Milk Halal? The Milk Myth Debunked
The Holy Quran clearly states that ('cattle's) milk is agreeable/good for humans to drink:
Quran 16:66
And verily in cattle (too) will ye find an instructive sign. From what is within their bodies between excretions and blood, We produce, for your drink, milk, pure and agreeable to those who drink it.
It's even being served in the Muslim Paradise:
Quran 47:15
(Here is) a Parable of the Garden which the righteous are promised: in it are rivers of water incorruptible; rivers of milk of which the taste never changes; rivers of wine, a joy to those who drink; and rivers of honey pure and clear. In it there are for them all kinds of fruits; and Grace from their Lord. (Can those in such Bliss) be compared to such as shall dwell for ever in the Fire, and be given, to drink, boiling water, so that it cuts up their bowels (to pieces)?
Not surprisingly the
Halal Digest from januari 2001 states:
This month we take a look at dairy products. Of course, all dairy products originate with milk. Milk has been mentioned in the Quran four times, twice directly and twice indirectly.
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Milk has also been described as a drink of Paradise.
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As produced from the cow (or other Halal animal), milk is Halal.
So ('cattle's) milk is a real good and healthy drink and a blessing from Allah for all & each of mankind.....? Is it?
Findings from modern science sketch a somewhat different picture:
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(quotes
No Milk - Introduction
http://www.nomilk.com/intro.htm
There are many millions of people who must be cautious about consuming milk and milk by-products. For this group, there are four principle reasons for their caution:
1. Lactose Maldigestion, also known as Lactose Intolerance, or (incorrectly) as lactose allergy. The digestive system does not produce enough of the lactase enzyme to break down the complex lactose sugar into simpler sugars. The lactose sugar ferments in the small intestine, producing gas, bloating, cramps, and diarrhea.
2. Milk Allergy. This is a true allergic reaction by the body's immune system to one or more of milk's proteins, such as casein or lactoglobulin. The resulting symptoms typically include swelling, itching, bronchospasm, hives, hypotension or shock, abdominal cramps and diarrhea.
3. Casein Intolerance. This is when the immune system of the body produces IgA and IgG antibodies to casein, a milk protein. The community avoiding casein are the people afflicted with autism.
4. Villous Atrophy. This is discussed in the Medline abstracts found in the Educational Institution section below. For these people the casein milk protein causes the intestinal villi to flatten, much like it does when gluten is consumed by somebody that is intolerant to gluten.
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Metabolic Food Disorders
http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/X2670e.htm#P85_19057
The symptoms characteristic of lactose intolerance include bloating, flatulence, abdominal cramping, and frothy diarrhea. Lactose intolerance affects a large number of people worldwide. Lactose intolerance is more frequent among certain ethnic groups (African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, certain Jewish groups, and Arabs) affecting as many as 60 - 90% of older adults in those groups. The prevalence among Caucasians is about 6 - 12%.
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Lactase Deficiency: The World Pattern Today
T. Gilat, Israel J Med Sci (1979), 15:369:
(no link available)
"Condition caused by an absence of lactase: Lactose intolerance which causes cramps, bloating and diarrhea when dairy products are consumed. People who are naturally lactose intolerant: 20% of Caucasians and up to 90% of people of African and Asian descent."
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Scientists Uncover Genetic Basis for Lactose Intolerance
Scientific American
It's a strange irony that the substance we depend on for nutrients early in life can trigger unpleasant symptoms when we consume it as adults. But in North America alone, lactose intolerance - the inability to digest the main sugar in milk - affects more than 30 million adults, mostly of African or Asian descent. Northern Europeans, on the other hand, tend to retain the ability to break down lactose.
Now new research, published in the February issue of the journal Nature Genetics, has finally revealed the long-sought genetic basis for lactose intolerance.
Studying the DNA of nine extended Finnish families, Leena Peltonen of the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues discovered two DNA variants located outside the lactase gene itself that correspond to lactose tolerance and intolerance. Importantly, lactose-intolerant members of the Finnish families shared the same DNA variant found in lactose-intolerant individuals from Germany, Italy and South Korea, among others, which suggests to the researchers that lactose intolerance has ancient roots. Indeed persistent lactase activity, they say, may have only evolved with the advent of dairy farming, around 10,000 years ago.
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Food Allergies - Rare but Risky
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/wh-alrg1.html
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Allergy and Intolerance -- Different Problems
Food intolerance is a much more common problem than allergy. Here, the problem is not with the body's immune system, but, rather, with its metabolism. The body cannot adequately digest a portion of the offending food, usually because of some chemical deficiency. For example, persons who have difficulty digesting milk (lactose intolerance) often are deficient in the intestinal enzyme lactase, which is needed to digest milk sugar (lactose). The deficiency can cause cramps and diarrhea if milk is consumed. Estimates are that about 80 percent of African-Americans have lactose intolerance, as do many people of Mediterranean or Hispanic origin. It is quite different from the true allergic reaction some have to the proteins in milk. Unlike allergies, intolerances generally intensify with age.
