The Untold Story of Milk: Initial Impressions

After reading a book completely against milk, I found another book all pro-milk. When I first discover it, I was able to read a chapter or two online. What I had read really intrigued me, so I bought the book.

One of the cool chapters discussed the history of milk in the U.S. Really interesting. His history account of raw milk asserts that it was much more common before WWII....

The other cool chapter was one on lactose intolerance and raw milk. He claims that something like 80% of people will lactose intolerance can tolerate raw milk (because the enzyme that digests lactose is normally in milk before pasteurizing denatures it). That makes me wonder, if raw milk has an enzyme to digest the lactose (the primary milk sugar), does that change the way it makes your insulin spike. I commented before how I've read that dairy products spike our insulin, which supposedly equates to negative health consequences when prolonged.

Lactose intolerance is also an age related condition. Your body stops producing as many of the enzymes to digest milk as you age. Or so I've read online and experienced with in my family.

Anyways, I was excited about the book. So I started to read it from cover to cover, only to be met with minor disappointment.

1) A whole chapter related to historical references to milk especially from religious sources is not only not that thrilling, it hurts your argument. It was a long chapter. I know the author really just wanted to communicate that milk has been an integral part of human existence for as long as anybody can remember, but too many references to religious sources makes it sounds like, "See, God is on my side." That's nice, but too much and too boring. It kind of felt like he did Ctrl+F, milk, to the bible.

2) "In the whole range of organic matter, milk is the only substance purposely designed and prepared by nature," (pg. 13, Untold Story of Milk) ----LIAR---- Pants on Fire. Did Ron Schmid (author) forget about the whole category of fruit? It's sweet and alluring, with lots of wondering nutrients, made from nature, AND it wants you to eat it!

How else are those seeds going to go anywhere and propagate? Yes, the wild wind is going to carry the entire fruit + seeds off. How many times have you seen seeds in your crap? Okay, maybe you don't investigate, but they rarely get digested. You have to actually bite them open to get the insides digested. That's a very bitter taste which encourages us not to bite them. Fruit + seed = benefit for us and the plant. This is also the main reason why I'm a little skeptical about eating seeds for nutrients. I believe the whole foods that are good for us will also taste good. Seeds are not yummy in and of themselves.

While I was looking forward to reading this book, it ain't perfect. Good thing I read the other chapters first, or I would have less motivation to read this thing from cover to cover.