On serving sizes and dairy (less random than they appear)

Riding the train home from work the other day I noticed an add targeted towards reducing child obesity. The organization called Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC) is promoting its message during the month of October called "5-4-3-2-1 Go!" that calls for 5 servings of fruits/vegetables, 4 servings of water, 3 servings of low-fat dairy, 2 or less hours in front of the TV or computer and 1 or more hours of physical activity.

First of all, I always find anything that discusses servings interesting because no one has a clue what a serving is. Most processed and packaged foods provide misleading servings. A candy bar that is clearly intended to be 1 serving is often listed as multiple servings so if you glance at the fat content you rarely notice that you need to multiply it by, say, 3x to get the accurate amount right before you crumple up the empty wrapper. I actually use this as a sign when I buy packaged foods. You'll notice that your average product on the shelves of Whole Foods has a much more honest serving size calculation than your average product at a traditional grocery or convenience store. If a product is clearly designed to be eaten by one person at one sitting and it is listed as having multiple servings, this is a red flag to me. But let's take things that aren't packaged and so don't have clear serving sizes. Fruits and vegetable serving sizes are usually set at about 1/2 cup for most, but a full cup for stuff like lettuce that takes up a lot of space. Many fruits are a single serving: bananas, apples, peaches, etc. An apple is a good marker to use for other fruits -- an apple size handful of grapes, berries, etc. is about a fruit. Vegetables are roughly the same. Of course the less that is edible the larger the serving -- like for corn an entire ear is one serving. While personally I don't think it really counts unless its truly freshly squeezed or juiced, 1/2 cup to 3/4 of a cup of fruit or vegetable juice is also considered a serving.

But what also bothers me about CLOCC's message is the diary emphasis. I think it is a wide misconseption that humans need to consume dairy. I have relaxed from my earlier in life viewpoint that diary is necessarily bad for you. I do not believe that is true for the right people and the right dairy (milk from cows given rBGH, for instance, is always bad for you). I also still believe that the emphasis on dairy from cows is a silly product of industrialized farming considering cows to be more economical. Humans, however, have a much easier time digesting sheep and goats milk. But steping back, why would dairy be a necessary element of our diet? No other animal drinks the milk of another animal (and no animal drinks the milk of their mother past their youth). Humans have certainly lived in areas of our planet for centuries without access to dairy. Indeed some ethnicities do far better digesting dairy than others. For instance, virtually all Asians are lactose intolerant. Even Asian-Americans are about 90% lactose intolerant. African-Americans, Mexicans and American Jews are also largely lactose intolerant, while Northern Europeans and their decendants have almost no lactose intolerance and the American children of each group tends to be less intolerant than the previous generations. (This all began with the domestication of animals about 10,000 years ago and shows how different groups evolved depending on their use of dairy. Groups that used dairy more exhibit less lactose intolerance.) So for starters, this shows that we can't all be expected to consume the same amount of dairy in the same forms. Serving milk to kids in schools may not be such a good idea (though children as a rule exhibit less lactose intolerance than adults).

But we need milk and dairy for healthy growth, strong teeth and bones, and so forth, right? Not really actually. Studies have shown that milk doesn't improve bone integrity in children or reduce fracture risks in elderly adults. Yes, calcium is important, but it can be found in small doses in all sorts of foods that build up, and those foods tend to provide far more digestible calcium than dairy. Indeed, the famous nutritionist Marion Nestle points out that rates of bone density loss (osteoporsis) are highest in countriest that eat the most dairy. This is of course more complicated than I lay out. Americans also consume the most meat which is known to reduce calcium levels in the body. Perhaps our foods are so lacking in nutrition today will all of our processed crap that we lack sufficient vitamin D, magnesium and potassium to properly absorb the calcium in dairy and other foods. What remains clear is that dairy is not necessary. If you love milk in your cereal or a kid needs a glass with desert, most people wouldn't say that's a health risk. But to say it's a requirement for good health is a leap that is totally unsupported by scientific research. This leaves us with my largest frustration: the fact that non-profits and government organizations that either really intend (or pretend to intend) to help us live and eat healthier are spreading false messages.

