New Study: Milk Promotes Female Growth & Breast Cancer

The June, 2009 issue of Cancer Epidemiology,
Biomarkers Prevention (2009 Jun;18(6):1881-7)
includes a study in which 5100+ premenarchal
American girls (ages 9 and up) completed annual
surveys from 1996-2001 providing height, weight,
and past year's diet.

The title of the study:

"Dairy consumption and female height growth:
prospective cohort study."

Researchers then analyzed data to determine three
factors:

1) annual height growth
2) peak growth velocity
3) adult height

RESULTS (in the author's words):

1) Premenarchal girls who drank >3 servings per day
of milk grew 0.11 in. more the following year than
girls consuming <1 serving per day.

2) Baseline milk and dairy protein predicted taller adults.

3) Dairy protein was more important than dairy fat, for
all outcomes.

4) Nondairy animal protein and vegetable protein were
never significant, nor were nondairy animal fat and
vegetable fat.

Scientist's conclusion:

"Of the foods/nutrients studied, dairy protein
had the strongest association with height growth."

The study also had this historical scientific
perspective to add to their findings:

"Because of its nutrients and anabolic hormones, cow's
milk may promote height growth, which in turn has been
related to breast cancer risk."

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Dog Bites Man (Again)

I like dogs. Some of my best friends are dogs.
Each morning, different members of a neighboring
family walk their pit bull past my house. At
times, the dog passes when I am retrieving
newspapers from my driveway at 6 AM. This dog
violently attempts to break away from his leash
and I fear that if he could, would enjoy ripping
me to pieces. He is the most vicious creature
I have ever seen. I fear him. He does not just
bark or growl. The noise he makes is a bark-growl
and it is loud and never ending. I know well
enough to avoid a lethal encounter.

"Dog Bites Man" stories are so commonplace
that newspapers rarely print them because
they have become boring and just not newsworthy.

America's media has taken the same attitude
towards meat recall stories. Who cares anymore?
Not the mothers who line their cars at McToxin
and BurgerColi takeout windows. Not my next
door neighbors, whose nightly cow sacrifices
fill the air with the mixed bouquet of napalm
and charcoal-broiled flesh.

Last week (June 22nd, 2009) the JBS Swift Beef Co.
of Greeley, Colorado had 41,000 pounds of processed
dead animals recalled by the United States Department
of Agriculture (USDA) because of bacterial infections
which sickened 24 meat eating people.

This week (June 29, 2009), USDA increased that recall
to include 380,000 pounds of product.

It is clear that slaughterhouses and meat processors
have learned nothing form the tainted meat stories of
the past. It is also clear that the media no longer
finds such meat recall stories interesting.

There is only one way to guarantee that you do not
get sick by eating a portion of diseased meat.

Go veggie!

Now to the dairy processors...

Yesterday (June 29, 2009) a Minnesota milk processor
recalled the last two years of dried milk products which
they manufactured after USDA inspectors got around to
doing their job and found salmonella in the firm's
processing equipment.

Plainview Milk Cooperative sold most of their dairy
products in dried form to other food manufacturers.
These dairy products include when protein, fruit
stabilizers, thickening agents (gums) and nonfat
dried milk.

USDA food scientists simultaneously found salmonella
in 100-gram pouches of Plainview's "Dairyshake powder."

In both cases, the toxins were in Plain View!

Don't you wish you could take leisurely two-year
vacations like USDA inspectors do and still get paid
six-figure government salaries with full medical
benefits and attractive retirement packages for your
so-called work effort?

Just as humans avoid lethal encounters with vicious
dogs, they should also avoid lethal encounters
with toxic foods. Do not become another dog bites
man story.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Dairy's Secret Plan: Screw the Consumer

If you're a regular Notmilk reader, you've learned
that milk does not do your body any good. If you've
yet to be weaned, prepare to pay the price at the
supermarket checkout counter.

Israelis and Arabs kissing and making up?
Yankee fans and Met fans holding hands?
Democrats and Republicans in meaningful relationships?
One dairy farmer working with another?
When hell freezes over, perhaps.

The improbable has happened. Not only are two
dairymen sharing the same opinion, but thousands
have signed onto a new agenda called CWT or Co-ops
Working Together.

In CWT, farmers are being compensated to reduce
or eliminate their herds by sending some or all
of their cows to slaughter. They reason that the
fewer cows there are, the less milk there will be
and the greater will be the retail cost of milk
and dairy products.

Question:

Ding dong...Why not just discontinue the genetically
engineered bovine growth hormone which would
accomplish the same industry-wide goal?

Answer:

The rocket scientists are still working for NASA.

The economic hardships currently being shared by dairy
farmers will soon shift to consumers. Since so
many products include milk and dairy additives,
prepare yourself for runaway inflation to be fueled
by the food industry.

The largest dairy-farm lending bank is Wells Fargo.
Bank economists estimate that dairy milk futures
will double by this time next year as a result of
CWT. Expect to see the wholesale price of milk soar
from $11 to $23 per 100 pounds during the next
12 months.

Michael Swanson, Wells Fargo & Co. economist expects
higher prices for dairy commodities. In June of 2009,
many supermarkets are selling butter for under $2 per
pound. By next year, Swanson expects to see the
wholesale price of butter at $3.94 per pound and
cheddar cheese at $5.10 per pound. Barrels of cheddar
are presently trading in the $1.10 per pound range.

So, vegans and dairy consumers alike, you're now privy
to the industry's inner-sanctum strategy. What will you
do with this information? Play the futures market?
Stock up on milk powder? Keep a cow in your backyard?

We are in for harsher times than the one we are now
living in. It will soon become time for dairy farmer
tears to morph to laughter. Cheese omelette eaters?
The yolk will then be on you.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Exciting Vitamin B-12 Food Discovery

"The mushroom is the elf of plants,
At evening it is not;
At morning in a truffled hut
It stops upon a spot."
  - Emily Dickinson

Fans of Tolkien's "Hobbit" and "Trilogy" know
that a Hobbit's favorite food is the mushroom.
When I was a student at the Culinary Institute
of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. in 1976, my most
memorable culinary experience was eating a
mushroom stew consisting of button mushrooms,
morels, cepes, and chanterelles.

The June 24, 2009 issue of the Journal of
Agricultural and Food Chemistry contains an
exciting revelation for vegetarians and
vegans seeking a reliable plant source for
Vitamin B-12.

Australian researchers at the College of Health
and Science, University of Western Sydney,
(Koyyalamudi SR, et. al.) published this study:

"Vitamin B-12 Is the Active Corrinoid Produced
in Cultivated White Button Mushrooms."

The scientists concluded:

"Analysis of vitamin B-12 in freshly harvested white
button mushrooms...showed vitamin B-12...identical
to those of the standard vitamin B-12 and those of
food products including beef, beef liver, salmon,
egg, and milk...The results suggest that the consumer
may benefit from the consumption of mushroom to increase
intake of this vitamin in the diet."

Notmilkman's advice: Just say no to overpriced and
ineffective pseudovitamin B-12 supplements and enjoy
that inexpensive fresh source of B-12 found in the
flesh of common supermarket-bought mushrooms.

