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My journey to Vedgedom: Part 2
As I mentioned in Part 1, I had to reevaluate my consumption of dairy products. I had only known dairy products to be something that I needed in order to maintain my health and for calcium. I remember growing up and seeing commercials (The Laughing Cow) and advertisements (Got Milk?) that promoted the importance of consuming dairy. I now know that the cows of the dairy industry are NOT laughing because they actually live miserable lives. I now know that I do not need to consume dairy for calcium because dairy does not promote bone health. According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine “a 12-year Harvard study of 78,000 women, those who drank milk three times a day actually broke more bones than women who rarely drank milk. Similarly, a 1994 study of elderly men and women in Sydney, Australia, showed that higher dairy product consumption was associated with increased fracture risk. Those with the highest dairy product consumption had approximately double the risk of hip fracture compared to those with the lowest consumption.” I also discovered that dairy consumption is linked to the increased risk of cancer in the reproductive systems of both men and women. I got angry. I never knew about any of this information. Why wasn’t any of this publicized in the education system or on food packaging or in commercials? I felt betrayed by the system for successfully keeping me uninformed. I continued to dig for more information and I realized it all came down to money. The dairy industry was a business like any other and all they care about is increasing sales and gaining profits. I learned that the dairy industry benefits off of promoting misinformation to consumers like me, consumers who trusted that the USDA and FDA was looking out for my best interest when it came to promoting health. Humans are the only species that drinks milk past the weaning stage and that drinks milk from another species. (I did not realize that at the time either and it blew my mind) Cow’s milk was never designed for humans to consume in the first place. *sighs* I could no longer ignore the evidence. I had to end my love affair with cheese and ice cream :-/ not because I fell out of love with those delicious items but because I discovered the truth. I was becoming a conscious consumer. I said goodbye to dairy but I still had every intention of continuing to consume eggs and meat after I finished my 30 day cleanse (I will describe my cleanse in detail on a later post). My mindset began to change after my dad recommended watching the documentary Forks over Knives (Netflix). That documentary led me in to a YouTube whirlwind spending countless hours watching videos, documentaries and reading articles and case studies about the meat, dairy, egg and pharmaceutical industry. What other industries have been benefiting from my obliviousness? It was overwhelming but I was determined to know the truth. I will continue part 3 of my Vedgedom journey tomorrow. Until then… ~”Be Veg. Get Fit. Live Well.”~ Jessica Ivory Sutton
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