Food To Use Instead of

 

 

 Milk And Eggs

 

 

           SIMPLE AND EASY

     It is not only possible but simple and easy to substitute for dairy milk and eggs in the diet.  Protein, calcium, and riboflavin are generally considered the problem nutrients to replace when milk is omitted from the diet, a mixture of soy and sesame protein has a high nutritive value, compared to milk protein.  “The cheapest way to eat twenty grams of protein is to cook up a cup of dried beans or eat four-and-a-half tablespoon of peanut butter.”  Two pounds of soy flour contain as much protein as six dozen eggs or fifteen quarts of milk.  The protein of legumes and leafy vegetable supplement remarkably well those of cereals, and have been determined to be as efficient as proteins of animal origin.  In areas where nutritional deficiency is prevalent, there is a gross shortage of good quality food of all kinds, rather than a selective shortage of animal products. the diet consisting largely of refined cornmeal, cassava root, tapioca, or white rice with practically no leafy vegetables, legumes, fruits, milk or eggs.  All foods, except refined foods, contain all the essential amino acids.  From these, the body synthesizes the various amino acids it needs and forms its own proteins.  Food Nutrition And Diet Therapy,  1972

          KNOW YOU NEEDS

     Good milk substitutes can be obtained by a variety of combinations of sesame and sunflower seed, soybeans, and all common greens, turnip greens, mustard greens, asparagus, broccoli, kale, etc.).   One cup of turnip greens contains approximately the same amount of calcium as one cup of milk.

     A combination of barley, whole wheat, and soy beans can be use to help replace milk in one and two year old children.  It is inadvisable to take vitamin supplements, calcium or any other purified nutrient when the diet is adequate.  Split peas, lentils, or other legumes, nuts, common greens, and olives prepared in a variety of ways helps take the place of milk and eggs, both from the standpoint of enjoyment and nutritional advantages.

     It has long been assumed, due to the development of commercial interests of the dairy industry, that milk introduced into a human dietary would correct any nutritional problem.  Striking evidence of the error of this premise have come to the fore in such studies as those introducing milk to the populations suffering from kwashiorkor or marasmus.  If milk is given with an already existing vitamin A deficiency, a number of harmful effects can be expected, some of which may end up in partial or total blindness.

        KEEP IT BALANCED

     In Northeast Brazil, in a population having a serious deficiency of vitamin A, powdered milk was confidently introduced to alleviate the starvation.  Immediately after it was introduced, young individuals began experiencing a growth spurt which further depleted the scanty stores of vitamin A from the liver.  As a result, there were outbreaks of night blindness, xerophthalmia (drying of the conjunctiva and certain glands of the eye), keratomalacia (softening of the cornea), and irreversible blindness.  There are balances of nutrients in the body that maintain an ideal relationship.  Complex nutrient interactions occur in the body that are not only usual, but are the rule.  It may be better in some instances to have a total nutritional deficit than to have nutritional deficits in specific areas and surpluses in others.

     If one suspects his diet to be deficient or inferior, a single kind of food, such as milk or the addition of some kind of food supplements, will seldom rectify a poor diet.  It is still easy to supply a balanced diet from fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains in most countries.  No amount of milk drinking will compensate for poor menu planning, and serious problems can result from this type of imbalance.  An ideal diet consists of fruits and whole grains for breakfast, and vegetables and whole grains for lunch, all other foods being taken sparingly.  Supper, if eaten, should be early, light, and composed of fruits or grains.

            OSTEOPOROSIS

     Even physicians will suggest that a “balanced diet” will include as much as three glasses of milk daily.  It is taught, sometimes even by physicians, that to receive less calcium than the quantity supplied by three glasses of milk is dangerous.  Yet, it is readily demonstrated that osteoporosis, a condition of too little mineral in the bones, results from such conditions as alcoholism, lack of exercise, and a diet containing too many animal products with its acidifying effect on the blood, bone and soft tissue.  Unfortunately the use of 1,200 milligrams of calcium daily is prescribed for some conditions.  Such a level of calcium intake endangers several systems of the body, particularly the kidneys, blood vessels, eye, skin, gal bladder, and other glandular tissues.

     Many doctors are now beginning to criticize milk.  It is well known by dieticians that milk is not essential to health.  Yet, some persons have a violent emotional reactions to suggestions that they stop drinking milk.  Such individuals may actually suffer fatigue or other physical discomfort when milk is withdrawn from the diet.  It is likely that such persons are actually sensitive to milk and that milk injures their bodies. Any substance causing cellular injury can cause a true addiction.  It may be that persons having an emotional attachment to milk actually suffer from a true addiction to milk.