Notmilkman's Mushroom Stew

INGREDIENTS

2 large shallots
1-2 cloves garlic to taste
1 Tb Olive Oil
1/2 cup dried Chinese Shitake Mushrooms
1/2 cup Dried Chinese Wood Ear (tree fungus)
1 cup Button Mushrooms
3 cups (1 cup each) of 3 different fresh mushrooms
(various varieties are available at Whole Foods,
Wegmans, Asian markets, or in Christopher Robin's
100-acre woods)
1/2 cup minced Parsley
1-2 vegan bouillon cubes to taste

METHOD

Pour boiling water over dried mushrooms and let
steep for 10 minutes. Reserve liquid. Cut into bite
sized pieces. Discard stems.

Slice fresh mushrooms into large bite-sized pieces.

Mince shallots and saute in olive oil.
When tender, add garlic and continue cooking
for an additional 20 seconds.

Add fresh slice mushrooms and stir fry for
4-5 minutes. How do you know when they are
done? The taste test is best.

Immediately add 2 cups of reserved broth left
over from soaking dried mushrooms.

Add bouillon cube(s) to taste.

Serve over noodles or rice.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Knife in the Eye to the Dying Dairyman

Dairy farm expenses are at historical highs.
That includes the cost of cow feed, fuel, and labor.
Wholesale milk prices are at a historical low.
Dairy farmers are closing their barn doors. Some
are going bankrupt. Others are committing suicide.

Just when California dairy farmers thought that their
industry could not get any worse...

Due to rising medical costs and a surging rise
in disability claims, California insurance companies
will be raising their workers' comp rates by 34
percent.

Today, California dairy farm owners pay about $11
every week for each $500 paycheck paid to an employee.
A 34 percent increase would cost that dairyman an
additional $3.74 per worker weekly. Doesn't sound
like much? A small farm with 10 employees would
translate into a $37.40 weekly increase, or nearly
$2,000 per year increase. For a dairyman unable to
pay his hay bill, this will become his last straw.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Taming the Media

South Korea, Thursday, June 18, 2009.

Four television producers from Korea's largest
broadcast network and one news writer have been
indicted for crimes against their nation because
they supposedly aired a "biased report about
Mad Cow Disease" and created a controversy where
there was none.

The prosecutor's office issued this statement:

"Such distortions and seemingly deliberate
mistranslation led ignorant viewers into
believing that they faced a large threat
from mad cow disease. As a result...two
government officials' social reputations
were severely damaged."

The television program (PD Notebook, Korea's
equivalent of America's 60 Minutes) aired in
April of 2008.

Included in that show were interviews with
American Mad Cow Disease "experts."

As a result of that television program, beef
imported into Korea from the United States was
temporarily banned after citizens took to the
streets in protest.

Due to a series of bizarre events, American eyes
have turned towards the Korean Peninsula.

John McCain is in today's news, but in a manner that
few Americans could ever have imagined.

The USS John McCain, a United States naval destroyer,
is shadowing the Kang Nam, a Korean cargo ship which
American intelligence experts believe is carrying
nuclear material and/or nuclear weapons. The John
McCain is not named after the U.S. Senator who lost
his presidential bid to Barack Obama. It is named
after his father and grandfather, both Naval Admirals
who performed heroic deeds.

On Wednesday (June 24, 2009), North Korea threatened
to wipe out the United States. Earlier this month
North Korea threatened to fire a long-range nuclear
tipped Taepodong-2 missile at Hawaii. That threat was
made after the North Korean government suspended the
truce which ended the Korean War. In other words,
war has been declared on the United States.

South Korea and the United States once enjoyed
a very close relationship. I happened to have
been in South Korea a few years ago when relations
rapidly soured because of all things, sports.
During the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics of 2002,
a champion Korean skater was disqualified and his
gold medal was taken away, and while this event
was hardly noticed by Americans, it represented
a major insult to all Koreans. The incident has
not been forgotten, but it was made much worse
by one American soccer player who, after scoring
a goal against South Korea's soccer team pumped
his arm and danced in a skating motion.

Tens of thousands of people rioted in the streets
of Seoul as a result, and it was not safe for an
American to walk the streets. To make matters
worse, Jay Leno included this joke in his opening
monologue:

"South Korea threatened to sue and boycott the
closing ceremonies. The Korean president was so mad
he went home and kicked the dog, and then ate him."

That added fuel to the fire.

Anti-American feelings in Korea have never been
more intense. The beef ban was payback for very
bad sportsmanship.

The current prosecution of television executives
is a South Korean signal to America that there
has never been a better time for healing, albeit
at the expense of news crews just doing their job.
South Korea's gesture is a confused reaction to
their Northern neighbor's most recent actions.

Is Mad Cow Disease a myth? All the Kimchee in
Korea would not tempt me to take even one taste
of Bulgogi, Koreas's legendary barbecued beef.

Now, only if North Korea's brain-challenged leaders
would stop acting as if they have Mad Bull Disease.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

The Beginning of Dairy's Ending

I first found the seed to this story in a PRNewswire
press release:

http://sev.prnewswire.com/retail/20090615/DA3228615062009-1.html

History will one day record this news as the first
corporate stride towards the end of milk and dairy
consumption.

Dean Foods is the largest milk and dairy distributor
in the United States. Dean Foods is also the largest
soymilk distributor (SILK).

Last week, Dean Foods announced that they are buying
Alpro, Europe's largest soy product distributor for
a sum which approaches $500 million.

Since Dean foods controls the shelving space which
displays the majority of dairy products sold in
American supermarkets, and since Dean foods has
learned that there's more money in soy than in dairy,
expect to see Dean/Alpro domination in future dairy
case products which will include soy milks, soy
yogurts, and soy cheeses.

The marketplace defines what foods consumers eat
today and in the future. which translates into
very bad news for dairymen, and wonderful news
for soybean farmers.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Another Spurious Fish Story

The crappie is a prized Wisconsin game fish. See:

http://www.crappie.com/johna/johna_files/crappie.jpg

Two dairy industry milk mustache ad executives
swallowed hook, line, and sinker their own hype
which suggested that eating Omega 3 oils in fish
or drinking Omega 3 in milk from grass-grazing
cows was good for human brains because it prevented
Alzheimer's disease. They failed to locate any
cows which grazed on grass. Instead, they went
fishing in Lake Wisconsin and caught so many
crappies that their large bucket overflowed so
they returned to shore and took their catch home.
During the drive home, the first milkstache
executive said to the other, "I hope you remember
the spot where we caught all those fish."

Second Executive: Yes, I made an 'X' on the
side of the boat to mark the spot.

First Executive: You idiot! How do you know
we'll get the same boat?

*********************

Which leads us to a genuine scientific fish story
that is one week away from publication, which
will shatter the popular myth regarding the need
for Omega 3 oils to prevent Alzheimer's Disease.

The July edition of the American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition (Vol. 90, No. 1, 170-176, July 2009) contains
a study which assessed the consumption of Omega 3 oils
in fish and future risk of dementia. The researchers
evaluated 5,395 participants in their Rotterdam study who
were free of dementia and reported dietary information
at the onset of the study. They then followed up an
average of 9.6 years later and determined that the
intake of Omega 3 oils played absolutely no role in
preventing dementia.

Scientists (Elizabeth E Devore, et. al) concluded:

"In this Dutch cohort, who had a moderate consumption
of fish and omega-3s, these dietary factors do not
appear to be associated with long-term dementia risk."

So what do we conclude:

You can throw back the Omega 3 lie and your can throw
back the Wisconsin fishing joke, because both represent
a big bucket of crappie.

