Last week my trainer suggested that I cut out dairy, bread, excess salt and sugar to lose weight and improve my health.  Choose whole grains instead of breads and green leafy vegetables to get calcium and use vitamins too.  I have done that for a week and a half and feel great.  I’ve also lost 7 lbs which is fantastic. 

So today I take my daughter to the pediatrician for fever and sinus infection.  There is a new doctor in the practice and we saw her for the first time.  She went over my daughter’s history and saw that she takes an inhaled steriod for her asthma.  Then I told her that my son and I also have asthma and are taking the same medication.  She recommends weening us off of that medication and thinks that if we eliminate dairy from our diet we could greatly reduce the asthma symptoms.  She was very thorough and explained how we are humans and should not be drinking milk from a cow and that many people have alergies to milk without realizing it.  She recommends rice milk for the kids and soy or rice milk for me.  What a coninsidence!  Who knew milk wasn’t the best thing for us?

I sort of bought the whole idea but I need more information.  It can’t hurt and if it gets us off all of these drugs I’m all for it.  Does anyone know about these things?  Can you recommend any books or websites that would help me.

My oldest daughter is lactose intolerant, and we just found out. She’s basically been bloated for ten years. We tried every variety of lactose free milk, and she prefers the Rice Milk, vanilla flavor. But the rest of us still drink regular milk. Maybe I should try hers out for a week and see what happens.

I did see a study once that almost half of everyone is allergic to milk, and 90% of Asians, its also higher for African Americans and Hispanic people. I was shocked. I don’t use a lot of milk, just on cereal and coffee, but I could go for the rice milk instead and see if I can really tell the difference.

Have you ever notices how mucousy you feel after drinking a glass of milk? Maybe that’s connected to allergies. Hopefully that means my daughter’s will go away now.

Very interesting topic.

Skim milk (fat free) rocks! Very refreshing when it’s ice-cold, without the fatty taste and aftertaste. Try it out!

Later…

Gary (MrFurless)

I love milk too and was drinking skim thinking I was doing the right thing.  Apparently, the fat is not the problem it’s an allergy to milk protien that causes the asthma and bloating among other things.  I’ve been off of it for a week and a half and I feel better.  Tonight I had a great workout with no trouble breathing and I don’t have thick mucus in my lungs like I used to have (sorry that’s gross). 

I’ve done a little surfing on the subject tonight and they suggest a vegetarian diet is best.  I don’t want to do that.  I love meat!  But I can give up cow’s milk because there are lots of subsitutes out there.

Bree,

I hope that is the answer for your daughter.  My son started with eczema as a baby, now thinking back it was probably when he started milk.  Then at three it switched to sever asthma.  He was hospitalized four times in one year before the specialist put him on steroids.  Now he’s 13 and has acne.  Neither my husband or I had acne but I just read that milk allergies can cause that too.  I’m just realizing that all this could posibly have been avoided by simply not giving him milk.  I feel so bad.  I’m starting both the kids on Rice milk now.  I’ll try the vanilla.  Thanks for the suggestion.

It astounding that all of these years we have been told to drink our milk to be healthy and for some of us it makes us sick.  We are going to experiment for two weeks and see what happens.

Don’t feel bad, you were doing what you knew to be best for your family. There is no fault in that. I just restocked our milk and got more rice milk, we now have 2 gallons. I’m switching tomorrow, but I’m afraid I won’t like it, so I have both. If it’s not creamy enough for my coffee, I’ll stick with the 1/4 cup milk I use in that. But I’ll let you know how it goes.

Bree

I use non-dairy creamers in my coffee.  They have sugar-free and fat free.  I guess that’s OK.

Maybe I’ll try those. The rice milk was great in my cereal, but not thick enough for my coffee.

Bree

I’m a Milk o holic ... I love my milk to no end and can go though 60 oz of the stuff in a single day if I do not watch it .. I try to not drink more then 24 oz of the stuff a day

Rice milk is alright in general, but I don’t like the after taste, and as to Soy? RUNNNNNNN sorry, to me that stuff is a killer. And I do mean that, since I am highly allergic to soy and its various incarnations (soy milke, soy flour, soy protein, etc) the doc’s think its from having to much exposure to the stuff while growing up, since its in just about everything on the market, from soups to children cerials.

Soy is the number 1 growing allergy among young adults in North America today according to various reserch studies both in the US and Canada.

That’s kind of scary. What are you’re symptoms? That way I can watch for them in my kids.

Bree

Bree - 25 February 2007 10:22 AM

That’s kind of scary. What are you’re symptoms? That way I can watch for them in my kids.

Bree

Everyone is different when it comes to soy allergies, some its just a mild irritation of the mouth or unexplained hot flashes, since soy is natures natural estergin (its actually recomended against women in menopause to consume soy for that reason). But in general the following are common ways to tell if one is having a reaction to soy, may include headache, sneezing, watery eyes, and nasal congestion, as in hay fever and allergic rhinitis; a rash, stomach upset, and itchy swellings on the skin (hives or blisters); spasms within the lungs that interfere with breathing, as in asthma. Rarely, a person may have an extreme allergic reaction to soy. This is called anaphylactic shock. Characterized by a severe drop in blood pressure, an itchy rash or hives, trouble breathing, pain in the abdomen, swelling of the tongue or throat, and diarrhea, it can lead to asphyxiation and death.

