Japanese Milk Update

You thought American dairy ads were dumb?
The United States is just a cute little
arf-arf puppy when compared to the
deafening roar of Japan's Godzilla. See:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKVY190fFt4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Gc1d5jeVU&NR=1

In 2009, the per capita consumption of liquid
milk in Japan was 89 pounds. The per capita
consumption of butter was 1.5 pounds while
the per capita consumption of cheese was
4.4 pounds. Ten pounds of milk are required
to produce one pound of hard cheese, and
21 pounds of milk are used to make one pound
of butter, so the equivalent milk consumption
of these three commodities (milk, cheese,
butter) was equal to 165 pounds. Americans
consume the equivalent of 666 pounds of dairy
each year.

Every year since 1946 tens-of thousands
of Japanese have been interviewed and their
diets analyzed along with their weights
and heights and other factors such as cancer
rates and age of puberty (the last measured
by the onset of menstruation in young girls).

This study includes detailed personal
interviews and is well respected and
accepted by scientists. In 1975, 21,707
persons from 6,093 households were included
in the sampling. The results of the study
were published in a respected scientific
journal, PREVENTIVE MEDICINE (Yasuo Kagawa,
Department of Biochemistry, Jichi Medical
School, Japan, 7, 205-217, 1978).

Japan had been devastated by losing a
war and was occupied by American troops.
Americanization included dietary changes.
Milk and dairy products, relatively unknown
to Japan, were becoming a significant part
of the Japanese diet. According to this
study, the per-capita yearly dietary intake
of dairy products in 1950 was only 5.5 pounds.
Twenty-five years later the average Japanese
ate 117.4 pounds of milk and dairy products.
The consumption of milk and dairy products
(containing powerful growth hormones)
represented the biggest dietary change for
the Japanese people, according to table #1
on page 206 of that study.

Tables 7 and 8 are even more revealing.
While milk and dairy consumption increased
by twenty-one times, from 1950 to 1975,
cerebral vascular disease (strokes) increased
38 percent. Heart disease increased 35 percent,
breast cancer rates increased 77 percent.

Colon cancer increased 77 percent. Lung
cancer increased by three hundred percent.

What happened to young girls and the impact
of milk consumption on puberty is even more
dramatic. In 1950 the average twelve-year
old girl was 4'6" tall and weighed 71 pounds.
By 1975 the average Japanese girl, after
guzzling a daily diet of milk and dairy
products containing 59 different bioactive
hormones, had grown an average of 4 1/2
inches and gained 19 pounds. In 1950 the
average Japanese girl had her first
menstrual cycle at the age of 15.2 years.
Twenty five years later, after a daily
intake of estrogen and progesterone from
cow's milk, the average Japanese girl was
ovulating at the age of 12.2 years, three
years younger.

Never before had such a dramatic dietary
change been seen in such a unique population
study. Such statistics, which do not lie,
remained buried in this 1978 scientific
publication.

NOTE: There were other significant changes
in the Japanese diet from 1950-1975. Japanese
ate less grains and more meat. Here is a
summary of those per-capita food consumption
changes.

1950 1975

Milk and Dairy 5.5 lbs 117.4 lbs
Meat and Poultry 6.8 lbs 51.6 lbs

Rice 272.3 lbs 199.6 lbs
Barley 51.4 lbs 1.2 lbs
Green-Yellow Veggies 60.8 lbs 38.8 lbs
Potatoes 102.6 lbs 49.0 lbs

SUMMARY: Milk/Dairy/Meat consumption
increased from 12.3 pounds per person
to 169 pounds per person, an increase
of 1,274 percent!

Grains, potatoes and green/yellow
vegetables decreased from 487.1 pounds
to 288.6, a decrease of 41 percent.

Before 1946, when Japanese milk consumption
was nil, breast cancer was virtually unknown
and death from heart disease was a rare
event. In 2009, 8 women per 100,000 were
diagnosed with breast cancer (21.2 per
100,000 in the USA) and deaths from heart
disease were 30 per 100,000 (106 per
100,000 in the USA).

Robert Cohen
http://www.notmilk.com