Halo and welcome joyful viewers to Healthy Living on Supreme Master Television. Traveling across the United States from Los Angeles to Washington DC, a group of four people were determined to uncover the truth behind milk in the documentary Got the Facts on Milk?

Here with us today is the film’s director, producer, and writer, Shira Lane, and sound mixer Jennifer Ricciardi, to share with us some shocking facts about milk.

Supreme Master TV:
How did you get the idea of venturing into this? Who was the main person who got the idea?  

Shira:
That would be me. In summer 2006 my allergies were increasing when I was here in America, and I'm allergic to milk and dairy products. And one day, I walked into a school, and on the walls there were these big advertisements that were telling kids, "Oh! Drink your milk and it will make you grow tall!" And for girls, "Drink your milk! It will make you skinny!"

I was an actress, and I was filming a film. And, once I finished that film, I just called my manager, my agent, and I said, “Don't send me out to auditions anymore. I'm just going to drop everything and do this documentary.” And that's how it started!

Jennifer:
I'm allergic to milk as well. I don't have as severe allergies as she does, but, growing up as a kid, I always had ear infections. I always had bronchitis. Every time winter would come, there'd be some sort of cold. I would always get sick. And I never made the connection until I was older. And then I, probably about ten years ago, stopped drinking milk and all of a sudden, I didn't get sick anymore.

HOST:
An estimated 75 percent of adults worldwide are lactose intolerant. In some Asian and African countries, almost 90 percent of the population lacks the ability to digest lactose, resulting in abdominal symptoms such as stomach cramps, bloating, and gas.

Shira:
It's completely normal to be lactose intolerant. Once we stop weaning, it's natural for our body to stop creating lactase which is what breaks down the lactose. Lactose is the sugar in milk.

Shira:
Most people that are lactose intolerant cannot break it down... and then it just sits in the large intestine, and that’s what creates gas and bloating and running to the toilet.

Jennifer:
People don’t get to know this information. The reason why they don’t get to know it is because they’re not making money off of broccoli. They’re making money off cheese and macaroni. They’re getting the money from that, the people are unhealthy, then the unhealthy people are paying for all the healthcare services, which again, drives our economy. Economics is such a major player in why we don’t get to know this information.

HOST:
In a study by Harvard University in the USA, hormones in milk have been shown to cause cancer, especially breast, prostate and testicular cancer

Shira:
A hormone is made to make something grow. That’s what hormones do. RBGH, is an injection that they give, it’s like a stimulant. So the cow will create a ten percent increase of milk.

This has a number of effects. First of all, it raises the IGF1 in the milk, which is a hormone that causes breast cancer. This is known. And this reason alone is why nowhere else in the world are they allowed to inject RBGH into the cows.

Second is you’re putting a lot of pressure because now ten percent more on the udder of a cow. So you’re pushing the cow a lot more. What happens is then the cow gets mastitis, which is an infection in the udder, because it’s pushed and it’s milked three times a day.

This infection gets into the milk. It’s called a somatic-cell count. This is how the farmers count it. And, this somatic cell count, it’s puss because it’s just infection. It’s in the milk.

Supreme Master TV:
So let's talk about the effects of milk?

Supreme Master TV:
What did you find?

Shira:
Whew, a lot. One fact is that milk does not help for the bones. The calcium in milk does not help build strong bones.

Supreme Master TV:
Why is that?

Shira:
Well, because in milk you have protein and…

Jennifer:
Animal protein.

Shira:
Animal protein. You also have calcium but you have animal protein. When you consume animal protein, caffeine and sodium, these three things, your blood becomes acidic. And for your body to buffer it and to bring it back down to its level, it has to take calcium from somewhere. And so it takes it usually from the bones.

And we have a chart that the countries that consume the most milk are the countries that have the most osteoporosis and the most hip fractures. They have the weakest bones. It's actually opposite of what you would think. Yes, there is calcium in milk but no, is it doing your body good? No.

HOST:
You’re watching Healthy Living here on Supreme Master Television. Please stay tuned for more on milk rom the makers of the documentary film, Got the Facts on Milk?

HOST:
On today’s Healthy Living, we have director Shira Lane and sound mixer Jennifer Ricciardi discussing about their documentary film. Geared towards the younger generation, the documentary Got the Facts on Milk? reveals many myths about milk and sheds light on why it is so unhealthy for us to consume dairy products.

For the filmmakers involved in the making of Got the Facts on Milk?, the information they discovered gave them compelling reasons to switch to a vegan diet.

Supreme Master TV:
So have you been a vegetarian for a long time?

Jennifer:
It was this documentary that changed my mind. I wasn't beforehand. And so ever since, basically we started this documentary I started as not eating any sort of animal products and I’ve felt great ever since I've done it.

