience ‘die-off’ symptoms as the bad yeast literally dies, but I had no idea that dairy that dairy would have such an effect.
Apparently, dairy has proteins called casomorphins that act like opiates. They attach to the same brain receptors as heroin and other narcotics. Cheese, in particular, has a concentrated amount of these proteins. After reading several blogs, many vegetarians admit that their addiction is cheese is why they find the transition to veganism difficult.
I have been a cheese and milk lover my entire life. I have always been of the belief that a glass of milk is good for promoting strong bones. But is it? Most of what we hear about when it comes to the healthfulness of meat & dairy is fed to us directly by the meat & dairy industry or via non-profits and/Government organizations that sponsored by that industry. Just as with the Tobacco Industry proclaiming for years that nicotine wasn’t addictive or a carcinogen, the meat & dairy industry has no motivation to be 100% transparent about exactly what is in milk and how it affects the body.
Let’s face it, the purpose of milk is to take a calf and build it into a 400lb animal as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Why then, do humans need to be consuming such a powerful brew? Before we learned how to milk cows, did we really need dairy products in our diet? Different cultures discovered processes like fermentation & conversion of milk into cheese for the purpose of getting through a long, cold winter. We ate such products to survive. But now, these products are available 24/7. In present-day society, we have no need to go in a ‘survival mode’ as we have everything we need at our fingertips.
Beyond the fact that we don’t really need to be consuming dairy (or meat for that matter) for our survival, the older I get, the harder it is for to justify the animal cruelty involved. I was under the impression that with milk, the cow had a calf, nursed the calf, then humans continued milking because if they didn’t, the cow would get illnesses such as mastitis. I’m sure somewhere deep down, I knew there was some kind of incorrect information here, but my love of milk prevented my doing further research. The fact about dairy cows is this: they are impregnated every year in order to stimulate the milk production. After birthing a calf, yes, of course, they must be milked, but only because the calf is taken away.
In short, the animal that truly needs the milk, the calf, suckles only for a couple of days then is removed from its mother & feed grain etc, just so that us humans, who aren’t in need of such nutrient-rich product can consume the milk. Does this make any logical sense at all?
After the years of indirect cruelty, I have added to the lives of animals, my day of dizziness and muscle aches is a small punishment. For those out there who choose to consume milk for health benefits, ask yourself this: What other product, that is also beneficial for you, is addictive? If it’s addictive, chances are, it’s not as good for you as you want to believe.
Happy eating & reading.