MILK: A NUTRITIONAL FRAUD

This Slate article isn't very remarkable in and of itself, but it's remarkable that they had it on the Slate front page all day today. While it glosses over a lot of important stuff (and seems somewhat reminiscent of a more hard-hitting op-ed in another paper a couple weeks back), it does have some good, fresh stuff. I was unaware that in the 1920s the National Dairy Council flatly stated that, "The people who have achieved, who have become large, strong, vigorous people, who have reduced their infant mortality, who have the best trades in the world, who have an appreciation for art, literature and music, who are progressive in science and every activity of the human intellect are the people who have used liberal amounts of milk and its products." Or that a 1933 (ominous year) history of New York agriculture asserted, "A casual look at the races of people seems to show that those using much milk are the strongest physically and mentally, and the most enduring peoples of the world. Of all races, the Aryans seem have been the heaviest drinkers of milk and the greatest users of butter and cheese, a fact that may in part account for the quick and high development of this division of human beings." The white stuff, indeed.

UPDATE 6/23: As if milk's sordid history isn't bad enough, it now comes packed with toxic rocket fuel, at least in California. The Environmental Working Group's tests, conducted by researchers at Texas Tech University, found perchlorate in 31 of 32 samples from milk purchased at grocery stores in Los Angeles and Orange counties. The EWG had to do a FOIA request to get the state Department of Agriculture to release data showing even more of the chemical in milk than they had already discovered.