Oh, yes, those milk mustache executives. They ended up
cleaning and then eating their entire catch. Some say
that they were totally full of crappie. A few years
later, they both developed dementia. As a result, their
I.Q.s increased by an average of fifteen points and each
received a promotion.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Hazardous Ice Cream Social

Four things a sane person should not do:

1) Drive the family car into a brick wall at 100
miles per hour just to check if the airbag works.
2) Pour a gallon of gasoline onto your campfire
to impress the kids.
3) Perform your "The Ayatollah is Jewish and Gay"
comedy routine while drinking shots of tequila
during a Hezbollah convention in Mashhad.
4) Feed the same powerful growth hormone to cancer
survivors for which baseball players receive 50
game suspensions.

Two days from now, California's Humboldt County
will experience a "Eureka moment" if only a few
thousand Notmilk readers become activists and
send one or more email letters (addresses below).

On Thursday, June 25th, 2009, Humboldt's cancer
survivors will be treated to an ice cream social.
The event is being sponsored by the Humboldt County
Relay for Life which seeks to raise money for
cancer survivors.

Ice cream is the world's #1 unhealthy food.
It is also the most delicious. There is neither
controversy nor debate regarding those statements.
What many people do not know is that dairy products
contain the key factor to cancer's growth.

Do you doubt a dairy consumption/carcer connection?
If so, you are cordially invited to contradict any
one or more of these ten scientific references:

http://www.notmilk.com/b.html

The Relay for Death people believe that they are
being kind to the cancer survivors. They are not.
Feeding growth hormones to cancer survivors is
similar to pouring gasoline on a fire or driving
a car at high speed into a wall.

Please let Eureka, California know.

The ice cream social will be held at the Umpqua Bank,
Humboldt Bank Plaza, 2426 6th St., Eureka on Thursday,
June 25, from 3:30-6:30 p.m.

If you can attend, please print and distribute this
information:

http://notmilk.com/b.txt

The bank CEO is Ray Davis. Please let Ray know
the nature of his bank's error. His toll-free number:

866-4-UMPQUA (866-486-7782)

Ray's secretary is Lorelei Brennan and your email
to her will get to Mr. Davis:

LoreleiBrennan@...

The Humboldt American Cancer Society office can be
reached: 707-443-2241. The men and women answering
the telephone will probably not care about what you
have to say. Their primary function is to collect
money. Should you call, please do your best to
respectfully educate them.

I have already discussed and shared this information
with the organizer of the ice cream social. I do not
understand how, in good conscience, she can allow this
event to happen, but that is her current intention.

The cancer society's director is Barbara Walfer.
Her email address:

Barbara.Walfer@...

Take your activism to another level. The Eureka, CA
newspaper is the Times-Standard. The city editor is
James Faulk. His phone: 707-441-0507. His email:

Editor@...

Good luck! We have two days to make a difference for
a group of cancer survivors who might still have
cancer cells in their bodies.

Won't you please make a difference?

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

Meat-free Mondays

For those who eat primarily a meat and potato
diet, this is a start. Every journey begins
with a first step and this once-a-week food
experiment might lead to twice-a-week or more.

Paul McCartney and other celebrities are promoting
vegetarianism by supporting a "Meat-free Monday"
campaign.

McCartney, Kevin Spacey, Woody Harrelson, and many
other celebrities are taking this stand to make a
meaningful contribution to:

"...a cleaner, more sustainable, healthier world."

Forget the environment for a moment.
Set aside compassion to animal issues.
Ignore the recession and weekly budget
concerns (meat cost more than veggies).
Let's focus on concern for your body.
Become vegetarian for a day and you'll
give your digestive system a day off.

Become vegetarian and review the scientific
support for a plant-based diet:

http://www.notmilk.com/y.html

Sounds good to me!

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Offensive Sexual Odes to Milk

Late Show host David Letterman recently insulted
Sarah Palin's daughter with an off-color joke and
was taken to task by America's pit bull/soccer mom/
Governor of Alaska. Letterman quickly recognized
that he was in over his head after he began to lose
advertisers, and he immediately offered an apology
on his Tuesday night June 16, 2009 show. The joke:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMmKMX44gWk

In that same spirit of offending young women, the
dairy industry has again blundered into an offensive
commercial geared at West Coast Hispanics.

The Toma Leche dairy industry has produced three new
45-second milk ads which guarantee Barbie Doll-like
perfection to Spanish-speaking women if only they will
drink milk. The message is clear: Macho Spanish-speaking
males will have nothing to do with females who do not
resemble the male image of female perfection.

In their press release, the dairy industry writes:

"Each mock-romantic poem concludes with the line:
'No one writes poems about...' as a reminder of
the power of milk to contribute to health and beauty."

According to the press release, the first ode
contains this message:

"A woman without the dairy wonder tonic, is left with
teeth as yellow as the radiant sun. Her lover proposes
permanently erasing the image of her unsightly teeth by
sealing her mouth with an eternal kiss. The poem ends
with the tagline, 'No one writes poems about ugly teeth...
Inspire them...TOMA LECHE."

The press release continues:

"The second poem mockingly praises a woman for her dull,
frail and weak hair. Her lover tenderly caresses her
limp curls, which break off in his hand. To remind
young adults that drinking milk can help produce the
beautiful, shiny hair they've always wanted, the video
closes with, 'The proteins in milk help hair grow strong
and healthy'."

Finally, the dairy industry writes:

"The third poem informs viewers that milk can also
help produce smooth skin. The poetry speaks of a woman's
rough, dry and cracked skin, comparing it to the dried-out
desert and a nail file. Similar to the other two, the
video ends with the line, 'No one writes poems about
dry skin. Inspire them.'"

To insult a Vice-Presidential candidate's teenage
daughter who birthed a child after a date with a
high school friend by suggesting that A-Rod was
standing by...that was a joke, however poorly
it was conceived and delivered.

BUT...

To suggest to the young men and women of an entire
culture that there are certain physical values which
men must treasure in women, and prescribed ways in
which women must act to satisfy a man's expectations
is a discredit and insult to an entire people.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Obama Takes a Life & That Bugs PETA

This recent story was initially censored by America's
media. President Barack Obama callously killed a
living creature, then joked about it while being
filmed for a CNBC interview. The tragic death was
actually captured on film.

After Barack made the executive decision to call
in the White House SWAT team to end the life of
an annoying pest, the People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA) issued this statement:

"He isn't the Buddha, he's a human being and
human beings have a long way to go before they
think before they act."

The Abraham Zapruder film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTpiwngOg7I

PETA now offers a humane way of dealing with future
potential flying terrorist incidents:

https://www.petacatalog.org/prodinfo.asp?number=HP220

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

America's Hush-Hush Tuberculosis Epidemic

Are you aware that 42 herds of dairy cows and beef
cattle are under quarantine in Nebraska because some
of the animals have tested positive for tuberculosis?

Have you heard this info, or would you consider the
shocking news item to be one of those censored stories
which our government does not want consumers to know?

South Dakota ag authorities are on alert as numerous
Nebraska cows from infected herds were sent to their
state. Not to worry though. Those potentially diseased
cows were slaughtered and have already been consumed
by trusting humans who had no idea they were eating
flesh from diseased animals.

On March 16, 2009, the Notmilk letter reported that
California cows were under USDA quarantine for
tuberculosis.