The only reason why I can keep working and the only reason why I'm not sick is because of my diet, and because of the foods that I eat and the foods that I don't eat.

Shira:
I used to be a huge carnivore.

Shira:
But as soon as we did this documentary, I have to say this documentary made me more than I made the documentary because I just can't touch it.

I know what it does to my body. I know what it does to the environment.

Supreme Master TV:
And you went straight to vegan?

Jennifer:
All of us went straight to vegan, yeah.

Shira:
There's a lot of information that people just don't know. And it’s like there's a saying that if a slaughterhouse had glass walls, everybody would be vegetarian. Just not long ago we had a meat recall. 140,000,000 tons of meat were recalled because some kind of activist went in there with a camera, undercover camera and showed what was happening.

Only then did they do the recall. Sick cows are being put into the food chain. You don't know, and then they go to hamburgers and even fine restaurants’ steaks.

Jennifer:
As we would go out to some of these ranches and these dairy farms and I was amazed at the conditions that the animals live in. They're standing in their own feces all day. And they can't
walk around-- a couple of feet on either side.

How is that being served to us? How is that healthy? How can you look at those animals and say that's correct, that's the way we should treat other living beings?

HOST:
According to a report issued by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock raising is responsible for about 18 percent of carbon emissions causing global warming.

This is more than the emissions from forms of transportation combined. Meat production is also the main factor of pollution through animal waste, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops.

Shira:
The UN report called Livestock’s Long Shadow, it came out in 2006, said that cows produce gas, coming from either end, let’s just say that. And it’s called methane. Methane has 23 times the heat grabbing capacity of CO2.

It stays in the atmosphere longer and it’s a very dangerous gas. And we have so much animal agriculture and it’s constantly growing, because our appetite for animal agriculture is growing.

Today, you can have a vegan burger and it tastes just like meat. And that’s coming from someone that was a huge carnivore. It is so easy, and it’s just a lot better for the environment. It’s just the whole circle, really.

Jennifer:
If you just limited what you’re taking as far as animal products and changed your diet over to more of a plant-based diet and didn’t have dairy, you’re first of all healthier, you’re protecting the environment, and not as many animals are being abused.

Shira:
A vegan driving a hummer has less contribution to global warming than a carnivore driving a hybrid.

Shira:
We can stop global warming. And it’s not that, “Oh, we have to, find newer energy, and nuclear plants.” No, you can just start it with what you put on your table and what you put on your plate.

HOST:
The Mayo Clinic in the US stated that milk is classified as a major allergen, among the top eight food products.

Shira:
A lot of people are allergic to milk, a lot of people have problems, may not be allergic to milk but just their body doesn’t tolerate it well, let’s just put it that way. If your kid has respiratory problems, ear infections, anything, anything, they don’t need cow’s milk.

Jennifer:
It was actually Dr. Neal Barnard who showed us a study that they found out that there is a product that’s in milk that’s called casein, which is addictive.

And it’s concentrated in cheese, and that’s why people love cheese so much and they won’t give it up; they go, “I could give up everything, but not cheese”.

And I think the food companies have taken advantage of the casein.

Jennifer:
Cheese is addicting.

Supreme Master TV:
Oh, yes.

Shira:
Another thing is that you have these milk derivatives. You have milk and then you dry it down so you have butter, and then you’re left with skim milk.

Sell as much skim milk as you can and then you’re left with something else. You’ve got whey, you’ve got casein, you’ve got all these different powders sort of leftover. So what they’ve done, they’ve created markets for it.

So they’ve gone to all these companies saying, “Oh, you know, lactic acid can be used as a good preservative.” Some lactic acid is a chemical formula, but some can be derived from whey.

Let’s use casein because that’s a good protein. Let’s use whey, because now they want to use it for all the body builders. So in a way, they’re trying to get into every single product. So what’s happening is you don’t even know what’s in your food anymore. You really don’t.

HOST:
With hope for the future, Shira shares her message for Supreme Master Television viewers.

Shira:
So what I advise would be is, first of all, go to farmers’ markets. Find your farmers’ markets. Buy locally. Know what’s in your food. Learn about your food because you are what you eat.

Shira:
If you were to eat correctly, you’re actually saving yourself a lot of money. So my advice would be try to eat whole foods, meaning, you know, don’t go get calcium pills.

Eat foods that have calcium, meaning green leafy vegetables. And I think we have to start understanding that the earth works in a whole , you know if we do body good, we'll be doing the environment good and the environment will be doing us good.

HOST:
Shira Lane and Jennifer Ricciardi, we are grateful for your commitment in revealing the truth about milk through your documentary.