Milk 2

Some say that "homogenized" milk cannot be properly digested by the human body and should be avoided.

Others wonder about the hormones and other drugs that are sometimes administered to dairy cattle, and the effects this might have on the milk they produce.

Still others have requested that I "hire an editor".

In fact, all three of these concerns where floated by comments I received after my last post (wherein I criticized the distinct notions that cow's milk is an "unnatural" human beverage, and that pasteurization sucks). Since these particular remarks were not made visible on this blog, I have taken the liberty of partially reproducing and individually addressing them below, while secreting the identities of their respective authors.

Comment #1: "Did you research homogenization of dairy? [My concerns are that] fat globules that [small] don't occur in nature and our bodies aren't designed to process them."

(click here to have "the Professor" quickly explain homogenization to you, and how it differs from pasteurization)

Dear Commenter: I have been unable to definitively verify whether or not homogenization can indeed sometimes create "unnaturally" small milk fat globules. This is because milk fat globules (which are composed primarily of "triglycerides") are actually secreted from the udder in a very wide and irregular array of sizes (typically something like 0.1-15 micrometers in diameter), but I think it is fair to say that very small triglyceride globules are known to occur quite "naturally".

Furthermore, while it is true that homogenization does reduce the average size of these globules (from approximately 2.0 micrometers to 0.5 micrometers), it doesn't simply do this by making them all smaller. In fact, homogenization is specifically intended not so much to reduce globular dimensions as it is to standardize them (thus the "homo" prefix). 

It could well be that these points are irrelevant, however, as basic nutritional science casts further doubt on your second concern: fat globules are apparently broken down into individual triglycerides, and even these are themselves broken down into their constituent pieces (or "monomers") before being absorbed into the bloodstream. This leaves me wondering how it is that fat globules could ever possibly be considered "too small" for our bodies to process. 

For the sake of perspective, dear commenter, I should also point out how easily your expressed concerns can be turned on their head. After all, milk is "meant" to be consumed at the breast, not stored in containers where fat globules can then grow through accretion; and there is far more reason to believe that bigger globules are the harder to digest: I honestly believe that you would be on firmer ground claiming that not homogenizing milk results in fat globules of a size that "doesn't occur in nature" and that "our bodies aren't designed to process". Of course, I don't mean to suggest that storing milk for later use is therefore a worrisome practice.

In addition to your own, the internet has made me aware of further criticisms of homogenization, and I have also heard some of these out. Fortunately for homogenized milk drinkers, they generally appear to exhibit the following rather ingenuous themes.

• The "extreme pressure" homogenized milk is subjected to is dwelt upon, without elaborating on the supposedly dire consequences of this fact in the least.
• Often it is claimed that "natural butterfat cells" in milk are "destroyed" by homogenization, despite the fact that these "cells" are are actually more like "clumps" that appear to be perfectly capable of spontaneous reassembly.
• The advantages of homogenization are fantastically undersold to the extent that its only admitted merit is to service the whims of the greedy dairy corporations. Unmentioned are the facts that it also reduces waste (at least theoretically) by increasing the longevity of milk and eliminating the cream layer; that it allows for fat content standardization; that it allows milk to be more easily fortified with the fat-soluble vitamins A and D; that it compensates for the tendency of pasteurization and refrigeration to promote fat separation and thus makes milk processing greater than the sum of its parts; that it gives dairy a creamier texture; and that it helps to preserve its flavor.  
• The most substantial allegation seems to be that homogenization results in the increased uptake of a substance intimidatingly named xanthine oxidase (but affectionately abbreviated XO), which - it is further hypothesized - can cause heart disease. The roots of the XO hypothesis apparently go back to 1971, and although it seems to have endured in the popular mind, it has not fared nearly so well in the scientific arena, where it has long been thoroughly trashed - not least of all because it again depends on the idea that fat globules are absorbed whole and intact into the bloodstream.

(Click here for a taste of the sort of anti-homogenization diatribes to which I am referring)

Personally, I find these arguments to be quite comforting: if there were truly a legitimate cause to worry about homogenization, I would assume that its critics would be expounding it, instead of relying entirely on an "appeal to nature" (the logical fallacy of necessarily equating "natural" with "good"), viscerally-stimulating but scientifically meaningless descriptors, and a discredited 40-year old hypothesis, as they currently seem to be.

Comment #2: "Another consideration when deciding whether or not to drink milk would be the BGH ["Bovine Growth Hormone"] and other drugs that may be in it."

Dear Commenter: For clarification I should first point out that BGH is actually quite "naturally" occurring, although I'm sure you meant "rBGH" (the "r" stands for "recombinant"), its synthetic, Monsanto-developed, and (perhaps inevitably) controversial counterpart that is sometimes administered to dairy cattle to increase their milk production.