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/notmilk/message/3203

This past week (June 16, 2009), USDA reported that
herds of cattle in Texas tested positive for
tuberculosis.

Why such a concern? TB from cows cannot be passed to
humans, can it?

"Infected raw milk is the chief means by which
milk-borne tuberculosis is transmitted to man."
  - Journal of Dairy Science, 19:435, 1936

"Researchers and regulatory authorities were meeting
to halt the rise and spread of tuberculosis from cows
to humans, and to bring incidence to eradication levels."

Hoard's Dairyman, March 10, 1959

"Some strains of mycobacteria, similar to those that
are associated with tuberculosis, have been found to
survive pasteurization."
  - National Mastitis Council, 1970, Washington, D.C.

"Many diseases such as tuberculosis are transmissible
by milk products."
  - Journal of Dairy Science 1988; 71

"The causative (tuberculosis) organism in cattle, called
Mycobacterium bovis, is one of the most heat-resistant
of the non-spore forming pathogenic bacteria, but
fortunately it is destroyed by pasteurization. A cow
with pulmonary tuberculosis may swallow her own saliva
and this, with the infected material coughed up from the
lungs, then passes through the whole digestive tract,
and remains as an active form of infection. Particles
of infected dust or manure may contaminate the milk,
or it may be infected directly from the tubercular udder."

Modern Dairy Products, by Lincoln Lampert

Some really bad news: New strains of antibiotic
resistant tuberculosis are challenging America's
medical community.

We can quarantine infected cows and infected herds.
Quarantine infected humans? It just does not work
as Australia learned after a June 11, 2009 Qantas
Air flight:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526362,00.html

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Chilling Reception for Controlling Political Party

Tonight (Thursday, June 18, 2009, 4:00 to 6:30 P.M.)
marks the official launch date of America's new
political party:

The Ice Cream Party

If you should attend, don't be surprised when you're
not allowed in. In order to get your free ice cream,
you've first got to be CONNECTED to those crooks in
Congress who sell their votes. If you decide to
go and stand outside, why not print and distribute
this reminder of the ice cream industry's way of
doing business

http://www.notmilk.com/trickydick.html

The public is NOT invited to this enormous free
ice cream event which will scoop up 1,600 gallons
of ice cream and frozen yogurt, 6,000 root beer
floats and 44 cases of sundae toppings for members
of congress and their children.

The event will take place at the Upper Senate Park
next to the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol
Hill in Washington, D.C.

(Cross streets: Constitution Ave. and Delaware Ave.)

The International Dairy Foods Association and
the National Cheese Institute are sponsoring the
event.

MEDIA CONTACT: Peggy Armstrong at (202) 220-3508
parmstrong@...

Talk about buying votes! Too bad for the dairy
industry that little kids cannot vote.

With tomorrow's irritable bowels resulting from
all that ice cream consumption, the trickle-down
beneficiary of this new party will be the Charmin
Toilet Paper company.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

This One Made Me Smile

I subscribe to Hoard's Dairyman, the self-described
"National Dairy Farm Magazine."

Yesterday (Tuesday, June 16, 2009), I received my
June issue. Better late than never, I thought.

The front cover boldly reports, "June is Dairy
Month." I knew that, having written the last column
of May and the first column of June announcing same:

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/notmilk/message/3279
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/notmilk/message/3280

A page-422 story had this title:

"Brand New Ways to Celebrate Dairy Month"

Keep in mind: I received my June issue sixteen days after
National Dairy Month began. Get ready for a litte bit of
irony and a lotta bit of screw-up...

The Hoard's article advises readers to kick off National
Dairy Month by contacting "your local hospital" and asking
to be informed when the first baby of June is born. Then,
the pro-dairy readers are instructed to deliver gifts to
the mother and child (dairy related toys, stuffed cows,
etc.) and simultaneously contact their local newspapers
for a photo op.

The article warns:

"Chances are good that the new mom and baby will only
be in the hospital for a day or two."

Duh.

Talk about shutting the barn door after the cow escaped.

This creative new program becomes another example
of the most mismanaged incompetent major industry
in America. An industry which produces more and more
milk as demand continues to decrease and then wonders
why prices are going down, throwing all dairy
producers into their severest historical depression
amidst America's cyclic recession.

Perhaps in 2010, the dairy industry might celebrate
June as National Dairy Month sometime in September.

QUESTION:
Is this Hoard's editor dumb, or what?

ANSWER:
A) He's a quart low in the crankcase.
B) He's one French fry short of a Happy Meal.
C) If he was twice as smart, he'd be a half-wit.
D) All of the above

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

NYC Asthma Stench

There was a small article on page 24 of the
Sunday New York Daily News (June 14, 2009)
which headline captured my attention:

"Asthma is 10 Times Worse for City's Poor"

The article pointed out:

"The starkest disparity is between East Harlem
and the Upper East Side, just a few blocks to
the south, according to the study by City
Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens)."

The study reveals that the per capita income of
those living on the Upper East Side is $77,000,
while the per capita income of those living in
East Harlem is $23,000, yet, nearly ten times
as many people in the East Harlem neighborhood
end up in hospital emergency rooms with
life-threatening asthma attacks as do people
living on the Upper East Side.

Gioia's solution is to spend millions of dollars
re-construction "ventilation in schools near
busy roads."

New York does not need to improve the air, but
it certainly does need to clear the air.

I recall a similar story in the New York Times
(4/19/03) in which it was revealed that one out
of four children in Harlem tests positive for asthma.

America's national average asthma rate runs about
six percent, or nearly one child out of seventeen.

Scientists tested 2000 children under the age of 13 living
in one 24-block New York City Harlem neighborhood and found
that 25.5% of the kids had asthma. The researchers are
clueless as to the cause, but have observed that the asthma
rate has doubled since 1980.

For many children, living in Harlem means living below the
poverty level. USDA runs an anti-nutrition program called
WIC (Women/Infants/Children). The foundation of WIC's food
giveaway program is subsidized milk and dairy products,
purchased at retail to bail out failing dairy farmers who
have no other outlet for their surplus product.

Our government also feeds 28 million school kids each day
with their National School Lunch Program and School
Breakfast Program (SBP). Those milk meal giveaways cost over
6 billion dollars per year, which does not include the cost
of medical treatment for asthma attacks and asthma medicine.

In attempting to explain exploding asthma rates, the New
York Times article reported:

"East Harlem and the South Bronx also have a heavy
concentration of diesel bus and truck traffic, and the
tiny particles in diesel exhaust are thought to be
another serious asthma trigger."

Environmental considerations are all very important, of
course, and everybody wants more than one breath of fresh
air each day, but not one of the factors cited by the Times
has doubled since 1980. One factor, though, not considered
by researchers, has more than tripled. In 1980, the average
American was eating just ten pounds of cheese per year.
Today, the average American consumes thirty-one pounds of
cheese.

Eighty percent of milk and cheese protein is casein. When
casein is isolated from milk, it becomes the glue to adhere
a label to a bottle of beer. Casein is the glue used to hold
together wood in furniture. When a child living in Harlem
eats cheese or ice cream, this allergy-causing milk protein
triggers the production of histamines, which in turn create
mucus. Sometimes, the reaction takes as long as 12 hours.
Tonight's slice of pizza may trigger tomorrow's asthma
attack.

