Rollfast

I just got bugged by the 'mucus' remark. Most mammalian milk we consume is produced by animals with vastly different digestive systems. Multi-stomached would be the rule. If what grosses some out is the regurgitation and rechewing etc. then consider how complex grass, hay and alfalfa are (and remember that they are mostly fed SILEAGE based on corn on a dairy farm) and then wonder why we can't eat grass...a cow is an incredible creature!

Human milk IS designed for human babies, because it contains the right amount of fats and nutrients needed for growth of the body and especially the nervous system of a baby, but it would be silly at some point to continue consuming it (and it seems to be that the documented cases of women breastfeeding nine year olds is more or less a psychological thing than an actual need of the child anyway). After the initial growth stages are passed the physical need to strengthen and grow a young body to maturity lend itself to many foods.

Milk is an easy one for kids, they will suck the jug or carton dry in many cases when they like it and you can add vitamins and minerals while reducing the fat content easily as well. While doing this the remainder often lends itself to a myriad of other foods that can be created with it. While I will not argue with you one bit about the need for vegetables to add vitamins, minerals and overall needed diversity to the body's processes it is pretty clear that milk is extremely useful, if not actually perfect.

You gotta advertise, it's a slogan, "the perfect food". And you need plenty of food 'ammo' when you have fussy young eaters to train.

Just no 'mucus'. Save that for Slime...I am too old to have ever been into Slime.

PS People actually eat octopus and squid...I save that for orcas.

memebag

Evolutionary success has a single definition: replication. The more a gene is replicated, the more successful it is. Some genes in human food have been incredibly successful, replicating far more than those not selected for human food ever could.

Re paleo diets - No one knows what our ancestors actually ate in the distant past. Our ancestors were different than us and all of the plants and animals were different, too. The entire ecosystem is constantly co-evolving. Stuff that would kill us may have kept our ancestors healthy and vice versa.

Sixty Fiver

My wife has celiac disease so for her the science is settled... the continued exposure to gluten and gliadin would eventually kill her while diminishing her quality of life.

Even those without diagnosed celiac disease can experience inflammatory and autoimmune effects from grains (primarily wheat)... one might find it interesting that an effective treatment for plantars fasciitis is the elimination of gluten from the diet as it appears to be a contributory factor to what is an inflammatory condition.

Complications from arthritis can also be mediated by eliminating gluten / gliadin from the diet... gluten is added to durum flour to make it easier to bake with so our modern intake of these wheat proteins is much higher than it has ever been which may be the cause of the increased diagnosis of celiac disease.

cyclezen

that brings up the multiple faces of drinking common grocery milk in any quantity. One is the actual effect of the stuff that is milk. Other is the list of nasty stuff found in milk and other dairy products which don't come from strictly controlled animals...

I'm ok with the normal sugar and fat in milk...
Organic Milk is very pricey, so I just stay with plain Almond milk - as long as it doesn;t have Carrageenan...
why ingest something which you don;t want, need, or in the very least tastes good to you? and then the stuff which has a chance of being harmful? fuggetaboutit!

Fat Boy

I do make an attempt to eat as little processed food as I can, but, make no mistake, I'm a fan of red meat as well. I bought a side of grass-fed beef in November and enjoy it often. If I would knock the Paleo crowd it would be for making crap food from 'Paleo' ingredients and then trying to pass them off as 'healthy' because of the ingredients. I don't care how you make maple fudge...it's still maple fudge. It may taste delicious, but it's _not_ good for you.

Side note on the bug thing:
I think you're spot on here. Western countries have a general aversion to eating insects, but they're generally good nutritionally and environmentally. Taste-wise...well, not so much. You aren't going to mistake a grasshopper for a shrimp. To bring this back to the milk topic, while everyone (within reason) can drink milk as a baby, as people age, a lot of us lose the ability to produce lactase which is the enzyme your body uses to digest milk. However, we never lose the enzymes in our systems that allow us to digest insect exoskeletons. That should probably tell us something about eating bugs.

Fat Boy

My neighbor has tested negative for celiac, but if he eats anything with gluten (generally beer or bread), then he will get acne in 2 days. It's something he's tested over and over. It's not really a huge deal for him, but in general he avoids it. We had the conversation, if it's doing that to your outside, what's happening to your inside?

Sixty Fiver

They need to test him for a Gliadin sensitivity... this can be responsible for other inflammatory and auto-immune issues.

Rollfast

more ketchup.

Fat Boy

It's definitely something like that. At this point, he knows what causes it and just avoids that stuff.

Fat Boy

Sriracha, maybe?

bikemig 

No. 1.

