All Figured Out

I could think of no better name for today's column than
"All figured out." That happens to be the title of the
latest milk mustache ad which appears on page 7 of the
February 5, 2007 issue of TIME magazine.

In that ad, a mother holds her infant. The text reads:

"All figured out...Milk has 9 essential nutrients new
moms need."

What are these 9 essential nutrients? A few years ago, I
interviewed a few dozen people within the dairy industry.
My list of persons included doctors who work for the industry,
marketing agents, scientists who did milk research,
dairy nutritionists, and even FDA and USDA bureaucrats.
Not one person had a clue as to the nature of those nine
essential nutrients, but trust me...I've been following
this story full-time for nearly thirteen years, so yes,
I do know what nine nutrients of which these ads speak.

In nature, there are twenty-eight amino acids. Nineteen are
manufactured in one's liver. The other nine amino acids are
universally referred to as "essential, which means that
they must be obtained in the foods we eat." The nine
essential nutrients are these following nine amino acids:

Arganine, Cysteine, Histadine, Isoleucine, Leucine,
Methionine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, and Tryptophan.

Soy milk also contains each one of the nine "essential"
ingredients listed by the dairy industry.

Just for the heck of it (there were no football games on
television yesterday afternoon), I invested a few hours
of my Sunday afternoon fun time and looked up a few
commonly eaten foods in order to determine whether
they also contained those nine "essential" nutrients.
The results are remarkable.

USDA FOOD DATA: <http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search >

Tiny URL: <http://tinyurl.com/374bf8 >

Do carrots contain these 9 essential amino acids? Of course
they do. So do broccoli and apples. Soymilk is loaded with
the same nine essential aminos as cow's milk, and in every
single category, an equal amount of tofu contains two or
more times the amount of each and every one of the dairy
industry's nine essential amino acids.

The dairy industry's claim is accurate, but it is also phony.
They would have you believe that cow's milk is so very healthy
because it contains something "magical." Just about every
fresh food appears to contain these NINE essential amino acids.

Even mollusks such as the lowly clam have all of the
identical nine essential amino acids. Total the weight
of these aminos in a 100 gram portion of milk and one
comes up with 1.04 grams. Total the weight of the
nine essential amino acids in a 100 gram portion of
clams and you get 4.19 grams, greater than a 400
percent increase. That being the case, we ask the
milk industry, respectfully, to clam up and cease
and desist with their continued phony marketing clam,
er, claim.

To the deceiving liars who work for the dairy industry
and promote cow's milk as if it is something special:

We've got you all figured out.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com
i4crob@...