Milk or Soy? - 021

SPEAKER A The following program presents principles designed to promote good health and is not intended to take the place of personalized, professional care. The opinions and ideas expressed are those of the speakers. Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions about the information presented. Welcome to healthy living. I'm your host, Margot Marshall. There's a lot of controversy about soy. Is it good or bad for me? And for that matter, is milk good or bad for me? Stay tuned as we explore some of the current research on these two foods. SPEAKER B Healthy Living is a 13 part production of 3ABN Australia television focusing on the health of the whole person body, mind, and spirit. You'll learn natural lifestyle principles with practical health solutions for overall good health. SPEAKER A When it comes to deciding whether a product is healthy or not, vested interests aren't the best source of information. So what does the research have to say about milk and soy? Dr. Eddie Ramirez has studied the scientific research, and he's here today to share it with us. Welcome, Eddie. SPEAKER C Thank you very much for having me here. SPEAKER A Pleasure. What can you tell us about this controversy that goes on about soy? And then again, what about milk? SPEAKER C Yeah, we're going to talk about a lot about these two topics. You will be receiving lots of information. Get a pen and paper so you can take notes. And when we're talking about milk, please understand we are not talking about human breast milk. That is something I encourage every single one of my patients to breastfeed as much as possible. It has huge implications in the health of the baby. The risk of pneumonia, for example, decreases dramatically. The risk of the famous Crib dad decreases dramatically when a baby is breastfeed. The IQ of the baby is higher when they receive breast milk. And there are studies that are tracing that. Kids that were bottle fed, they have higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, and the list just goes on and on and on. When you put things in perspective, it's definitely worth it. When I was living in Norway, lived there for many years, my first daughter was born there. They actually encouraged mothers to take one year off their job so they could really focus on their baby, because they saw the implications that this would have in the long term of that baby. So we are not going to be talking about breast milk. You should do breast milk and so forth. We're talking about today about milk. Usually that comes from cows. That's the one we're going to be talking about. SPEAKER A All right, well, that's good to clear that one up. And I'm glad you said that about breast milk, because it's just so important. Yes. SPEAKER C And today there are many companies that what they care about is money and not necessarily maybe their well being. And we have created a science of creating the ideal cow. And we can see that in the screen, it's going to be weighing between 1000 and 1500 pounds. In American terms, we want this cow to grow as much as possible. And you know, in this industry there's many things that don't go right. Just in America, almost 100 million cows are there. And today we are understanding the implications of that, including the beef cows, the milk cows and the calves. And it is actually a little bit cruel the way this works. Cow's milk is designed for baby cows and those baby cows are taken away from their mother. You know how you love your baby and so forth. Cows love their babies also and there's actually some emotional disturbances and so forth when they are being taken away. And see, the reason why there are issues with this is because as I mentioned, and I'll repeat, cow's milk is a fabulous food for the baby cow, but the humans are not designed for this excess. For example, when you see the protein amount on different milks and how fast the animal doubles its weight, you can see that correlation. For example, just last year I was in India, I had the opportunity of visiting a fascinating place, a temple, where they would go there and worship rats. And the irony is that there are people that are dying of hunger in India, yet they are cooking and making foods for rats. There were thousands of thousands of rats there in that temple. Those rats, they need to double their weight in only 4.5 days. So that's why rat's milk has 11.8 grams of protein. So very, very high amount. You compare that with, for example, goat's milk and that's 4.1 gram compared to the fact that it will double its weight in 19 days. Cows have 3.3 because they'll double the weight in 47 days. And please notice human beings, they will double their weight in 180 days. And that's why human milk has 1.2. So compare the 1.2 to the 3.3. SPEAKER A Of cows and this is the protein. SPEAKER C That'S the protein content. And not only that, all the other different indicators. When you compare how much it has milk, how much human milk has, it's a big difference. For example, calcium. Calcium, we're talking about the range of 40 grams compared to cows, 198. It is too much. SPEAKER A That's about five times as much that's right in cow's milk. So not really designed for a human baby. SPEAKER C Same thing with phosphorus. SPEAKER A Adult. SPEAKER C That's right. For that matter, phosphorus, 18 on a human, 152 on the cows. See, that is a lot. And actually when you are eating foods that are high in phosphorus, the effect that that has on the human is that it encourages throwing out the calcium, which is not a good idea. Especially ladies, you want to have your strong bones. So it's like drinking soda pop. See, soda pop is high in phosphorus and that creates the licking of the calcium. Same thing with sodium. Human milk, 23 cows, 80. Too much. It's too much. Potassium also an excess. So I don't like to encourage people to do these because I know the negative implications that these have in their body. SPEAKER A Yeah. So we tend to make cow's milk the benchmark for nutrition for humans. