The Beauty Detox Solution (19 page)

From their inception, American dietary guidelines have been influenced by the meat and dairy industries. As Michael Pollan explains in his
In Defense of Food,
when the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs first drafted its dietary guidelines in 1977, the committee intended for Americans to limit red meat and dairy for improved health. But the meat and dairy industries exerted their power and influence to change this, and the committee was forced to compromise by recommending Americans “choose
meats, poultry, and fish that will reduce saturated fat intake.”
³⁷
Ultimately, both meat and dairy found their prominent place in the food pyramid.

We have always accepted that dairy is simply something humans should consume. After all, it is in every grocery and corner store, and it has always been considered a basic food staple, right? Let's start our dairy discussion by taking a step back and reexamining the issue logically and with an open mind. It's important to understand where dairy comes from, and doing so will help us to see why dairy is not in our best health interests at all.

During the earliest part of life, all mammals drink the milk of their mothers. Baby pigs drink from their mothers, as do baby dogs and cats. Since we are also mammals, we drink the breast milk of our mothers. We are weaned of breast milk within the first few years of our life, and then we shift into eating other foods for the rest of our lives that provide the nutrition necessary for our bodies. This is the natural cycle not only for humans but also for all other mammals on the planet. The natural purpose of cow's milk is to feed baby cows. When the baby cows grow up, they, too, stop drinking milk and shift to eating grass. We are the
only
species on earth that not only refuses to give up milk but furthermore insists on drinking the milk of another species. No adult cows ever drink milk, and adult humans are certainly not meant to be drinking it, either!

As is always the case, when we go against nature's laws, we suffer the consequences. The chemical composition of cow's milk is different from that of human milk, and therefore our bodies are not designed to break it down. Lactase is the enzyme needed to break down and digest the sugar in milk called lactose. Most of our bodies stop or greatly diminish the production of lactase by the time we are two to three years old, as nature did not intend for us to be drinking mothers' milk after that. The devastating consequences of going against nature's innate cycles by continuing to consume dairy include faulty digestion, major sacrifices in Beauty Energy and a myriad of health issues.

THE DANGEROUS PROTEIN IN DAIRY: CASEIN

The common perception is that it is the
fat
in dairy products that is harmful. To avoid the fat, many of us have switched to skim milk, low-fat cheese and fat-free yogurt. But what about the
protein
in dairy?

The main protein in cow's milk is called casein. It makes up 87 percent of cow's milk protein.
³⁸
The other protein in milk is called whey, which makes up a much smaller amount.
There is some casein present in human breast milk, but in cow's milk there is 300 percent more.
³⁹
The casein helps cows develop huge bones. Casein is such a strong binder that it has been used as an ingredient in wood glue.

Without the necessary enzymes such as lactase to break it down, casein coagulates in the stomach and is very difficult for our bodies to break down. This is an enormous waste of Beauty Energy. When casein breaks down in the human stomach, it produces casomorphins, which are peptides, or protein fragments, that have an opioid effect, meaning they act like opiates in the brain, causing a slightly euphoric effect—a troublesome effect considering how unhealthy casein really is! Studies in the 1990s, including one particularly strong one conducted in 1991, hypothesized that casomorphin (from casein) can cause or aggravate autism.
⁴⁰
Dairy has also been found to
double
the risk of prostate cancer: a Harvard review of research from 2001 found that “men with the highest dairy intakes had approximately double the risk of total prostate cancer, and up to a fourfold increase in risk of metastatic or fatal prostate cancer relative to low consumers.”
⁴¹

There are so many thousands of studies on the detrimental effects of dairy that I could go on and on for this entire book. But the strongest argument I can share with you is that of all animal proteins, casein is the one that most consistently and strongly seems to promote cancer. The long-term, in-depth research of
The China Study,
which was funded by such prestigious organizations as the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society and the American Institute for Cancer Research, found a strong correlation between casein intake and the promotion of cancer cell growth when exposed to
carcinogens
. Dr. Campbell, a professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University, studied the effect of diet on rats exposed to potent carcinogens and found a strong correlation between protein intake and cancer growth. Of all the proteins, Dr. Campbell found that casein most “consistently and strongly promoted cancer” and that it “promoted all stages of the cancer process.”
⁴²

DAIRY CREATES MUCUS, AND MUCUS DEPLETES BEAUTY

Once dairy is put into our body, it becomes an extremely acid-forming food, and as we've learn ed, acidic foods deplete beauty and encourage weight gain. But dairy has another downside: mucus.

Despite its rather off-putting name, mucus is actually a natural secretion that our body
produces to protect the surfaces of membranes. It is clear and slippery, and coats anything we ingest. Where mucus starts to be problematic is when we have too much of it. Mucus engulfs toxins and the toxic remnants of certain foods and can become thick and cloudy to “trap” the toxicity and help it leave the body.
⁴³
Excessive mucus can begin to harden and build up along the walls of our intestines, adding to the sludge and slowing down matter moving through the intestinal tract. Dairy is one of the most mucus-forming foods there is.