That said, if you live in Canada like me, you don't have to worry about rBGH actually being in your milk because it was banned from this country in 1999. 

That said, if you live in America, where rBGH is perfectly legal and widely used, you still don't have to worry about rBGH being in your milk because rBGH is a "protein hormone" which, like most other proteins (indeed, like triglycerides), is absorbed by the human digestive tract not as a biologically active whole but as dismembered and perfectly innocuous monomers. Furthermore, even cows that have not been treated with rBGH can give milk that contains BGH; and you might care to note that the two are "biologically indistinguishable" from each other.

But obviously rBGH does have an effect on the cows that are injected with it. Because of this, I neither can nor will claim that its use is utterly harmless and/or ethical in all respects. rBGH has apparently been found to effect milk composition - albeit very slightly and in a manner of debatable consequence; it can also effect milk cow health - indeed, it seems to result in more frequent incidence of "mastitis", or inflammation of the udder; and this in turn can warrant the increased use of antibiotics. It seems to me that these facts give rise to some perfectly legitimate concerns.

Unfortunately, some of these are less immaculate. For example, it is often claimed that rBGH-produced milk should be avoided because it might contain elevated levels of substance that somebody decided to name Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1); and that elevated IGF-1 blood levels are associated with certain types of cancer in humans. But while these may indeed be legitimate points, the picture they depict is greatly altered when the following dots are also connected: that IGF-1 (like BGH) appears to be a harmlessly digestible protein; that (unlike BGH) it is anyway "naturally" produced by the human body; and that its abundance in our blood is not suspected of causing cancer but merely of indicating its presence.

It might also be worth noting that the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to insist that rBGH "can be used without any appreciable risk to the health of consumers"; and that the Canadian ban came only after an exhaustive nine-year review considered evidence that it adversely effected the health of dairy cattle. 

Of course, the underlying implication of your comment is common to many if not all of the popular milk-related concerns I have recently been sizing up: that dairy companies, and the regulators that monitor them, might be too incompetent, callous, or corrupt to ensure that commercial milk does not contain unsafe amounts of potentially unhealthful drugs or other substances. This fear has been legitimately stoked by the 2003 documentary The Corporation, (here's the clip) in which two former Fox News reporters claim to have been fired after resisting indirect pressure from Monsanto to alter their report on rBGH-produced milk (whether or not the insights of these journalists could really have thrown the entire scientific debate over rBGH into turmoil is one thing: the realization that private interests can restrict the flow of information is quite another); by the 2008 news that the Chinese firm Sanlu had become embroiled in a scandal that involved the tainting of milk with a substance called "melamine", which superficially boosted the protein content of their product in exchange for compromising the health of some 300,000 children, including the small crib-full who it apparently killed (in the aftermath another two people were executed); and possibly even by the recent and dramatically evidenced failures of American business regulation.

But it seems to me that these events are examples of some inherent traits of capitalist societies, wherein the unscrupulous defeat the ethical in the absence of diligent and incorruptible regulation, and wherein anonymous strangers produce nearly everything we eat, drink, and possess. And that, dear commenter, is a discussion that could spill into hours.

Comment 3: "How dare you?! Hire an editor... [sic] And if you are going to get me interested enough in your writing to actually read it, the least you can do is answer the two questions you present!"

Dear Commenter: A fair criticism, and I sincerely thank you for taking the time to level it. As evidence that I am doing my best to edit myself, here are some interesting and tenuously milk-related facts that otherwise would not have made the cut. Hopefully, taken together, they will provide you with a satisfactory answer to the question you present. 

• As you may know, cows in the predominantly Hindu nation of India enjoy a relatively privileged status. But did you know that, according to Christopher Hitchens, "the government of India even offered to import and protect all the cattle facing slaughter as a result of the bovine encephalitic, or 'mad cow,' plague that swept Europe in the 1990s"? Interestingly, India is also the single most prolific dairy-producing country on the planet.
• The oil corporation Beyond Petroleum (BP) that was responsible for the recent and tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was recently awarded an Ig Nobel prize in chemistry for "disproving the old belief that oil and water don't mix." In fact milk is technically an oil-in-water "emulsion".
• In Saudi Arabia a recent "fatwa" has finally made it morally permissible for unrelated men and women to mingle in that socially conservative kingdom - but only after the two engage in some hot breastfeeding action. In other news, the US has recently recommitted itself to arming the leaders of this Wonderland-like nation to the teeth.
• Cows sleep lying down: "cow-tipping" is a strange myth.
• Did you know that milk proteins can be used to make hats and socks? In fact, milk-sock technology dates back to the First World War. Milk fiber is sometimes hailed as being "sanitary" and "green", as well as for being an elegant clothing option; but it is also quite delicate and expensive, and has enjoyed only limited commercial success. Some say it's "like wearing a milk bath", but
• really, dear commenter, why the hell would I ever want to take a milk bath?