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When Milk Makes You Sick
http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/tp.milk3.html
Except for certain populations of Western humans, milk consumption stops ( or is greatly reduced) with weaning. It also happens that in animals and most humans there is a decline in the level of production of lactase with aging. Lactase is the enzyme that digests milk sugar. (Curtis).
Evolution in pastoral ancestors that kept dairy animals, in populations of Europeans and some Africans, is thought to have produced the modern people who are lactose absorbers throughout adult life. There may have been a selective advantage in that group during times when milk and dairy products were relied on almost exclusively for nutrition during shortages of other foods (Houts). About 10,000 years have passed since the milking of domestic animals was begun. Nigeria is a case that demonstrates the significance of this lifestyle on human evolution. In the southern region, where conditions are not favorable for cattle, milk is not part of the diet. People there develop lactose intolerance. In contrast, a nomadic tribe that has been raising milk cattle for thousands of years remain lactose tolerant. Most African Americans are descendants of the nonpastoral tribes from Western Africa and do not tolerate lactose well. (Keeton and Gould)
In Caucasians only about 15% develop lactose intolerance while 80-90% of the African American and Asian populations are affected.
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White Poison: The Horrors of Milk
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12002
Got milk? If not, then thank your lucky stars. Because if you do, medical research shows that you are likely to be plagued by anemia, migraine, bloating, gas, indigestion, asthma, prostate cancer, and a host of potentially fatal allergies -- especially if you are a person of color.
But milk is also a racial issue. Almost 90 percent of African Americans and most Latinos, Asians, and Southern Europeans lack the genes necessary to digest lactose, the primary sugar in milk. The milk industry's response is classic: they have launched new campaigns arguing that non-whites can digest milk if they take in small sips during the day. There is a burgeoning industry worth $450 million a year churning out products designed to minimize lactose intolerance.
Lactose intolerance is the most common "food allergy," but to call it an allergy is to take a white-centric view that trivializes the fact that most of the world's people are not biologically designed to digest milk.
Milk does no body good, but for the vast majority of the world's people -- people of color -- it is a public health disaster. ..........
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Race Is Seen as Real Guide to Track Roots of Disease
NY Times, July 30 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/health/genetics/30RACE.html
(subscription needed; article also present at the
Center for Minority Health - Univ. of Pittsburgh )
All humans have the bulk of their genetic heritage in common and possess the same set of genes. But because of mutations, or changes in DNA, each gene comes in several slightly different versions, and some of them are more common in one ethnic group than another. These genetic differences often have medical significance, since some occur among genes that affect susceptibility to disease and the response to drugs.
It has long been known that some diseases are not evenly distributed. For example, a mutation that causes hemochromatosis, a disorder of iron metabolism, is rare or absent among Indians and Chinese but occurs in 7.5 percent of Swedes. A common mutation that causes sickle cell anemia is prevalent among Africans and is thought to have originated among Bantu-speakers before the Bantu expansion 2,000 years ago.
Lactose intolerance, the loss of the ability to digest lactose after weaning, is the default condition of humankind but among Northern Europeans the ability is often retained into adulthood. The reason is a mutation that may have been favored among early cattle farmers.
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Like most previous mentioned research, this last article says basically that
Northern Europeans are among the rather small group of the totallity of humankind to whom consumption of milk after the weaning stage is most 'agreeable' due to evolutionary changes.
For much of the rest of humanity lactose-intolerance after the weaning stage is default.
So
it seems that the Quranic statement {Quran 16:66}
And verily in cattle (too) will ye find an instructive sign. From what is within their bodies between excretions and blood, We produce, for your drink, milk, pure and agreeable to those who drink it.
is more appropriate to the genetic cluster of (kafir) Northern Europeans (and their US descendants) than to the other genetic clusters among humanity.
What would be the islamic explanation for this?
Are the Northern Europeans favoured by Allah on this milk-drinking issue? Or is this research just another 'conspiracy against islam' ?
Conclusion:
In stead of finding any reliability in the islamic myth that ('cattle's) milk is good for ALL people at ALL times, as the author of the Quran would like us to believe,
the findings of daily life and modern science prove exactly the opposite and are actually strongly suggestive of genetic Evolution at work!
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(Note: this article is not about mother's milk for babies. For babies, mother's milk IS the ideal food (animal milk, however, is NOT ideal for human babies). This article is about scientific findings on
the digestive problems the majority of people have when consuming cow's milk.)