Asthma is not the only result. Milk hormones interfere with
a child's ability to learn. It is a wonder that only one out
of four kids living in poverty have asthma. Perhaps the
other three are fortunate enough to be severely lactose
intolerant, and avoid complimentary bovine secretions like
the plague.

Ninety-five percent of African-Americans cannot tolerate
lactose. Pizza and ice cream taste delicious on the way into
their bodies. Lactose is a sugar and most people need the
enzyme lactase to break down lactose into glucose and
galactose. Intact, this sugar is broken down in the
intestines by bacteria and the results are gas, bloating,
and intestinal distress.

Milk contains powerful hormones. Rates of sexual maturity in
children are astounding endocrinologists and behavioral
psychologists. A recent study revealed that eighty percent
of nine-year-old African-American girls have developing
breasts.

Children are becoming overweight at an early age. By eating
high caloric food with growth hormones and saturated animal
fat, the body has a way of listening to the signals of those
chemical messengers: Grow!

One out of five children has Attention Deficit Disorder
(ADD).

A study in the Journal of Autism (Robert Cade) linked
ADD with the consumption of a milk protein, casomorphin.

Herman Mitchell, an asthma researcher and epidemiologist,
has this comment regarding the shocking Harlem asthma data:

"This is certainly one of the highest rates attributed in
the United States, if not the highest."

Dairy is a major part of Harlem's in-school food culture.
That same bad habit has become an addiction of the streets.

The poorest children in America begin their day at schools
with milk and cereal for breakfast. Snack time provides
chocolate milk and cookies. Lunch means macaroni and cheese
or pizza. The casein within the mozzarella cheese and
cheddar insures poor digestion, and sets into motion a
reaction by which the bronchioles of a child's lungs clog
with mucus.

Here is what happened to one very famous American who lived
and died by the milk mustache. Flo Jo choked on her body
fluids, dying from an asthma attack. Her autopsy:

http://notmilk.com/deb/flojoms.html

How many more generations of cluelessness will it take?
How many more asthma attacks will kill the nation's
poorest children who continue to eat a deadly poison?

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

My Pathetic Column Written Two Years Ago

Two years can be a lifetime, and in my case,
it certainly has been. I had to laugh after
reading a Notmilk column which I posted in
mid-June of 2007:

**************************
**************************

Each day, as a result of a close encounter with a
40-foot trailer, I pop about fifteen pills consisting
of:

60 milligrams of oxycontin
45 milligrams of oxycodon
20 milligrams of opana
16 milligrams of hydromorphone

I plan on spending the summer mending, reading,
watching lettuce and tomatoes grow in my garden,
and watching Yankee baseball on television.

There are many kinds of I.Q. tests. To many
professionals, the most reliable is the WAIS or
WISC (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale or the
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children).

I have my own personal test based upon crossword
puzzles. Each day, I get the New York Times, Daily
News, and Bergen Record delivered to my driveway.
Crossword puzzle fans know that as the week progresses,
the puzzles get increasingly harder so that Friday's
New York Times is a challenge that few people are
capable of completing. I once prided myself on being
able to do all three Friday puzzles in under an hour.

The three Monday puzzles would sometimes take me
less than 30 minutes and I always do them in pen.
The drugs have had an affect on me. I rarely finish
Friday's puzzles. Monday's can take me through a
full eight-hour day, when I am so motivated. I've
kept a backlog of puzzles, just for the heck of it.

My brain is just not working right under the influence
of the drugs I am taking to numb the pain. Writing a
Notmilk column has been an obligation, but now it is
a challenge that I am having trouble keeping up with.
What once took me five minutes now takes me five hours.

I'll get through it, I think. I hope. These days, I am
living a life without meaning. A life without purpose.
Yes, it can get a bit depressing. Each day, hundreds
of people write personal emails to me asking for one
form of help or another. It is an effort to respond,
but I do. What else is there? Really, nothing.

I have learned even more to count my blessings for the
little things. Jennifer (my eldest daughter) still
cannot beat me in Scrabble, but the games are getting
closer. I win only because there is no time limit
between turns and I have been lucky enough to get all
the good letters. The esses, q, z, x. The blanks. My
life has become a blank.

From time to time, I'll post a column if I can, but I
can no longer maintain the daily pace. Forgive me.
The surgeons have not been able to heal me. Last week,
the new x-rays and CAT scan were more than disappointing.
I have decided not to have another surgery with a large
piece of implanted cadaver bone. I know too much about
CJD to have to live through the potential nightmare of
having a ticking time bomb placed in my spine.

The most fun I have? Three or four times each week I
am driven to the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus, NJ.
I race from one end to the other in my wheel chair. I
might be unable to walk, but I am developing very
powerful arms. I have fantasies of playing Jon
Voight in Coming Home. I will be coming home again.
That is a promise I intend to keep.

**************************
**************************

Two years later. Mid-June, 2009. I am completely free
of drugs. I will not even take an aspirin for the
occasional pain...

I am also walking two miles per day, with the intention
of increasing that workout. Each night I apply RICE
(rest, ice, compression, elevation) to body parts not
used to the exercise. What do they say? No pain, no gain!

"Exercise is done against one's wishes and
maintained only because the alternative is worse."
- Dr. George Sheehan

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

NOTMILK - Organic MILKS the Consumer

AURORA DAIRY: "Your Honor. USDA never took away our
organic certification, despite the fact that our
milk was not organic."

U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE: "Not guilty."

AURORA SPOKESPERSON: "We are delighted with Judge
Webber's decision and believe the court has correctly
ruled in finding that the USDA and its certifying
agents have the exclusive authority to implement
organic regulations."

PLAINTIFF: "Judicial review of organic certifications
is needed to make sure consumers are protected."

__________________________________________________

SUMMARY: A Lawsuits was filed after Mark Kastel of The
Cornucopia Institute discovered that Aurora Organic
Dairy violated a number of organic standards, yet
continued to sell their milk through CostCo, Safeway,
Target, Wal-Mart, and Wild Oats while charging extremely
high prices "organic-milk" prices for their non-organic
milk.

The judge ignored the evidence presented by the consumer
protection agency ruling that whether the milk was organic
or not had no bearing on the case since USDA never removed
Aurora's certification.

BOTTOM LINE: Consumers pay for the word "organic" while
getting ripped off and the crooks are supported by the
courts.

NOTMILKMAN'S ADVICE: Buy local. Buy fresh. Just say no
to organic meat and dairy. It's a con job. As a matter
of fact, many fruits and vegetables grown in South
America claim to be organic, yet, they are sprayed
with DDT and other dangerous pesticides before being
loaded on the boat or airplane (a requirement of APHIS)
so that no dangerous bugs enter the United States.

If you purchase "organic" produce grown south of the
border or "organic" dairy or meat, you are, in the
words of one of baseball's all time greats, a...

"I don't recall your name but you sure
were a sucker for a high inside curve."
--Bill Dickey (NY Yankee Hall of Fame Catcher)

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

America Needs Dairy Farmers

Suicide.

That's the word one hears more and more these days.
Despondent dairy farmers are taking their own lives
at an alarming rate, and experts expect things to
get much worse before the end of 2009.

The Centers for Disease Control reports suicide data
for only seventeen of America's 50 states. These data
will become public knowledge years after anybody
officially comes to terms with this horrendous trend
which is known to all who work within the dairy industry.

State-by-state...California, Iowa, Pennsylvania...
suicide hotlines report an enormous spike in dairy
farmers reaching out for one last opportunity to
prevent their only way out of their current mess.