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER A And you've just outlined in every respect, it's just it doesn't fit what we need. SPEAKER C In fact, right now, I am involved in a big research project in India. Back when the English came to England, they had the term white schools. White schools in which they were encouraged drinking milk to the children. But they did not realize there that a lot of the Indian population actually has intolerance to the milk. And right now, that's exactly a research project that we are doing. Indian people are not just one group of people, but there are hundred different of ethnic groups there that live in India. So we are trying to analyze and understand which groups tend to handle better, which groups tend to handle worse. But some of those groups, 70% of them, don't handle milk well. SPEAKER A So they have a lactose intolerance. SPEAKER C The English came and encouraged the drinking of milk and many health problems related to this. And when we're talking about dairy, I want you to understand that we're talking about non fat milk. Buttermilk, cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, ice cream, kefir, butter, whey. All these things fall under that umbrella of what we are talking. And, you know, the same situation happened in Mexico, in Latin America. There came some terrorists across the ocean on some boats from Spain to the Americas, and they brought foods that were not there. See, in the no in the continent of America, there was no cows, there was no horses, there was no chickens, there was no pigs there. And they brought these things. And the people living there were not exposed to milk products for thousands of years. And as these products arrive, this is something modern. And especially the people that have more native blood tend to have more problems with these products because their system has not been exposed to them. So we find a huge amount of milk intolerance. Yet isn't the staple of many people to use them? SPEAKER A That's right. And we're not even designed for it, or it wasn't designed for humans. It was designed for baby cows. So it's not surprising, I guess we built up a bit of a tolerance in the developed countries, but some have, some haven't. But really, it's not even good for people who can tolerate it. SPEAKER C That's right, because it's not only the protein per se, but also there are other nutrients that are in excess, such as cholesterol and so forth. And we're talking about a business that is in the billions of dollars. So when there's this type of commercial interest, many times what they want is to sell their product and they may modify things and so forth. And it's interesting. I travel to many countries, many, many countries, pretty much to all the continents on this planet. And I can tell you, for example, in India, in Africa, especially African origin, people have a big intolerance to milk products. I went there to communities where there is no milk. Yet when you analyze those people bones, their bones are strong, the children go adequately, they are able to do well in school and so forth. And don't say, well, Doctor, don't you know people are dying of hunger? No, they're not dying of hunger. I saw with my own eyes, yes, there's families where there's alcoholism and these type of issues, and they may suffer, but the average person there is eating enough, and what they eat is a whole foods, plant based diet. SPEAKER A That seems to be a recurring theme. Now, this is a very interesting point, and I think it's probably the most important thing that people consider, because we hear a lot about calcium and the need for more calcium and so on. And of course, cow's milk is the highest source of calcium in the diet. So how do you explain that people who are not using any have such strong bones? SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER A And how people who use a lot do not? How does that work? SPEAKER C In fact, there is a fascinating relationship. We can see in a published study in the screen the comparison between those countries that drink the most calcium, yet they have the highest rates of hip fracture, which is an indicator of osteoporosis. If you want to picture, Australia is somewhere between United Kingdom and New Zealand. That's where we find very high. That's where we find Australia, which is very high. How come they're eating humongous amounts of calcium, yet they have such high rates of osteoporosis? SPEAKER A You've asked the question. SPEAKER C Now, I want to share with you how this works. Yes, because usually that calcium comes from dairy related products. So you're taking the calcium. Yes, but you're also taking huge amounts of animal