Customer Reviews

Milk A-Z

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Mr. Cohen has synthesized the essence of his 580 page NOTMILK.com WEB site, and the companion HUNGERSTRIKE.com (on rbGH shots given to cows to make MORE milk for a glutted market) into a delightful easy to read book that covers diseases from A to Z... and the milk/dairy elements that can cause those problems. Each alphabet letter has quotes from a wide range of respected scientific journals that support the statement he makes for each letter. For the dairy consumer with medical problems... read, heed, abandon dairy... and perhaps get better (or well) for free. If you cannot pass the NOTMILKmans quiz at ... you DO need this book.

By the way. I have been off all milk and dairy for a bit over three years now... and my case of terminal prostate cancer now grows three times more slowly without the bovine-provided IGF-1 growth hormone (one of 59 bioactive hormones in milk and dairy). Just one of many reasons to consider dairy NOT a taste to die for.

Succinct, enjoyable, quickly assimilated - a gratifying and possibly life-saving read. This book provides a fun and quick overview of the evidence and allegations against cow's milk. Don't be fooled by the cover and title, this book is too technical for young readers, although they'll enjoy the pictures while an adult absorbs and relates the information.

For those unfamiliar with the huge and undeniable body of evidence against cow's milk, I hope this book to be an eye-opener that leads its readers to further research the topic for themselves. Every statement in this book is followed by a solid reference; mostly science journal references. Being only an overview, the volume of references in "Milk A - Z" touches only the tip of the iceberg.

For those familiar with the mound of studies about milk's dangers, this book is a great overview, and brings up at least a few new points to nearly any health conscious reader. Because the evidence and number of studies against milk are so overwhelming, I've found it difficult to even begin to recall or portray all of the allegations to those uneducated. "Milk A - Z" will be a great book to have on hand for every friend or patient I attempt to begin educating about milk's dangers. My husband and I both plan to keep a copy out in open view on our desks at work to open the eyes of all lookyloos.

"A - Z" even has a fun quiz at the end. I'm going to give a copy of this book to my child's school. They've already been resistant to my bringing in science journal studies to refute the milk propaganda they give my kid annually. I wonder whether they'll shelf this book?

Linda Folden Palmer, DC
Author "Baby Matters, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Caring for Your Baby."

Cohen's book is groundbreaking. I appreciate the fact that it is entirely science-based, and he lists the full citations of studies for each health connection he makes between dairy products and health issues. The dots he is connecting are very relevant to health issues today. Many of the issues raised here are rarely touched on in the larger body of nutritional literature, not because they are invalid, but perhaps due to the industrial interests involved. Many of the issues Cohen addresses are great unsolved mysteries in conventional medicine...but the studies he cites show us that they need not be, should not be. The link of hormones in milk (raw, organic, or commercial) to breast cancer raises the question of the involvement of dairy hormones in all cancers, a matter that we all should be concerned with given the skyrocketing rates of cancer. If we can practice prevention by changing our diets, we can save billions of dollars.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Robert for raising awareness of these connections between dairy and health. Of course there should be follow up research, but part of the problem is money, part of it is that allopathic docs are not trained in nutrition (and let's not confuse dietetics and food pyramids with true nutrition). In the meantime, we have to think for ourselves, and this is a wonderful jumping off point for doing just that. Medical library, here I come!

My main complaint is that I was left wanting for more. There is certainly material here for a more extensive book, and Milk the Deadly Poison lacks continuity and flow and gets wrapped up in issues of litigation, etc. More depth of exploration of various health issues and the way dairy is intertwined into our culture would make a fascinating read.

Robert Cohen is a researcher who has long been critical of milk and the milk industry. He notes that attacking milk is not unlike desecrating the American flag. Both are pop icons, but just as the flag is now seen as fair game by our courts for protected burning, now too has milk come under close scrutiny. Cohen claims that milk as a product is inherently unhealthy in that the more one drinks of it, the more calcium it leaches from our bones, thus intensifying the onset of bone-weakening diseases. This claim is controversial. How can the layman determine the truth of such a claim with certainty? The answer is that he cannot. The best that one can do when faced with conflicting claims by unprejudiced experts is to do one's own homework to get a sense of consensus. But science is not a democracy with the most votes holding sway. Common sense indicates that one ought not to place too much credence from anyone connected to the dairy industry. Cohen further claims that milk is made more harmful than it is with the addition of growth hormones and antibiotics fed to cows. A reasonable compromise for the potential consumer of milk is to drink only organic lactose free milk. Cohen muddles the issue with his criticisms of soy, a product that he lambasts but many other cultures and researchers insist is a very nearly perfect food. Here again, the best approach for the layman is to become self-educated on soy. This last comment I might add is the key to reading books like this one. MILK A--Z is a text that is a useful starting point, but its claims are controversial enough to warrant further reading. Thus, I give Cohen a marginal thumbs up.