     NATIVE DIET OF JAPAN

     Japan to the present day has very few domestic animals.  The classic native diet of the last century was rice, seaweed, melons, and other vegetables, a variety of fruits and fish.  Generally, little or no wine or beer, milk or cheese were taken, an very little egg or meat.  In fact, many people lived their lives rarely or never having eaten food of animal origin.  Yet, there was ( and still is) in Japan a total absence of rickets, the skeletal disease producing knock knee, bow legs, and pigeon breast.  There was a very low death rate in childbirth and generally easy labors.  One writer commenting on this matter stated, “Now I think I am not wrong in affirming that the chief and central source of these great sanitary blessings is the absence of cow’s milk.”  Journal of the American Medical Association January 28, 1893.  Tuberculosis was also notably low, as was syphilis.

     The National Dairy Council is very concerned about the trend toward strict vegetarianism and states that diets not containing animal products “Pose potential hazards to one’s nutrition status and general health, particularly for infants and young children.”  In view of the large multitude of the world’s poor and hungry, The National Dairy Council makes quite an admission: “Vegetarian diets can be nutritionally adequate if carefully selected.

     This process requires a very good knowledge of food composition and nutrition principles.  As vegetarian diets become less restrictive as to nutrient sources, probably of meeting nutritional requirements increases.  There are today untold millions of earth’s population who are working productively, living happily and producing prolifically who have little or no knowledge of food composition and nutrition principles, but who are strictly vegetarian in their diet: no meat, milk, eggs, or cheese.

     We can expect that the future will present millions more strict vegetarians that the present, as food shortage becomes more real in a world becoming more and more populated.  In an article called The Nutritional Adequacy of a Vegetable Substitute for Milk, R.F.A.Dean gives examples of several children who were weaned to a strictly vegetarian diet (no animal products) from a few weeks to five months of age.  The infants thrived on the diet at least up to three years.  Rats were also tested by experiments with mixtures of cereal and soybean products.  The rats had good growth.  What is needed is experimentation that will develop menus that can be easily substituted for more expensive animal products.  British Journal Of Nutrition 1951

        EAT FOR STRENGTH

     Several years ago we published a cookbook presenting not only recipes but also health principle which, if followed, will assist in preparing foods that will provide all the nutrients one requires to maintain health and recover from disease.  The book Eat For Strength, is available in both regular and oil-free editions.  We recommend that babies be totally breast-fed for the first six to eight months of life, then have well-prepared table foods introduced gradually, making certain that when grains are used they are well cooked-over an hour for mushes and porridges, which guards against food sensitivities being developed because of the immature digestive tract, when the child is weaned, it should be to table foods and not to a formula.

     The National Dairy Council states that “few other foods besides dairy products contain significant amounts of biologically available calcium.” yet many strict vegetarians rear their children with no dairy milk.  Amazingly, their dental caries are usually non-existent and broken bones are a rarity, even vanishingly rare; rickets is unheard of and may never occur except in some dark-skinned individuals who become shut up in smoggy cities away from sunshine.  Tooth development should not be considered a feature of milk intake; quite the reverse.  Dental caries can be initiated by bacteria that ferment any dietary carbohydrates, including milk.  The “nursing bottle caries” include cavities from nursing a bottle of milk as well as a bottle of juice.  Sugar induces cavities, especially sticky foods such as caramel candy, marshmallows, and other chewy candies.

     The relationship of calcium to phosphorus is of greater importance than the absolute quantity of calcium present in the dietary.  The ideal ratio of calcium to phosphorus in the diet is approximately 1:1, except that the infant ratio should be about 1.5:1 up to six months of age.  1.35:1 up to one year of age, and then 1:1 beyond age one.  Foods such as processed cheese, processed meats, fabricated potato chips, refrigerator fruit turnovers, and carbonated beverages are high in phosphorus.  Excessive phosphates are held responsible by some of the osteoporosis (bone loss) that occurs in aging.

     With the disappearance of the family cow, the flocks of yard chickens and ducks, and the vanishing of the smoke-house, went the dependence of the poor on milk, eggs, and pork.  These were once the low cost foods available to most of the poor.  The condition has reversed at the present time, so that the poor can more readily have the foods from the vegetarian groups.  “The people every where should be taught how to cook without milk and eggs, so far as possible, and yet have their food wholesome and palatable.”  MH 321

A. & C. Thrash