Health Nugget - Why not milk and cheese and what to use instead ? with Dr. Walt Cross

Cheese is made from fermented milk. The whey is separated from the curd. From the soft curd, cream cheese is manufactured (or cottage cheese) and if allowed mature, hard cheese are manufactured. In the maturing process, bacteria utilize the sugars and other nutrients in the milk until maturity which means they are no longer able to metabolize the nutrients. The sugar that is metabolized in the milk is lactose and lactose is converted to glucose and galactose. The glucose is used for energy by the bacteria but they lack the enzyme to metabolizes the galactose. Human beings that are weaned no longer produce the enzyme which metabolizes galactose and so galactose is a foreign substance which has been associated with ovarian cancer and senile cataracts as well as other disorders.

The protein in cheese and dairy products is casein, which requires rennin in order to successfully digest it, and humans do not have sufficient rennin so digestion is incomplete and instead of amino acids as end product, short chain polypeptides end up in the bloodstream. These have been associated with allergic reactions as the body creates antibodies against the amino acid sequences. Many sclerotic diseases as well as allergic asthmas, bronchial and ear infections, are associated with this protein as well as diabetes type I.

The fat in cheese is saturated fat and cholesterol but since it is subject to maturation in the air these fats are oxidized particularly since animal products do not contain antioxidants. These fats are carcinogenic and oxidized cholesterol is considered the most dangerous form of cholesterol for cardiovascular disease. Digestion times for cheese in view of their protein composition are very long and require excessive acid production in the stomach in order to optimize pepsins activity. Cheese thus leads to acidosis and considering all the above, it should be regarded as totally unfit for food.

Dairy products in general will have the same negative effects as cheese, but in addition, the sugar lactose has not yet been fermented and thus has to be broken down by enzymes in the human body. After weaning, the enzyme lactase is deactivated to a greater or lesser extent in different human races. People of European origin generally tolerate lactose better than Asian, Hispanic or African nations because they still produce the enzyme lactase to some extent after weaning, whereas the other nations produce so little that they are up to 95 or even 100% lactose intolerant. Lactose intolerance means that lactose passes to the colon undigested and causes diarrhea and colonic disorders. Even in Europeans this is true to a limited extent. Moreover, bacteria will break down the lactose in the colon and the resultant galactose is considered a foreign substance since Europeans lack the enzyme to convert it to glucose after weaning. So dairy products in general are not the most wholesome.