The news of a dairyman's suicide is rarely reported
by mainstream media, but the Internet carries details
faster than those speeding bullets which now claim lives.

During the past two months, two California dairy farmers
shocked their colleagues by taking their own lives.
Shrinking income and skyrocketing debt are not listed
as the cause of death by county coroners. Severe stress.
Financial pressures. Depression. Mental disease. Those
are the words which heard in the eulogies of our
hardest working citizens.

This nation needs to recapture that work ethic which
once made America great. There is no greater example
of this work ethic than that which is demonstrated by
a dairyman. By placing his future and hopes in the
hands of unethical lobbyists, dairy co-ops, and
industry leaders, the dairyman has been betrayed
and is now seeking the ultimate solution which is
no solution at all.

Dairy farmers need guidance as family farms close.
Dairy farmers need counseling. Dairy farmers need
a federal bureau to help them replace the dairy farm
with another career choice. With a magnificent 24/7
dedication to their careers, America needs to channel
that spirit.

Dairy farmers who lose their farms need not lose their
lives. There should be options in agriculture or other
industries available to those who toil long and hard
hours with no reward.

The dairy industry is a dying industry, but the dairy
farmers spirit need not be a dying construct. In the
darkest day, there is always hope, and suicide should
never be the final option.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Cinematic Hot Potato

It begins today.

The following article has been circulating on pro-dairy
Internet groups. I received my copy on Wednesday, June
10, 2009. They call it: "Cinematic Hot Potato". This is
the worst nightmare of milk and meat farmers. I could
not have written it any better.

****************************

NEW YORK (AP) — The new documentary "Food, Inc." begins
with idyllic scenes of American farmland, panning from
golden fields of hay to a solitary cowboy rounding up a
herd of cattle. Then the camera zooms in on a grocery
cart overflowing with packaged food and rolling down
the aisles of a gaudily lit supermarket.

Eerie, horror movie-style music swells in the background.
It's meant to signal the audience that the pastoral fantasy
of agrarian America on everything from packages of breakfast
sausage to cereal boxes is not what it seems, that great
danger lurks behind the cheery images of 1930s-era red
barns and white picket fences.

Director Robert Kenner is bent on showing us a far grimmer
reality. He tells of dust-choked poultry houses where chickens
never see the light of day and are pumped so full of chemicals
they produce more meat than their organs can support.
Eventually they collapse under the weight of their abnormally
large breasts and die before reaching the slaughterhouse.

He shows us industrial feed lots where cows are fattened on
chemical-enhanced feed and forced to spend their days standing
ankle-deep in manure.

Kenner relates the heart-wrenching story of Republican-turned-
activist Barbara Kowalcyk, who prowls the halls of Congress
with her mother to try to force lawmakers to enact food safety
legislation that she believes could have saved the life of her
2 1/2-year-old son Kevin, who died of E. coli poisoning 12
days after eating contaminated hamburgers.

Kenner is hoping his film will raise awareness of the
enormous price in health and safety that he says Americans
pay to gorge themselves on the relatively cheap calories
that stock supermarket shelves courtesy of a handful of
multinational corporations.

Just as the Oscar-winning 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient
Truth" helped galvanize the fight against global warming,
Kenner and his partners want to spur legions of activists
to rise up and take aim at lawmakers and government
regulators they believe have been corrupted by lobbyists
for agribusiness.

An alliance of trade associations that represent the
nation's meat and poultry producers have set up a Web
site to counter virtually every claim in the documentary,
from the contention that E. coli contamination could be
reduced by feeding cattle grass instead of grain, to
charges that federal inspection agencies are understaffed
and ineffective, and food borne illnesses are on the rise.

The food industry says the film has "an astonishing
number of half-truths, errors and omissions" and that
scrapping current production methods in favor of locally
grown, seasonal organic food would result in a dramatic
increase in food prices and fewer fruits and vegetables
year-round.

Janet M. Riley, senior vice president at the American
Meat Institute, says that contrary to the menacing image
presented in the film, the industry — comprised of
"ordinary, hardworking people" — provides "the safest,
most affordable, most abundant food supply in the world."
She also says it would be foolhardy to abandon modern
food production methods during a global recession, when
people are starving in parts of the world.

"Why would we want to turn the clock back to a less
efficient way to produce food?" she says.

Kenner's arguments will be familiar to readers of "The
Omnivore's Dilemma" author Michael Pollan, whose numerous
books and articles have decried the physical and even
moral hazard of the industrial food system. Pollan is
featured in the film, as is "Fast Food Nation" author
Eric Schlosser, who wrote the best-selling 2001 expose
of the fast food industry that was later turned into
a movie.

Pollan, who has criticized industrial agriculture for
a decade, calls Kenner's documentary "the most important
and powerful film about our food system in a generation."

He says the director has broken new ground with his
reporting on such things as a new, high-tech system of
meat processing that bathes beef filler in ammonia to
kill harmful bacteria.

Even though alternative agriculture represents just a
small part of the U.S. food industry, Pollan says he
is "full of hope" about the future. He cites the
booming demand for organic food and the growing
popularity of farmers markets.

According to the USDA, sales of organics have more
than quintupled, increasing from $3.6 billion in
1997 to $21.1 billion in 2008.

Kenner, too, is optimistic, ending the film on an
uplifting note. He sees a hopeful model in the fight
against Big Tobacco, which also seemed invulnerable
to attack by health and safety advocates — until it
wasn't.

Like Pollan, Kenner is heartened by what he's seen
so far from the Obama administration.

Pollan, in particular, applauded Michelle Obama's
decision to plant an organic garden on the South
Lawn of the White House. Kenner says the president
won't be able to tackle his other priorities of
reforming health care and halting global warming
without changing the way Americans produce and
consume food.

So what do Kenner and Pollan believe the average
person should do if they want to shun the agribusiness
model?

Says Kenner: "Go to a farmers market whenever you
can. Eat a little less meat. Read labels when you go
into a store. Shop the outer rows of the supermarket.
Cook at home. Buy less processed food."

And Pollan? All of that, and also this: "Get involved
in your school lunch program. Get junk food out of
the whole school. Sign up with a Listserv for one
of the many groups that's tracking this. Your
congressman/woman needs to hear from you."

Still, Lowell Catlett, dean of the School of
Agriculture at New Mexico State University, says
U.S. consumers actually have a pretty good deal.
Before World War II, a quarter of a million
Americans died every year from a combination of
unsanitary food and water and inadequate sewage
facilities. "Overall, we have a safer food
system," he said.

The film opens June 12 in New York, Los Angeles
and San Francisco, with wider distribution
beginning June 19.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press.

****************************

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Enforce Laws or Face Consequences

Once upon a time, the United States had an agency
called the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

Many Americans are not aware that INS ceased to exist
a few years after 9/11, and the duty of protecting
America's borders was transferred to America's most
celebrated comedy story, the Department of Homeland
Security.

The Department of Homeland Security has created an
easy way for people to enter the United States
illegally and a means for their employment while
living illegally in the United States. Their policy?
Look the other way.

This week while celebrating national dairy month,
the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) released
an internal report indicating that if United States
Homeland Security authorities arrested just half of
the illegal workers on America's dairy farms, the milk
industry would suffer a nationwide $11 billion loss.

