An ideologically tinged debate has been raging, especially in Europe and the United States, between the animal milk industry and soy industry advocates. And with the increase in soy milk consumption in Israel over the past three years (the soy beverage market long ago moved from the confines of natural food stores into the supermarket chains and, is said to be growing by about 25 percent a year) the points and counterpoints of the vocal debate are pertinent here.
The debate features involves such far-flung issues as social justice (for instance, what is the best way to nourish the world's poor?), attitudes toward animals and the environment (what constitutes abuse, what is considered the worse pollutant?), and even philosophical ruminations on the freedom "to interfere with creation" (genetic engineering of soy, hormones for acceleration of milk production in cows).
Both sides disseminate data and information - research findings, logical arguments, allegations and counter-allegations - to reinforce their position. Not everything that you hear is necessarily credible.
The contending sides are hardly equal. The soy milk market in the U.S., for instance, which has grown by leaps and bounds in the past 20 years, now represents less than 1 percent of all milk consumption (for every $27 Americans spend on cow's milk, they spend $1 on soy milk, according to one recent report). In Israel, soy lags even further behind cow: about 5,000,000 liters of soy milk are consumed annually, as opposed to 1,000,300,000 liters of cow's milk (according to data supplied by Meshek Tzuriel, Israel's largest producer of soy products).
Of course, in spite of its name, soy milk is not really milk at all. It is a beverage produced from (green) soy beans in a manner that tries to mimic milk's color, taste and texture.
In Israel, the move to soy milk is usually the consequence of nutritional needs, not ideology, say its importers and producers. In other words, Israelis start drinking soy milk because of lactose intolerance, not because they are sensitive to the plight of suffering animals. Asher Tzuriel, manager of Meshek Tzuriel, opened a soy product production line in his factory two years ago. "We learned that about half of the population aged 30 and up is sensitive to animal milk. Most people report that milk stimulates production of phlegm, and causes coughing and headaches. Many people can't digest lactose, the main sugar in milk, and it upsets their stomachs."
The cow's milk industry has also made efforts to cater to the lactose-intolerant public, and Israeli consumers can now find "lactose-reduced" cow's milk products in the shops. But even the lactose issue is rife with political axes to grind.
In "White Poison: The Horrors of Milk," an article that ran last year in the online magazine "Alternet.org" (published by the Independent Media Institute, a non-profit alternative journalism media group), Shanti Rangwani wrote, "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. "
"Lactose intolerance," he adds, "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." In other words, from the non-white perspective, cow's milk should not even be considered a food.
Nutrition experts agree that the ability to break down lactose in the body is race-dependent (or at least dependent on the culture of the food). About 90 percent of Filipinos, for instance, cannot properly digest the sugar, as opposed to only 7 percent of Swedes, notes Dr. Michael Sharon, the author of a comprehensive book on nutrition ("Complete Nutrition," Prion Books, 1997).
More about the relationship between nutrition and ethics: a primary argument that consistently arises in articles that disapprove of consumption of cow's milk is that in nature, animals - including humans - only drink milk when they are nursing, i.e., mother's milk. Aside from human beings, no other animal continues to drink milk after weaning. Cows are by their nature supposed to nurse their calves, not assist in the nutrition of six billion people.
In the enraged "Milk Sucks" manifesto of the American animal rights organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the activists write: "With genetic manipulation and intensive production technologies, it is common for modern dairy cows to produce 100 pounds of milk a day - 10 times more than they would produce in nature. To keep milk production as high as possible, farmers artificially inseminate cows every year. Growth hormones and unnatural milking schedules cause dairy cows' udders to become painful and so heavy that they sometimes drag on the ground, resulting in frequent infections and overuse of antibiotics. Cows, like all mammals, make milk to feed their own babies -not to feed humans."
As for the suffering of the cows, the critics add that milking cows are denied freedom of movement, are forced to stand for hours at a time in crowded conditions, are too fat and that their legs cannot hold their weight. The life of a milk cow is a saga of constant suffering.
In the critics' view, there is no need for this abuse, because cow's milk has no nutritional values that humans cannot get from other sources. Even the idea that you have to drink milk for the calcium content is wrong. Calcium is not found in milk in large quantities. Cheese is a much better source (100 ml of milk has at most 180 mg of calcium, as opposed to about 700 mg of calcium in 100 ml of yellow cheese. Calcium rates are even higher in yogurt products. More significantly, high concentrations of calcium can be found in other foods, such as soy products, seaweed, and dried figs. All of which means that cows need not be put through their ordeal for the sake of human calcium intake. "Discard the moo juice," shout PETA activists.
Attacks on soy
Yet the broadsides launched at the cow's milk industry do not go unanswered. There is also much criticism of the soy industry. For every incendiary headline like "White Poison," you can find a similar headline on the Internet, such as "Soy, or ploy?" or "Soy, too good to be true," or "Learn the truth about the soybean industry."
Most of the claims against soy milk have to with the exaggeration of its charmed properties. It is customary to assume that soy products are good for women at menopausal age and above, as they contain compounds that stimulate production of estrogen in the body. But critics assert that increased estrogen production also raises the risk of breast cancer mortality. The soy industry releases studies that show that soy milk consumption reduces cholesterol levels, (in 1999, the federal government authorized soy manufacturers to label soy milk packaging with the statement, "this product may reduce the risk of heart disease"), but critics charge that the studies are not serious. They present other studies that reached the opposite conclusion.
There are also assertions of impaired male fertility caused by increased production of estrogen in the body, and a series of allergies that critics associate with over-consumption of soy milk, including acne, eczema, headaches and even vomiting and anxiety attacks.
Critics of the soy industry note that in order to make the soy beverage resemble milk, manufacturers add all sorts of taste- and texture-enhancing ingredients, which should not be consumed in large quantities, such as sugar, various acids, and fat. Others claim that in order to derive optimal nutritional value from the soybean, soy milk makers must use genetic engineering technology, which many ecology activists now assert could disrupt the natural equilibrium of the world.
(Meshek Tzuriel reports that the factory uses soybeans imported from Canada, which are not genetically engineered).
Furthermore, critics say, all of the beneficial properties of soy are based on the manual production process practiced in Asia for generations, but these are lost when using mass-production methods.
Still, all parties agree that only the mass production of soy can drive down prices, and thereby facilitate the supply of soy-based products among the world's poor. But in the very same breath, critics charge that the soy milk industry should not be given government support, because their products are much more expensive than ordinary milk, and therefore constitute a clear case of an alternative industry geared exclusively for the wealthy.
In any event, there is nothing to worry about. The strong are still number one, and the weak are still trying harder. The Washington Post reported this April that in what it termed "America's multibillion-dollar `milk war,'" the cow's milk industry still reigned supreme. The newspaper reported on a recent decision by the U.S. Department of Agriculture not to subsidize soy milk on school-lunch menus offered in elementary school cafeterias. The milk industry succeeded in persuading the administration to reject - for now - a request to offer soy milk in school cafeterias, even though many schools would like to offer the vegetable milk because many pupils, especially blacks and Latinos, suffer bloated stomachs, gas and diarrhea from cow's milk.
Who will decide? Nutrition experts repeatedly warn against espousing the common fallacy that redemption will arrive in the form of a single source of nutrition. Life in general, and nutrition in particular, is a great deal more complex. When it comes to nutrition - as well as nature, and humankind - variety is best.