An excellent concise presentation of milk facts citing dozens of peer-reviewed medical journals, designed to raise awareness and educate the masses, helping them to see through the milk myth perpetrated by its profiteers, while dispelling conventional brain-washing. No matter how hard you try to educate some people, there will always be ignorant people, who cannot grasp the obvious. Angry people seldom act or think in a rational way. Take a lesson from nature. No animal in the wild drinks milk past the age of weaning or consumes milk from another animal.

For all of you cow-milk lovers out there, who continue to call other people names (acting like big babies), who are self-deceived, believing that dairy products from pregnant cows is nature's perfect food...we have some freshly extracted cat and dog milk, that you are welcome to sample. Why not? It might just become the new wave that you've been searching for. Robert's book is only the tip of the iceberg, please do yourself a favor and conduct your own research because cow milk, complete with pus, naturally occurring growth hormones, and a tenacious glue (casein - used in makings plastics, paints and adhesives) is the world's most overrated nutrient.

In the words of the world's best known pediatrician in history, Dr. Benjamin Spock, who in late 1992 shocked the country when he articulated the same thoughts and specified avoidance of bovine body fluids, when he said, "I want to pass on the word to parents that cow's milk from the carton has definite faults for some babies. Human milk is the right one for babies. A study comparing the incidence of allergy and colic in the breast-fed infants of omnivorous and vegan mothers would be important. I haven't found such a study: it would be both important and inexpensive. And it will probably never be done. There is simply no academic or economic profit involved."

I would highly recommend this book to any open-minded, rational thinking human being, plagued with allergies or other human dis-ease...from A - Z.

I recently became interested in learning more about milk when I stumbled upon a website claiming that milk is horrible for you. I ended up purchasing this book so that I could learn about the dangers of milk.
I was disappointed with this book, because it is not a very good introduction to the topic. It is a short summary, and although references are given, the book lacks explanation for most of the symptoms listed. This book would be more appropriate for children/teenagers. If you are looking for a thorough and convincing investigation into the hazards of drinking milk, this is not your book. At least, it didn't convince me. Also, in my opinion, the price for this book is about twice what it should be.

Benner cans this book and says that Soy is worse than milk. Here is what Benner says elsewhere on Amazon:

"...my point is, don't think you can compromise with pasteurized dairy if you can't get raw dairy. Pasteurized dairy is very bad for you, for so many reasons. Probably worse than any processed soy product."

The guy makes it up as he goes along. This book on the other hand is underpinned by relevant, fully cited, references to research documention that anyone can look up for themselves and test for themselves. Benner's rantings are not verifiable by anyone.

In Robert Cohen's A-Z book a grain of truth balloons into fantasy. This book is inaccurate and full of junk science. It is nothing more than conspiracy theories and paranoia. Mr. Cohen web site is worse.

but this guy way overstates his case. Many can't tolerate milk but milk has been used by very healthy people for a very long time. Grains and soy are probably much worse for you than milk. If the only problems with soy were phytates - soy wouldn't be so bad. But thats actually only the tip of the iceberg.

So yes, todays pasteurized milk is not a healthy food but clean raw milk can be a healthy food for some. In contrast, soy and soy milk isn't fit for anyone.

I like to stay informed, but I like my information more balanced than this. The title, Milk A-Z, suggests that this book will explain everything, pros and cons, from A to Z, but instead the book seems to be little more than a one-man assault on the dairy industry. While the author did quote a lot of experts, I still felt that I was getting pieces of the puzzle, not the whole picture. This made me suspect.

Even if all you want is one side of the story, the way the book was arranged - A to Z - also made it difficult to put it together in my mind, although it made it easy to pick up and read small sections at a time. Overall, this book was a disappointment, and I would not recommend it.