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Milk halal? The milk myth debunked

by CroMagnon & Tinero Timanfaya

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:

(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 animal's milk being consumed by humans after the weaning stage).

(quotes:)
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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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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%. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scientists Uncover Genetic Basis for Lactose Intolerance
http://prof.usb.ve/jpino/jj%2033.htm

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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Food Allergies - When Eating Is Risky
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/CONSUMER/CON0266d.html

Lactose intolerance, for instance, is sometimes mistaken for milk allergy. Lactose intolerance is a problem of digestion due to an enzyme deficiency, with cramps and diarrhea the common hallmarks. 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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. .......... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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' ?

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Pork in Your Milk?
http://www.islamicconcern.com/ (islamic site)
(click on 'Halal vegetarianism' in the left upper corner, and read: )

Are you eating �halal� meat? Did you know that your sheep have probably eaten chicken in their feed? Or that your dairy cows have probably had pork bones in their feed? A new article shows that this problem extends beyond meat in America�even animals in the Islamic world are fed these products. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Surely if Allah had known this despicable modern practise of feeding animal remains (including those of pigs) to cows would happen in the future, He wouldn't have given the Eternal advise to drink ('cattle'ss) milk?

Or is this another 'test' from the Allmighty?

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Conclusion: in stead of finding any reliability in the 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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Milk halal? The milk myth debunked

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Added: November 13, 2002 LycosHit()

Added: November 13, 2002