90 percent of Americans are nutrient deficient, but processed milk is not the answer

Friday, January 14, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: milk, nutrition, health news

(NaturalNews) The Milk Processor Education Program Dairy Research Institute recently released a study entitled "What America's Missing: A 2011 Report on the Nation's Nutrient Gap," revealing that 90 percent of Americans are nutrient deficient. But the group's solution, to drink more processed milk, is hardly the answer to the nutrient crisis.

According to the report, nine out of ten Americans are deficient in 11 key nutrients, including calcium, vitamin D and potassium. And while this fact definitely translates into a serious health crisis, finding these nutrients in pasteurized, homogenized milk products that come from feedlot cows treated with artificial growth hormones like rBGH, is not the solution.

But the same people that put together the "got milk?" campaign would like everyone to think so, as they have now launched an initiative to pressure mothers to give their children more processed milk in order to fill the nutrient gap. And they are hiring celebrities like Susan Sarandon, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, to help market the message to the masses.

By now, NaturalNews readers probably already know that the vast majority of humankind is deficient in vitamin D. And the best way to get vitamin D is from natural sunlight exposure, because when ultraviolet rays hit they skin they trigger the natural production of the vitamin in the body. Supplementation with vitamin D3 is another viable option when sunlight exposure is limited, as it synthesizes easily in the body.

But the processed milk crusaders are claiming that processed milk is the best source of vitamin D, even though the type commonly used is vitamin D2, a form that is not that easily absorbed by the body. Vitamin D2 does not occur naturally in processed milk, and is added in such limited amounts that it hardly provides much significant benefit.

There are also better sources of potassium and calcium than processed milk, including bananas, nuts, beans and spinach, to name a few. And raw, grass-fed milk that has not been processed is another great natural source of vital nutrients, minerals and enzymes.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nine...
trients-they-need-new-study-concludes-113273399.html