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"An irrational idea can be sold only by touching emotive chord of people."

In order to distract innocent people from milk, the anti-milk lobby equates milk with blood. The only commonality between the two is that milk is synthesized from the raw materials obtained by the mammary gland from blood. With this analogy all the physiological secretions of the body, including urine would be equated with blood.

The anti-milk lobby put forth an argument that milk is a physiological secretion in female initiated after calf birth hence consuming milk amounts to depriving the young animals their diet. It can not be denied that some commercial dairy farmers, especially around big cities, let the newborn calves starve purely for economical considerations. This is definitely immoral, but to label all farmers immoral is wrong. In rural areas a majority of farmers take care of newborn calves and husband them with all the love and affections. Dr. Wilde and coworkers from Hannah Research Institute have reported that milk contains inhibitory factors, which have local action on the mammary tissues. A number of scientists have reported that if milk is not removed from mammary gland, it exerts apoptosis (cell death) and the glands become non-functional (involuted). Therefore, milking animals to last strip is important for well being of the calf.

There is nothing wrong if excess milk is used for human consumption. It should be realized that animal keeping is a commercial activity and unless the farmer gets sufficient benefits, he would not tend domestic animals. A productive animal, in fact, is an insurance against cruelty. So, people or organizations who are discouraging people to consume milk are covertly working against these animals. Their next claim would be not to use bullocks in carts and horses in carriages. They should also tell dispassionate people as to why they should feed animals. Excess milk if not removed would on the contrary cause severe inflammation and sickness. Instead of condemning animal farming the cause of animals will be better served if the commercial farmers are convinced about long-term economic benefits of feeding milk to young calves.

A balanced diet must consist of carbohydrate, protein, fat, and minerals. The infants specially need highly digestible food. Now let us examine if milk is a balanced food. The composition of cow and buffalo milk is:

The anti-milk lobby opines that milk is not a good source of nutrition because 80% of milk is water. They are right. If you compare other foods, such as, fruits, green vegetables, etc. the water percentage is around 70-80%. Even human milk contains 80 -85 percentage water. It is therefore not correct to say that milk should not be used because it contains predominant water.

For few months after birth, feeding the young solely on milk is sufficient as it can provide all the energy and nutrients. However, later, with growth of the child only milk is not sufficient. This is the reason doctors advice that older children should be fed on milk plus some cereal-based solid food. The quality of feed should be judged based on availability of its nutrient compared with cost. Protein is an important component of food and its quality depends on amino acid constitution. The amino acids content and there concentration in cow milk are more or less similar to the requirements for human or calves. It should be emphasized that no other species milk can be a substitute for human milk and it must be preferred for children but when due to some reasons it is not available or is insufficient, bovine milk is the next better substitute. Milk is, therefore, a good source for supplementing animal-origin proteins.

The anti-milk groups point out that milk is needed for only children because they can not digest any other food. Secondly, the children secrete requisite enzyme lactase in sufficient quantities (lactose-a kind of sugar in milk is digested by enzyme lactase). They further point out that as age advances the capacity to secrete lactase also declines. Milk, therefore, is not a suitable food for adults.

A number of reports suggest that the ability to digest lactose in adults largely depend on feeding habits. Dr. Teuber, Assistant Professor of Clinical Immunology, University of California Davis, states that in adults habitually consuming milk or milk products, the enzyme activity does not wane. If in later childhood, milk is not a part of diet, lactase synthesis is turned off. Moreover, all the cases of lactose intolerance may not be due to deficiency of lactase. Even in lactose-intolerant individuals, the expression of signs (diarrhea, flatus and abdominal pain) would depend on how milk is consumed. In lactase-deficient individuals if milk is consumed with meal (which is the general case in adults) it is well tolerated. In some people, intolerance may be due to allergy to milk proteins and not due to lactose intolerance. Food allergy is very common and could be due to any other food protein.

Recent reports from leading universities of the world endorse numerous beneficial effects of milk. Human as well as bovine milk has been shown to contain a number of bioactive molecules, which exert positive responses. The first milk, colostrum (the first milk after birth of calf) is being used to treat many enteric infections in human and animals. In some diseases, for example, cryptosporidia and rotavirus infections (common complications in AIDA), colostrum feeding is the only option available to patients. A number of laboratories are now working to develop hyper-immune milk that will be useful for specific enteric infections.