protein, which unfortunately tends to be an acid forming protein. So that excess amount of protein. Published research over and over has shown that when you take that high amount of protein together with the calcium, instead of putting that calcium in your bones, you actually have the negative effect, and you actually take away some of the calcium from your bones and throw it away. In fact, you can measure this in the laboratory. You give more animal products, and I'll show you that in your urine, the calcium is being dropped out. Not only that, it's a problem because the calcium needs to pass through the kidneys, and you can form kidney stones. I was just reading recently from a residency book of nephrology, the specialist on the kidneys. Literally, it says there on that book, people that are recurrent calcium, stone formers should consider becoming vegetarians. That's what it says there, the specialist book on nephrology, because we know that relationship. And not only milk will do this also meat, chicken, and animal products, they are very acidic, and that will have that negative effect on your bones. So if you want to have strong bones, the best things you can do is to remove yourself as far away from milk. Now, the problem is that the marketing industry has done a fabulous job at brainwashing us. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER C And when you ask somebody, where does calcium come from? You're going to say milk. You're just programmed to say that because of marketing. You think about, oh, raising a child without milk. Oh, that's child abuse, you may say. SPEAKER A But when you think about it, where does the cow get its calcium? SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER A Green leafies. SPEAKER C Exactly. See, calcium is in the ground, so I don't see cows eating dirt and things. So, yes, the plant absorbs the calcium through the roots, gets on the plant, and that's when you eat it, you can do exactly the same thing as the cow is doing and get that from there. I have three daughters. SPEAKER A If we can put a man on the moon, we can probably work out how to get our cow the same way a cow does. SPEAKER C I have three daughters. The three of them grew with, of course, breast milk, and after that, not a single drink of milk. They are strong, they're their normal weight, their normal height, and they do fantastically well in school. And there's research on this. If you go to the scientific literature, there is 57 published studies that I could identify. There may be a little bit more if you look forward, but the ones I identified, there were 57, and I started counting 57% of those 57 studies show that there is no significant benefit of drinking dairy and your bones. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER C 2020 9% said there's a little bit favorable effect. And if you analyze those 29 studies, six of them were sponsored by the milk industry. So you could say this has a little bit of a marketing effect compared to 14% of those studies, they show that it was an adverse effect in your bones. SPEAKER A Interestingly. You're talking about the plant based diet being good for our bones and the animal based foods being the ones that deplete the calcium. I was looking on the World Health Organization website recently under Healthy Diet and their fact sheet for Healthy Diet, and it lists fruits, vegetables, legumes or beans, nuts, and what was the other one? SPEAKER C And grains. SPEAKER A And grains. Whole, unprocessed grains. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER A There's no mention of milk. There's no mention of any of the meats or even eggs. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER A And a healthy diet, according to the World Health Organization, comprises of all those plant foods, that's fact sheet number three nine four, if you want to check it out, fact sheet three nine four on the World Health Organization website. So it really bears out what you're saying. And of course, the original diet that the creator gave us is what you've been talking about. It was all plant foods. SPEAKER C And you know, there are right now a big attack on soy products. SPEAKER A Yes. SPEAKER C Part of this is the milk industry running rumors and so forth. Part of it is uninformed people that call themselves experts while they're not, and running all these rumors against soy that are not justified. Let me just deal with a few of the arguments and what is the reality of the situation? Some people say that because of the substances found in soy, you actually have an anti nutrient effect. In other words, you actually lose nutrients when you are eating soy. The reality is that when you cook and process soy products with cooking and fermentation, these anti nutrient substances get eliminated. SPEAKER A Well, you don't eat them raw. SPEAKER C That's right. Raw. Exactly. So that's why those substances, theoretically, that could harm you. They're not present as you process, which is the way that we usually eat our soy. Nobody eats raw soybeans, that I'm aware of. SPEAKER A That's very misleading, isn't it? SPEAKER C So be careful with that lie. Two, some people say it has phytochemicals, which have an effect and could actually increase cancers. Theoretically. That is not what we found when we analyze groups that have high levels of soy. See, I travel to many