Looigi

So, it turns out bananas aren't for monkeys! https://www.cnn.com/2014/01/15/health...html?hpt=hp_t3

Rollfast

Don't know what that is, should look it up. If Grocery Outlet actually gets Heinz or Simply Heinz (no corn syrup) that is preferred to Del Monte. We make Ore-Ida products in this town.

Sixty Fiver

I buy ketchup at the Polish market... they also have the most incredible selection of mustards as well as barrel aged 'kraut and pickles.

Fat Boy

Sriracha is a spicy (not super hot) chili/garlic sauce that goes well with damn near anything. It's a standby in most Asian restaurants.

mystang52

I'll stay out of debate on whether drinking milk is bad.
But I will state that drinking bad milk is bad.

peter_d

And drinking milk without coffee in it is also bad

MEversbergII

"Choline is thought to promote atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries."

Not having choline is known to kill you, however.

M.

Rollfast

Jalapenos don't sit well with me so I would have to see how far it goes past the chili seasoning packets at the store. Otherwise I love to use garlic powder, basil and oregano in all sorts of meals.

I have this nasty but guilty pleasure I mix up with mayonnaise, Heinz pickle relish, the three aformentioned spices, mix or spin/shake it heavily to blend it and I get an approximation of Hellman's/Best Foods Sandwich Spread/fish sauce at far less than the price of the 20 or so oz real thing, swirl ketchup into a dollop for pink sauce.

You add the relish and garlic to some excess but it's absolutely the right degree of sinful and you can make it in smaller batches to pep up a half empty mayo jar.

THIS is how watching my grandmothers while they were cooking paid off-I can create from scratch.

Rollfast

I somebody mixing up choline with acetylcholine, two versions of the same basic stuff but acteylcholine is the most common NEUROTRANSMITTER found in our nervous systems?

Yes, without acetylcholine we would indeed die for the nerves would no longer function leading to paralysis and complete tissue death.

So maybe a lot of fuss over the same things.

Rollfast

No, that is eating peanut butter without a chocolate protective sheath!

Rollfast

Wish we had more ethnicity in markets as you are oh so correct about that!

009jim

Great answer :-)

GeorgeBMac

Actually, to be technically correct: Choline itself does not promote atherosclerosis. Rather, certain bacteria in the gut feed on it and produce TMAO. It is the TMAO that promotes atherosclerosis.

The lead in the study that proved these relationships, Dr Hazen, was very careful to say that his study was not about diet -- but about the gut bacteria that produce the TMAO... (even though the major sources of choline are usually listed as: dairy, eggs and red meat)

On the flip side of that comment however: He used eggs and antibiotics to turn the generation of TMAO on and off. When the person ate eggs, the bacteria flourished and produced lots of TMAO. When he killed the bacteria with antibiotics, the level of TMAO went down.

A further extension of the study showed that those with the highest levels of TMAO had double the risk for heart disease.

But, although he is careful to not suggest dietary modifications, I asked him how many eggs he eats. He answered that, with the exception of some in baked goods, he does not eat eggs at all ...

As for: "not having choline will kill you". I am not aware of that. I know it is listed as an "essential nutrient" -- but that only means your body cannot produce it. It does not say that you actually have to have it -- nor does it say in what quantity... In fact, choline is present in many foods -- including plant foods.

Rollfast

Meanwhile, WITHOUT all those bacteria you couldn't fully digest things and you'd have huge problems and probably die too.

What is being missed here is that a simplistic assessment is being placed on a FAR MORE COMPLEX process than most of you may understand.

We are not self-contained. We are SYMBIOTIC. The fact that acid resistant bacteria reside in our stomach and digestive systems is beneficial, and harmful if we are talking about stomach ulceration or food poisoning etc. There is no perfect balance of life nor is there a perfect health regimen.

What is more, dying is the natural result of living. The process of reproduction is meant to combine two genetic/genomic sets into a unique new one and preserve the cycle as the parents age and die and this is true for all sexual species. Even viruses and bacteria follow some of these processes.

Life cannot continue without variety and change.

Now...you got a lot more than milk is bad or something out of this didn't you?

If you don't like milk, don't drink it or eat it's products. Please don't turn it into an activist's nightmare? We haven't really learned ANYTHING here because it was a bunch of vague, he said-she said stuff.

I'm interested in living better but I'm fully resigned to dying and in the long run my ultimate fate has already been decided. Something has to give in these arguments. It's the middle of winter, when Advocacy and Safety becomes Antipathy and Sarcasm. This isn't what is needed. Every other thread in A&S seems to be anti-car and may turn out to be somebody covering for their own mistakes in a rant...

I understand that you are trying to train for better performance and seek better nutrition. Let's mellow it out, it's an individual need, not an absolute.