It makes complete sense that God would design it this way, but as adults, people are bonding with refrigerators instead.
Compiled from different articles:
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A recent study conducted by a group of University of Michigan researchers reinforces this theory about food addictions. The report, which was published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine, concludes that “cheese really is crack”, as the Los Angeles Times put it:
Pizza, unsurprisingly, came out on top of the most addictive food list. Besides being a basic food group for kids, college students and adults, there’s a scientific reason we all love pizza, and it has to do with the cheese. (Highly processed foods cause food addiction similar to hard drugs, study shows)
Turns out that researchers have known since the 1980s that cheese actually contains small amounts of morphine—yes, the very same drug given in hospitals as a hardcore pain relief. It’s not added by evil dairy farmers intent on securing their financial futures though, as is actually found naturally in both cow and human milk—which might explain a lot to new mothers who are having trouble shaking off their offspring. (Why Cheese is Like “Dairy Crack”: Because It’s Got Morphine In It)
Breaking the Food Seduction
by Neal D. Barnard, M.D.
…in 1981, Eli Hazum and his colleagues at Wellcome Research Laboratories in Research Triangle Park, N.C., reported a remarkable discovery. Analyzing samples of cow’s milk, they found traces of a chemical that looked very much like morphine. They put it to one chemical test after another. And, finally, they arrived at the conclusion that, in fact, it is morphine. There is not a lot of it and not every sample had detectable levels. But there is indeed some morphine in both cow’s milk and human milk.
Morphine, of course, is an opiate and is highly addictive. So how did it get into milk? …cows actually produce it within their bodies, just as poppies do. Traces of morphine, along with codeine and other opiates, are apparently produced in cows’ livers and can end up in their milk.
But that was only the beginning, as other researchers soon found. Cow’s milk-or the milk of any other species, for that matter-contains a protein, called casein, that breaks apart during digestion to release a whole host of opiates, called casomorphins. A cup of cow’s milk contains about six grams of casein. Skim milk contains a bit more, and casein is concentrated in the production of cheese.
If you examined a casein molecule under a powerful microscope, it would look like a long chain of beads (the “beads” are amino acids-simple building blocks that combine to make up all the proteins in your body). When you drink a glass of milk or eat a slice of cheese, stomach acid and intestinal bacteria snip the casein molecular chains into casomorphins of various lengths. One of them, a short string made up of just five amino acids, has about one-tenth the pain-killing potency of morphine.
What are these opiates doing there, hidden in milk proteins? It appears that the opiates from mother’s milk produce a calming effect on the infant and, in fact, may be responsible for a good measure of the mother-infant bond. No, it’s not all lullabies and cooing. Psychological bonds always have a physical underpinning. Like it or not, mother’s milk has a drug-like effect on the baby’s brain that ensures that the baby will bond with Mom and continue to nurse and get the nutrients all babies need. Like heroin or codeine, casomorphins slow intestinal movements and have a decided antidiarrheal effect. The opiate effect may be why adults often find that cheese can be constipating, just as opiate painkillers are. …
But French researchers fed skim milk and yogurt to volunteers and found that, sure enough, at least some casein fragments do pass into the bloodstream. They reach their peak about 40 minutes after eating.
Cheese contains far more casein than other dairy products do. As milk is turned into cheese, most of its water, whey proteins, and lactose sugar are removed, leaving behind concentrated casein and fat.
Cheese holds other drug-like compounds as well. It contains an amphetamine-like chemical called phenylethylamine, or PEA, which is also found in chocolate and sausage. And there are many hormones and other compounds in cheese and other dairy products whose functions are not yet understood. In naloxone tests, the opiate-blocking drug eliminates some of cheese’s appeal, just as it does for chocolate. …
The Devil in the Milk
Prominent food researcher Dr. Thomas Cowan…. Raw and cultured dairy products from healthy grass-fed cows are one of the healthiest foods people have ever eaten. However, pasteurized milk products have caused more disease than perhaps any other substance people are generally in contact with.
However, he still felt that a piece of the puzzle was missing. Many of his patients, in spite of eating only the proper dairy products, still had illness and still seemed not to tolerate milk. Recently, he was asked to consider writing the foreword to a book called The Devil in the Milk, written by Dr. Keith Woodford, which was again an eye-opener for him.
All proteins are long chains of amino acids. Beta casein is a chain 229 amino acids in length. Cows who produce this protein in their milk with a proline at number 67 are called A2 cows, and are the older breeds of cows (e.g. Jerseys, Asian and African cows). But some 5,000 years ago, a mutation occurred in this proline amino acid, converting it to histidine. Cows that have this mutated beta casein are called A1 cows, and include breeds like Holstein.
Proline has a strong bond to a small protein called BCM 7, which helps keep it from getting into the milk, so that essentially no BCM 7 is found in the urine, blood or GI tract of old-fashioned A2 cows. On the other hand, histidine, the mutated protein, only weakly holds on to BCM 7, so it is liberated in the GI tract of animals and humans who drink A1 cow milk.
BCM 7 has been shown to cause neurological impairment in animals and people exposed to it, especially autistic and schizophrenic changes. BCM 7 interferes with the immune response, and injecting BCM 7 in animal models has been shown to provoke type 1 diabetes. Dr. Woodford’s book presents research showing a direct correlation between a population’s exposure to A1 cow’s milk and incidence of autoimmune disease, heart disease, type 1 diabetes, autism, and schizophrenia.
Simply switching breeds of cows could result in amazing health benefits.
Mercola’s Comments:
As many of you know, I do not recommend drinking pasteurized milk of any kind because the pasteurization process, which entails heating the milk to a temperature of 145 degrees to 150 degrees F and keeping it there for at least half an hour, completely changes the structure of the milk proteins into something far less than healthy.
Pasteurized cow’s milk is the number one allergic food in the United States. It has been associated with a number of symptoms and illnesses including:
- Diarrhea, cramps, bloating and gas
- Osteoporosis
- Arthritis
- Heart disease
- Cancer
- Recurrent ear infections and colic in infants and children
- Type 1 diabetes
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Infertility
- Leukemia
- Autism
…there are those people who still have trouble drinking raw milk, and like Dr. Thomas Cowan, I have wondered if there could be a missing piece to the puzzle. …
So the theory goes that by drinking milk from A1 cows, which are the predominant cows used for dairy products in the United States, you’re exposed to BCM-7, which has been linked to:
… For now, you can get an eye-opening education into the health issues surrounding A1 milk, and why A2 milk appears to be far superior, in Keith Woodford’s book Devil in the Milk: Illness, Health and the Politics of A1 and A2 Milk.
How to Find Truly Health Milk
… To find A2 milk, the type that has not been associated with illness and instead appears to have numerous health benefits, look for milk that comes from Jerseys, Asian and African cows. The best way to do this may be to get to know a farmer directly and find out what type of cow is used. And as always, stick to milk that is raw, NOT pasteurized.
Raw goat and sheep’s milk is another option, as these types of milk do not contain BCM-7.
On other point Woodford’s book points out is that people with healthy digestive tracts do not absorb as much BCM-7. So this is yet another incentive to keep your gut in tip-top condition by eating healthy and getting plenty of good bacteria, either by eating naturally fermented foods or taking a high-quality probiotic — especially if you enjoy drinking raw milk, and are not sure whether it comes from A1 or A2 cows.