The survey (from 2,000 dairy farms) conclusions:

1) 2,266 dairy farms would close
2) 670,000 cows would be culled from America's herds
3) 98 percent of illegal workers are from Mexico
4) annual milk production would be reduced by 14.7
billion pounds.

The dairy industry's strategy?

They are now lobbying for immigration reform.
They are attempting to change the law by making
what is now illegal legal by funneling dollars
to lawmakers.

The Dairy Industry is bribing their way to success.

Do you imagine that Al Qaeda knows this secret?
Si, mis amigos.

In 2000, American intelligence experts (an oxymoron)
learned that Saudi Arabian Muslims were practicing
how to fly commercial airliners, (but not land 'em)
in Florida flight schools. Are these same agency
operatives waiting for my future "I told you so?"

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Dairymen Aren't The Only Ones Dying

Dairymen aren't the only ones "dying" during this
horrible economic market. Milk, cheese, and
butter prices continue to drop due to decreased
demand and increased supply (duh).

As prices drop, dairy cows are dying. Slaughter
rates are soaring as dairy farms go bankrupt.
Farmers are cutting costs. Slaughterhouses are
cutting aortas.

During the first three months of 2008, dairy farmers
sent 615,700 cows to slaughter, according to USDA's
Livestock Marketing Information Center.

During the first three months of 2009, dairy farmers
have sent 728,700 cows to slaughter, an increase of
more than 18 percent (113,000 more slaughtered cows)
than during the first three months of 2008.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Think You Can Outrun a Mad Cow?

That the question I posed to Dr. Robert Callan
yesterday (June 8, 2009) during my call to his
Colorado State University office ( 970-297-1274 ).
Dr. Callan is the resident cow, llama, and alpaca
expert.

He told me that to his knowledge, nobody's ever
put a stopwatch to a sprinting cow, but he's
personally witnessed cows outrunning pack horses,
and the horses he's timed can sprint upwards of
25 miles per hour.

Twenty five miles per hour does not sound that
fast, particularly when you're riding in a car.

How best can I express the meaning of 25 miles
per hour speed? There are 132,000 feet in 25
miles. There are 3600 seconds in an hour. Divide
one by the other and you get a rate of 36.67
feet per second. Cows cannot maintain that speed
for an hour, and they do not run marathons, but
they do excel at sprint events.

Most American high schoolers are familiar with
the 100-yard dash. It's the most grueling 14 seconds
in a teen's gym class experience. The fastest high
school track team runners can cover the 100 yards
in between 9.5 and 10 seconds. The fastest humans
cover the same distance in 9 seconds flat.

A cow would take 8.18 seconds at that rate of
speed to sprint 100 yards. That's faster than
any human has ever dashed a 100-yard race.

The moral to the story is this.
Most of the time, cows are gentle docile
creatures. Just don't get them angry.

Don't ever attempt to separate a newborn calf
from her mother if you're standing in the same
pasture as that mother cow. Like New Joisey
Jersey cows, they don't get mad, they get even,
and they'll trample your butt if you're standing
on their side of the fence. Do so and you'll
learn new meanings for the words pasteurized
and homogenized.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

How Many More Lies Can They Tell?

"A thousand woodpeckers flew in through the
window and settled themselves on Pinocchio's nose."
--Carlo Collodi

The June 4, 2009 dairy industry press release:

Hispanic Cheese May Prevent Obesity

http://www.lavozchisme.com/news_pr.php?nid=14301

HOUSTON, June 4 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ -- Hispanic
style cheese known as Queso Fresco or "fresh cheese" may
contribute to preventing and fighting obesity and other
related health problems.

************************

These Latino dairy geniuses are muy loco.

A few years ago, Holly McCord published a book called
The Ice Cream Diet. At the time, McCord was an editor of
Prevention Magazine.

Promoting ice cream and cheese as diet foods serves to
prevent many things, but weight loss is not one of them.
Logic, sanity, health, fitness...these concepts are easily
prevented by those willing to accept deceptive marketing.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

New Mad Cow Study Ignored by Activists & Passivists

The most critical bit of Mad Cow Disease news
has been universally ignored, and a new study
may hold the key towards understanding and
preventing this debilitating disease.

Let me be the first to share the news which
confirms everything Notmilk has been reporting
since 1998.

The protein fibril responsible for Mad Cow Disease
and the human equivalent, CJD, is called a Prion.

The June 3, 2009 issue of Virology (PMID: 19494004)
reports that Prions were found in the milk of
exposed sheep two years before the first symptoms
of their brain-wasting disease were observed.

Maddison BC, Baker CA, et. al University of Leicester
Department of Biology, University of Leicester, UK,
conclude:

"These data indicate the secretion of prions within
milk during the early stages of disease progression
and a role for milk in prion transmission."

The Notmilkman's conclusion:

"It's milk, stupid!"

Consider: A dairy cow filters ten thousand liters of
blood through her udder each day to manufacture milk.

Consider: A person cannot donate blood if he or she
has lived in England for fear of spreading CJD.

Consider:

"A 24-year-old vegetarian has been diagnosed with
Cruetzfeld-Jacob disease. Scientists fear that milk
and cheese may be the source of infection."

London Times, August 23, 1997 Michael Hornsby

*****************************

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

The raw milk movement is growing across
America. One only has to examine or smell
the underside of a cow to determine that
whatever comes from those spouts is unwholesome
and unhealthy. Pathogens are the rule and
not the exception.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Listeria Warning for Raw Milk from Upstate NY Dairy

Raw milk from an Upstate New York dairy may be tainted
with listeria, state health officials warned today.
Consumers are being advised not to drink raw milk
from Breese Hollow Dairy in Hoosick Falls, and the
dairy has suspended production until testing proves
its milk is free of listeria and other pathogens.

According to a press release from the New York Department
of Agriculture and Markets, Breese Hollow holds a
Department permit to legally sell raw milk at the farm.
Samples are taken monthly and tested by the Department
to determine if the raw milk is free of pathogenic bacteria.

A routine sample of the milk, taken by an inspector from
the Division of Milk Control and Dairy Services on May 26,
2009, was subsequently tested by the Department's Food
Laboratory and discovered to be contaminated with listeria monocytogenes. On May
29, 2009, the producer was notified
of a preliminary positive test result and volunteered to
suspend raw milk sales until the sample results were confirmed.
Test results were confirmed on June 3, 2009 and the producer
is prohibited from selling raw milk until subsequent sampling indicates that the
product is free of pathogens.

Listeria contaminated foods may cause listeriosis, a disease
that usually causes mild flu-like symptoms in healthy
individuals; however in immune-compromised individuals,
meningitis and blood poisoning can occur. Pregnant women
are also considered a high-risk group, as listeriosis can
also result in stillbirths.

Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized. According
to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), raw milk or raw
milk products were implicated in 45 outbreaks that resulted
in over 1,000 illnesses and two deaths in the United States
during 1998-2005. In 1938, milk was the cause of 25 percent
of all food- and water-related sickness. With the introduction
of universal pasteurization—long considered one of the most successful public
health endeavors of the last century—that
number fell to one percent by 1993.

Some people believe raw milk contains organisms that treat
all manner of maladies, including digestive problems, asthma,
and autism, saying raw milk offers greater benefits because
it allegedly does not contain chemicals and hormones. This
growing contingent says the heat necessary for pasteurization
kills healthy natural proteins and enzymes. The Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) disagrees and insists pasteurization
destroys harmful bacteria without significantly changing
milk's nutritional value. It is illegal to sell raw milk
for human consumption in 22 states. The other states allow
raw milk sales within their borders; the FDA bans sales
across state lines.