countries in Asia, and the interesting thing is that actually in Asia you find the most healthy people on planet Earth. It is not the Mediterranean. In the Mediterranean, you still have a lot of heart disease, a lot of strokes, a lot of diabetes rates are a little bit lower than the Western world, but they're still quite present and very common and number one, causes of death. Yet when you travel to rural Asia, where people have been eating high levels of soy for long periods of time, you find very low rates of things like breast cancer and prostate cancer and so forth. When you analyze the epidemiology of countries like Japan and you compare them like the UK or Australia and so forth, so it actually has an anti cancer effect, the consumption of the soy products. SPEAKER A So that's just the very opposite of what is being alleged. SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER A It has an anti cancer effect. SPEAKER C Also, some people say that it actually increases heart disease against through theoretical models. You may think that, but that's not what we found. When you compare heart attack rates of countries like Thailand and Japan and so forth against Australia, for example, the rates are phenomenally different. People have less heart disease there, yet they consume much more soy products. And also the sex hormones. Some people I've seen in my clinical consultation, they come and they're afraid that they're not going to want to give soy milk to their boys because they may become effeminate and so forth. I can tell you that does not happen in the clinical practice. When you see and start to follow up that see the beneficial effects of soy actually are very markably seen on ladies that are passing through their menopause when they're passing through their menopause. When you compare Australians, UK, America against those people in rural Asia where they have high levels of soy, the amount of menopause related problems such as the famous hot flashes are almost unknown there. SPEAKER A Some of them don't even have a term for that, do they? SPEAKER C That's right. SPEAKER A It's just something. SPEAKER C So that's why even some phytoestrogens may be actually beneficial to take for those ladies going through that process of the change of life. And one worrisome thing about milk is that it increases something that is called the insulin growth factor or also known as IGF one and high protein foods, milk, meat, chicken, increase this. See, this factor makes things grow fast. So for example, you have tumor cells. Every single one of us generate tumor cells every day. Our immune system takes care of them. But if you have on board too much of that IGF, you can actually encourage the growth of those cancer cells, which is negative. Now, soy in excess could have this negative effect. Just be temperament. Don't drink the whole gallon of soy milk. If you drink just a couple of cups of soy milk, you are perfectly fine. Excess theoretically could be problematic. So just use temperance and use legumes as rotation. Not only milk, but there's many other legumes. You can take advantage of that. So that idea that you need strong bones and only milk can give it to you, that is actually not correct. SPEAKER A It's not the reality, it's not what's happening. I mean, we saw that image there and as the calcium increased, so did the hip fracture rate. So it's not just an isolated study. This is whole populations. It's being demonstrated throughout whole populations. And you know that that is not valid to say that milk is going to do it and many people don't. SPEAKER C Realize what they are drinking. For example, the international standards, including here in Australia, allow certain number of white blood cells. You know what white blood cells are of pause. When you are drinking milk, there is pause inside of that milk. It has a certain limit that it should have. It is allowed to have that. I've seen many kids in the clinical practice, they have repeated infections of the ear and sinus and so forth. We take them off dairy, those things disappear. And this is published in pediatric journals. I'm not making this up because milk is rich also in certain bacteria also. So why expose yourself to these kind of issues if you can avoid it? And also the terminology is a little bit deceptive. Whole milk, are you aware, is 49% fat. I mean, it's tremendously high. In fact, low fat milk still is pretty high, is 21% fat if you were to remove all the water that is in it. So that is actually not the best of the ideas I would encourage you go to the Internet, find substitutes and try them out. You will enjoy them, I guarantee. SPEAKER A Well, thank you for that, and that's very I'm sure that some of our listeners would have found some of what you're saying a little bit of a big surprise, a little bit of a big surprise, whichever way it goes. So I hope that you'll be able to take that on board and begin to move towards the plant sources. So you've certainly given us some food for thought today, and I pray that God will bless the efforts of our viewers and our listeners. And if you'd like to watch our programs on demand, just go to our website. That's 3abnaustralia.org.au Click on the watch button and you can see these programs. Again, God bless you. SPEAKER B You’ve been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia television.