Thursday, August 28, 2008

Unbelievable - another reason Why Not Milk or Meat!

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a luncheon. One of the attendees shared some recently shocking news coming from an associate of hers. Her second grade daughter had started her menstrual cycle! At second grade?

Amazing it seems! But the truth of the matter is that with each generation, girls (and boys) are beginning their hormonal cycles and changes younger and younger. Why? One big fat cause: growth hormones used in producing animal products for human consumption.

Most of us can read the histories of our grandparents and find that they:
1) grew their animals on their family farm, or bartered with a neighbor
2) ate meat sparingly - killing a chicken or two for Sunday dinner, and/or hunted, dried, prepared other meats on different occasions
3) had their own milk cow or traded with their neighbor
4) all animals ate grass, insects, garden scraps, whole grains, etc.

Animals raised in these conditions are more difficult to find today. You have to go to specialty stores, health markets, or request the grocery stores to carry them for you - and they are much more expensive than the main stream market meats (understandably so - they are allowed to grow naturally with better food and without the speed of hormones). But you must remember most milk and meats products found in grocery stores:

are from animals grown with hormones - for quick growth which means more profits
these products (milk, cheeses, meats of all kinds) now contain the growth hormones
the growth hormones are passed onto the consumer
which results in: people putting on extra weight, children coming into puberty earlier, and people growing taller and have longer extremities (shoes & clothes sizes have increased dramatically)
So what can you do about it?
1) Quit eating main stream meat and milk products from: grocery stores, fast food restaurants, any restaurants
2) Limit your meat and milk intake - eat them sparingly or infrequent
3) Shop for grass-fed or non-hormone produced meat or milk products
4) Realize that what you eat really does make a difference
5) Care about today's and tomorrow's children by stepping up to the plate and demanding the best or nothing! Our children really do depend our knowledge and decisions!
6) Get into the habit of creating your own good healthy menus for yourself and those around you. Get some great cookbooks that are created for this very reason: see http://erleentilton.com/store.htm

For your best health,
Erleen Tilton