According to the New York Department of Agriculture and
Markets, producers in that state who sell raw milk to
consumers must have a permit to do so from the Department,
must sell directly to consumers on the farm where the milk
is produced and must post a notice at the point of sale
indicating that raw milk does not provide the protection
of pasteurization. Farms with permits to sell raw milk
are inspected by the Department monthly.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Butter Vs. Margarine

A Notmilk reader asked:

What is the difference between butter and margarine?

Given the choice of eating butter or margarine,
I now pass on both. Hydrogenated fat (in butter)
and trans-fatty acids (in margarine) have been
identified as causative factors in heart disease.

On January 23, 2001, The National Association of
Margarine announced:

"Landmark Research With 46 Everyday Families Ends
the Debate Over Margarine and Butter"

In December, Margo Denke, M.D. and a group of
scientists at the University of Texas determined that
consumers should dump butter and stick with margarine.
Her study was published in the December 6, 2000 issue
of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
(Vol. 284. No. 21. 2740-2747).

In the first ever head-to-head family competition,
margarine won hands down, according to Denke.
She tested 92 parents and 134 children. Each family
followed either a butter-based or margarine-based
diet for five weeks and then switched to the other
diet for the second five-week period.

Blood cholesterol levels were checked periodically
during the course of the study. The margarine diet
lowered LDL, or "bad'" cholesterol, in adults by an
average of 11 percent without affecting levels of HDL,
or "good'" cholesterol. Children also benefitted from
eating the margarine instead of butter, with a similar
reduction in LDL cholesterol of about 9 percent.

Mono-unsaturated fats found in olive, sunflower, and
safflower oils lower LDL cholesterol levels, and raise
HDL levels, and these oils represent healthy alternatives
to butter or margarine.

Reinforcement for the no butter & no margarine philosophy:

<http://tinyurl.com/3xq8vx >

When it comes to butter vs. margarine, here is what I
grew up with:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLrTPrp-fW8&NR=1

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

Fifty Years Ago Today

There was a song we sang in primary school:

"No more pencils, no more books,
no more teacher's dirty looks!"

I led the choir:

http://www.notmilk.com/graphics/cohen58.jpg

In June of 1959, I was counting the days,
looking forward to school's end and the
start of summer vacation. The front cover
of the June 25, 1959 issue of Hoard's
has an imprinted map of the United States
announcing "June is Dairy Month." This
milk promotion program has been going
on for a long time!

While America was being conned by milk
ads, what truths were dairy insiders reading?

Opening the front cover of the June 25, 1959
issue, the reader finds a full page ad for:

"The NEW Teramycin for mastitis" treatment.

The ad copy reveals that the NEW Pfizer
drug controls ten or more kinds of mastitis
germs causing infections. Infections? Germs?
If only Americans knew what was going on
with those udders in 1959. Five decades
later, most milk consumers are still in the
dark. In 2009, the cost of mastitis control
per cow will exceed $200 per year. That's
over $2 billion dollars of drugs in their
bodies and yours.

The inside rear cover of the 1959 issue
of Hoard's contains a full page ad for
what's marketed as a "hidden drug treatment,"
American Cyanamid's Aureomycin, an
antibiotic that was once placed in animal feed.
The ad copy lets dairymen know:

"Grass alone can't give your cows all the
food values they need for sustained high
production. When you're feeding cows...
an effective antibiotic in the ration
becomes more urgent."

Cows have been fed antibiotics for generations,
and few people outside of the industry knew.
Little boys and girls, myself included, were
fed these same antibiotics, day after day.

Here's an appropriate June quote by which dairy
farmers can celebrate their special month.
The following appeared ten years ago in the June,
1999 issue of a peer-reviewed scientific journal,
Food Protein (Volume 62):

"The administration of subtherapeutic
doses of antibiotics to livestock introduces
selective pressures that may lead to the
emergence and dissemination of resistant
bacteria. The present findings clearly
demonstrate that antibiotic-resistant
bacteria in beef and milk pose a serious
problem."

Today, little boys and girls cannot be treated
for infections because antibiotics no longer
work. Doctors are blamed for over-prescribing
medicines. This is plain nonsense. New strains
of germs grew within cows and developed
immunities to antibiotics. If one takes
antibiotics every day, and drinks antibiotic-laced
milk containing germs with immunities, one
will gain nothing by taking those same antibiotics
when they are needed to treat human infection.

The cover pictures a herd of cows, later identified
as a 60-cow champion herd averaging 9,557 pounds
of milk per animal. That averages out to 12.4 quarts
of milk per cow per day. In 1959, the average
cow produced just 8 quarts of milk each day. Today,
the average milk production per animal is 24.5 quarts.

Some things have changed. Others remain
the same. Got antibiotics?

Happy National Dairy Month.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

How is Milk from 9.2 Million Cows Used?

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) describes
organization this way:

http://www.nmpf.org

"NMPF is a farm commodity organization representing most
of the dairy marketing cooperatives serving this nation.
NMPF members market the majority of the milk produced
in the U.S., making the NMPF the principal voice on
national issues for dairy cooperatives and their dairy
farmer members."

NMPF recently determined the distribution breakdown
of 188.2 billion pounds of milk produced by 9.2
million dairy cows.

Cheese = (43 percent) 80.6 billion pounds
Fluid Milk = (23 percent) 43.9 billion pounds
Butter = (7 percent) 13.4 billion pounds
Frozen Desserts = (5 percent) 9.6 billion pounds
Non-fat Dry Milk = (4 percent) 8.3 billion pounds
Other (Yogurt, cream cheese, etc) = (18 percent)
32.4 billion pounds

*********************

The big surprise? Cheese, butter, and ice cream
represent almost 2.5 times the amount of dairy
consumed as does the liquid milk group.

The majority of America's dairy consumption
consists of essentially high-fat unhealthy foods
and yet society continues to debate the etiology
of our "obesity epidemic."

Is milk healthy? The numbers do not lie.
The milk marketing folks are the real liars.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com

How is Milk from 9.2 Million Cows Used?

The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) describes
their organization this way:

http://www.nmpf.org

"NMPF is a farm commodity organization representing most
of the dairy marketing cooperatives serving this nation.
NMPF members market the majority of the milk produced
in the U.S., making the NMPF the principal voice on
national issues for dairy cooperatives and their dairy
farmer members."

NMPF recently determined the distribution breakdown
of 188.2 billion pounds of milk produced by 9.2
million dairy cows.

Cheese = (43 percent) 80.6 billion pounds
Fluid Milk = (23 percent) 43.9 billion pounds
Butter = (7 percent) 13.4 billion pounds
Frozen Desserts = (5 percent) 9.6 billion pounds
Non-fat Dry Milk = (4 percent) 8.3 billion pounds
Other (Yogurt, cream cheese, etc) = (18 percent)
32.4 billion pounds

*********************

The big surprise? Cheese, butter, and ice cream
represent almost 2.5 times the amount of dairy
consumed as does the liquid milk group.

The majority of America's dairy consumption
consists of essentially high-fat unhealthy foods
and yet society continues to debate the etiology
of our "obesity epidemic."

Is milk healthy? The numbers do not lie.
The milk marketing folks are the real liars.

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com