Is Hormone-Free Milk Better?

If you are concerned about the large number of chemicals and additives in milk, you may be tempted to give your family "Hormone-Free" milk. Unfortunately, there is no such thing! Hormone-Free milk is just a marketing phrase for "less hormones than chemically-saturated" milk. In fact, all body fluids and flesh from any animal contains hormones. Steak, hamburger, pork chops, milk, urine, etc. all contain hormones. What they are really advertising is the fact that they don't add hormones to their cows to artificially produce more milk. Any animal is a hormone-producing machine. We make our own hormones constantly. We don't need cow's hormones in our bodies as well! However, this doesn't change the fact that milk hormones are bad for you. In fact, just eating meat can be bad for you. Anytime you eat or drink an animal, your body is assimilating that animal's hormones. The old saying, "You are what you eat" never rang truer! We've made the point before that other animals don't drink milk once they are weaned. And other animals certainly don't sit down and drink the milk of other animals. Only we humans do that. Let's put it into perspective. Would you sit down for a bowl of cereal and ask for a nice big squirt of breast milk? Sounds sort of gross! But we do the same thing by feeding our children cow's milk. And who doesn't love a big bowl of chocolate ice cream? Yum! Frozen cow's milk! So the question shouldn't be "Is Hormone-Free Milk Better?" but rather "Where are the hormones in my diet coming from?" If you want to grow to be a cow, then certainly drink plenty of cow's milk and eat lots of beef. All those cow and steer hormones will help you grow into a nice big bovine! But as humans, we should steer (pun intended) away from animal hormones period. There are plenty of other nutritional sources for proteins, vitamins, and minerals that avoid the hormone problem all together. We'll look at other plant-based foods in upcoming articles that will provide a healthy, nutritional alternative to animal-based diets. For example, a diet rich in spinach, broccoli, and other green vegetables, is better for you in the long run than beef and dairy. You may even be surprised how much better you feel once you eliminate meat from your diet and thus, reduce the amount of animal hormones you are ingesting and assimilating.