Soy is contained in the following ways…
SOY FLOUR (bread, crackers, cookies, cakes)
LECITHIN (in some butter, corn margarine, frying sprays such as Pam, chocolate, dried eggs and dried egg whites, ice cream)
MARGARINE
MISO
MAYONNAISE
MONO and DIGLYCERIDES (in most ice creams)
OLEAN (no fat potato chips and other snacks)
MONO SODIUM GLUTAMATE (MSG) (in pork breakfast sausages)
NATURAL FLAVORS (if they don’t say what natural flavor such as natural vanilla or natural lemon then it’s MSG : Mono Sodium Glutamate) (in soft drinks, many fruit drinks, yogurt, ice cream, many breakfast cereals, dehydrated potatoes, candy, cakes, cookies, mustard, pickles, catsup, tomato sauce, tomato paste, cottage cheese, some butter, barbecue sauce)
SALAD DRESSING
SOY BEVERAGES
SOY CHEESE
SOY MEAL
SOY OIL (Crisco)
SOY PROTEIN CONCENTRATES
SOY SAUCE (and many other oriental sauces)
VEGETABLE BROTH (turkey, tuna, processed foods and meats)
VEGETABLE PROTEIN (hot dogs, processed foods and meat, tofu)
TERIYAKI VITAMIN E (made from soy)
TOFU PRODUCTS
VEGETABLE OIL (usually blended with soy and other oils)

I am always amazed at how many different ways mothers can find for feeling guilty about letting their children down.  Carrie, I have to disagree that this is your fault.  I think western medicine is to blame here.  We don’t spent enough time training our doctor’s about nutritional cures for common dieases.  Other forms of medicine, Auyrvedic, Asian, even Native American - when someone is not growing up healthy - nutrition is the first place a healer will look. In our medical society, it’s the last.

I spent many years on steroids for asthma and it controlled it to a degree, but did not heal it.  (It did add to the weight gain).  It got much better when I reduced my milk input and I started putting a teaspoon of honey in my tea. And in my case, I ate more mushrooms.  After a lifetime of inhalers, I take no prescription medication right now. 

Milk in any form (rice, soy, animal) is neither good nor bad.  Some people are more sensitive to it.  In some, it causes intestinal problems.  In others in cause an increase in mucus. In some cases the severe alergic reaction Nyxks writes about.

As you have discovered for your own body, when you find the right food mix, the pounds come off.  It is also true that the right food mix can keep you healthier and disease free.  But in my experience, it has been a very individual thing.  My husband can drink milk and have nothing but positive effects. I drink it and my stomach hurts and I get conjested. 

I think one of the best things anyone can do for themselves (or children) is to go see a treating nutritionist.  I’ll bet you can get your children off the inhalers with the right diet.  You were lucky to have encountered such a knowledgeable pediatrician.

Don’t feel bad.  It is easy to read in your post how much you love your babies.

Jackie

I always liked milk, but it was more for my chocolate craving. (Taste so good with cake or other things) But the after effect (smelly breath, sweating after, feeling bloated) where kind of annoying. So I stopped taking it and I don’t have problem as long a you take the calcium somewhere else you’re ok.

Another thing that made me think about it is a sentence I heard somewhere

Cow milk is for nourishing and helping a veal get to an adult size in a couple of months

I don’t have any background in nutrition or in veal growth but it kind of make sense. Another question would be can milk make you gain some weight? But its probably like anything else it depends on how much you drink.

I personally don’t think that there is anything wrong with hormone free, organic skim milk.  You’ll pay a buck or two more for it but it’s worth it.  Obviously if you go nuts with anything and over ingest you’ll see weight gain but 8-16 ounces has never done me wrong.

I drink my protein shakes made with skim milk, EAS protein and 10 grams of psyllium husk powder, I’ll also eat it with cereal.

JackieSue - 25 February 2007 03:27 PM

I think western medicine is to blame here.  We don’t spent enough time training our doctor’s about nutritional cures for common dieases. 

I think you nailed it right there.  I’m not a nutritionist or a doctor but I would consider myself somewhat well read on the subject and I am regularly amazed at how doctors neglect nutrition as a possible cause/solution of/to our modern health problems.  It’s just easier to prescribe a medication to combat the problem.  Then of course that same doctor has to prescribe another medication to offset the side effects of the first one, it’s an infinite patttern. 

My favorite is ADHD, instead of encouraging parents to lessen their childrens sugar or caffeine intake and making children become more physically active doctors would just prefer to prescribe ritalin or aderol, both drugs CNS stimulants.

Modern medicine is more about making life chronologically longer than making it healthier in the present moment.

I cut animal milk out of my diet completely about six months ago. It was an ethical decision as much as it was a health decision, but to me, the health benefits are pretty compelling. Like other people who have responded here I am not a nutritionist. But cow’s milk is for baby cows, just like human milk is for baby humans. As far as I know, we are the only animals to drink the milk of other animals and drink it well beyond infancy. It is no wonder that so many people are lactose intolerant—milk from other animals is made for baby animals of the same species, not for humans.

Developing allergies to any food is possible—take the severe allergy to peanuts so many children have. I have understood that the way to avoid developing allergies is not to eat the same foods all the time, but to switch them out occasionally for something else. I drink soy, rice and almond milk and will switch to one kind from another every couple of months. Almond is my favorite kind of milk, but I know that if I drink just that all the time, I am asking for trouble. I think the nut/grain milks take a little getting used to, but I think they are very tasty in their own right and if it means avoiding something that isn’t really healthy for me, then I am all for broadening my palate.