Personally I think it is more important to focus on what NOT to eat. Focus on avoiding soft drinks, limiting processed foods, eliminating all fast food, and reducing animal-based proteins. People will still be thirsty and will still be hungry. If they can be convinced to avoid soft drinks they will be more likely to drink water. If they can be reminded that fast food literally kills you in the same way as a pack of cigarettes they will seek out alternatives rather than go hungry. If they decide it may be a good idea to eat a smaller portion of meat at dinner they will be more likely to eat more vegetables to fill themselves up. Is this really that complicated? Can't someone compile this into a cheer as catchy as "5-4-3-2-1 Go!"?

Organic milk

I've written before about milk -- about the risks of bovine hormones that boost production and the absurdity of our laws that require milk to be pasteurized (and the common misconception that "raw" milk is unsafe). You can usually find milk that is "homone free" or "rBGH" free and that's a good start. Additionally, organic milk has become widely available and will continue to be more available and more affordable (for better or worse is a whole other topic). Organic milk must come from "organic cows" just as with organic beef. This requires certification and compliance with USDA rules. Organic cows cannot be injected with hormones, and cannot be given antibiotics except sometimes in limited situations where the health of the animal is truly at issue (this is a point that has developed some controversy as without some flexibility a cow would either have to be left to suffer and die as an "organic cow" or given the necessary drugs and then perhaps sold to a factor farm now that it lost its organic status or separated from the organic herd for at least a year).

Additionally, organic cows must have access to pasture. They truly need to be able to walk around and eat grass when possible. This can be difficult depending on the season and geography, and certainly favors smaller farms as requirements of rotational grazing, herding, etc. clearly become more problematic when you go from 300 cows to 1,000 to 5,000. The good news is cows like to graze. It's in their nature. Farmers report that cows run to the pasture enthusiasm (for a cow) -- not unlike a dog that gets excited to go outside. And as I've discussed so many times, grass is what a cow is meant to eat. When you feed an animal its natural diet it will be healthier (thus the significantly reduced need for banned antibiotics, etc.) and it will produce healthier food for humans. Organic milk has been found to produce as much as 500x more beneficial fatty acids (particularly conjugated linoleic acid or CLA), anticarcinogens and vitamin E as conventional milk where cows are fed a "grain diet" (corn). Other benefits include 75% more vitamin A and 2-3x more antioxidants. And of course there are no traces of those hormones and antibiotics, which are significantly more dangerous to children than adults.

There are many concerns as the industry develops. The nation's largest producer of organic milk is Aurora Organic Dairy. They have been a center of controversy from the start, as chronicled in Samuel Fromartz's book Organic, Inc. And they remain representative of the problems in this industry. Aurora Dairy is huge. Unlike most organic dairy farms, they operate on a huge scale and use industrial-scale dairies more like massive conventional dairy farms. They are one of the primary suppliers to Wal-Mart, Target, Safeway and Costco, among others. Unfortunately, they have always had a problem with the grazing requirements. In 2007 the USDA found them to have "willfully" violated numerous USDA organic regulations. Earlier this month they made negative headlines again when The Cornucopia Institute filed a formal complaint with the USDA that Aurora was failing to comply with USDA organic guidelines in at least one dairy.

While perhaps technically in compliance, you may also want to avoid the largest brands in general. Horizon is owned by Dean Foods, and has been found to also represent much of what is wrong in the direction of organic milk today. They pioneered ultrapasteurization that heats milk to even higher levels to increase shelf life for distant transportation, but exacerbates the problems of pasteurization. Also at the bottom of organic milk surveys are most store brands (with the notable exception of Whole Foods 365, which has been deemed "excellent").