When we ingest milk, cheese and other dairy products, it puts a huge burden on the body to try to get rid of the mucus, which wastes a ton of Beauty Energy! Dairy products begin to wreak havoc on our bodies as soon as they are ingested, so our bodies then try desperately to get rid of them in different ways, such as in the form of phlegm, mucus or pimples. Since dairy products are so acid-forming, clogging and difficult to digest, consistently eating them will
not
help us lose the extra weight in those troublesome areas—our bellies, upper arms, thighs, and hips and under our chins. Dairy ultimately keeps us from reaching our true beauty potential.

rBGH AND OTHER UGLY DRUGS

In addition to creating mucus, conventional dairy is packed with hormones and drugs. Dairy cows produce an unnaturally high amount of milk to satisfy commercial purposes. To keep them alive and functioning to accomplish this, they are treated with antibiotics, including penicillin, as well as hormones, like recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH). These strong drugs inevitably end up in the milk and make their way into our system.

THE PROBLEM WITH PASTEURIZATION

All commercial dairy products are pasteurized, homogenized and highly processed, meaning they are heated to extremely high temperatures in order to kill any potential bacteria. This processing also kills any natural enzymes that are present in dairy products and makes digesting them even
more
difficult.

We can be sure that any milk or yogurt we get at the grocery store has been pasteurized, otherwise it could not be legally sold. Raw milk and raw cheese (if you have access to them) are better for you than pasteurized milk and cheese, but they still contain casein and are still mucus-forming.

CALCIUM AND OSTEOPOROSIS

We have all heard that we need to consume calcium in order to build strong bones and prevent diseases like osteoporosis. The best way, we have always been told, to get our calcium is from dairy products.

But statistics show that bone issues like osteoporosis and hip fractures are
more
frequent in populations where dairy is
highly consumed
and calcium consumption is generally high.
⁴⁴
American women drink thirty to thirty-two times as much cow's milk as New Guineans but suffer forty-seven times as many broken hips. An analysis conducted on multiple countries showed a high statistical association between dairy consumption and higher rates of hip fractures.
⁴⁵
One study out of the Yale School of Medicine in 1992 analyzed the link between protein intake and fracture rates in women fifty years of age and older from sixteen different countries. The study found that the consumption of animal protein was associated with 70 percent of the fractures in the women studied.
⁴⁶

Numerous studies show the same correlation: the more protein that is consumed, the more calcium that is lost. One long-term study published in the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
found that with seventy-five grams of daily protein intake, more calcium is excreted in the urine than is absorbed into the body, meaning calcium is continually being lost.
⁴⁷
Even if one's daily dietary calcium intake was as high as fourteen hundred milligrams, this still proved to be true. From his extensive research for the
The China Study,
Dr. T. Colin Campbell reported in the
New York Times
that there was basically no osteoporosis in China, yet the average calcium intake there was 544 mg per day, as compared with 1,143 mg per day in the United States, which was mostly derived from dairy sources.
⁴⁸

So what's going on? Cow's milk does in fact have a lot of calcium in it, but much of it is not easily assimilated or used by the body. There is a lot of phosphorus in dairy products, and it binds to the calcium in our
digestive tract and makes most of the calcium impossible to absorb. Plus, as we discussed, dairy products are extremely acidic in the body. As demonstrated by these studies (and additional research cited in the
Alkaline-Acid Principle
), the increased acid load in the body causes us to lose calcium from our bones, since calcium is an alkaline mineral and neutralizes the acidity.

Don't be fooled into looking at a label and being impressed by how much calcium a dairy product contains. Instead, as you shift into a more alkaline state, you'll keep calcium and other alkaline minerals intact in the body. The best sources for calcium are dark, leafy green vegetables, as well as sea vegetables, and nuts and seeds. They are high in calcium and highly alkaline. As we start to cut dairy out of our system, our body will start to clear out the mucus caused by the dairy. Pounds will fall off, our skin will start to clear, and our beauty will start to radiate.

Beautiful Plant Sources of Calcium

BEAUTIFUL DAIRY ALTERNATIVES

Some of you may be disappointed by this dairy crackdown. I know. Cheese tastes good! I stress the importance of transitioning throughout this book, and part of that is finding alternatives to your favorite foods to make it easier and tastier to eat yourself beautiful.

Cheese lovers, I have great news for you! Goat's milk and goat's cheese are far better options than cow's milk and cow's milk products. The natural enzymes in a goat are far closer to those in humans than those in cows, and we digest goat's milk exponentially better. If you love cheese, you'll be happy to know that you can switch to goat's milk cheese as an occasional treat! It is best to consume goat's milk cheese in its raw, unpasteurized form, though even pasteurized goat's milk cheese is still far better than pasteurized cow's milk products. Sheep's milk cheese is the next best choice.

Here are some healthier foods that mimic your favorite dairy products: