Vegans choose to give up eating and using animal products, including milk. Yet in our modern culture, milk is advertised as one of the necessary parts of a healthy diet. Are there benefits of giving up milk?
Milk is no longer what it used to be. The age old image of a cow, peacefully grassing on a grassy knoll no longer exists. Milk cows today are smashed together in giant factory farms, kept alive and producing with an assortment of hormones and antibiotics. All of which make their way into your body through the milk. Yuck!
We are also not designed to be drinking milk, at least not the way we do. Once we wean from breastmilk as infants a human should be existing on water and real fruit juice. For many, milk is nearly indigestible. Stomach pain, headaches, weight gain, and lethargy have all been linked by some to an inability to breakdown the milk proteins properly. Dairy just isn’t something we should be drinking on a regular basis. Going dairy-free can mean leaving behind all the negative symptoms from undigested milk proteins.
Milk substitutes
One of the things we are encouraged most to drink milk for is the calcium, yet there are many other sources of calcium that you can choose instead. Leafy green vegetables, like the ones in your smoothies, can provide an abundance of calcium in your diet. Broccoli, kale, and collards will all add calcium into your diet, and bring along a host of other vitamins and nutrients as well. (Spinach is the exception, as it can actually prevent calcium absorption.) Black-eyed peas and almonds can also provide calcium in small doses.
If you are up to it, why not try the Dairy Free Challenge? Download and print the free journal and record yourself going without milk, and milk products, for 10 days. At the end see how you feel. You may find life without milk is much better!
