Please note that product ingredients with a * do not necessarily contain milk products. This depends on the manufacturer or type of product.

• ammonium caseinate
• artificial butter flavour
• butter solids/fat
• calcium caseinate
• caramel colour*
• caramel flavouring*
• casein
• caseinate
• delactosed whey
• demineralised whey
• dried milk
• dry milk solids
• flavouring*
• high protein flour*
• hydrolysed casein
• hydrolysed milk protein
• lactalbumin
• lactalbumin phosphate
• lactate
• lactoferrin
• lactoglobulin
• lactose
• magnesium caseinate
• milk derivative
• milk fat
• milk protein
• milk solids
• natural flavouring*
• Opta (fat replacement)
• potassium caseinate
• rennet casein
• Simplesse (fat replacement)
• sodium caseinate
• solids
• sour cream solids
• sour milk solids
• whey
• whey protein concentrate

Flavourings with Lactic Acid may sometimes contain derivatives of milk. So if someone is severely allergic to milk, what happens if it touches their skin?

If a certain product touches a sufferers skin, the reaction caused is likely to be an itchy rash, urticaria (nettle rash), sneezing, wheezing or shortness of breath. Occasionally, anaphylaxis has been reported as a result of skin contact with an allergen.

So what happens if the milk or it's derivatives are an ingredient of a cosmetic, toiletry or perfume that comes into contact with the skin? Depending on how allergic the sufferer is, they may get any of the reactions described above. This is true for all food allergens, not just milk.

Milk derivatives may be found in hair conditioners, body creams, soaps and face foundation creams. Casein, one of the main proteins in milk, is often present in the lubricant coating of condoms. Casein-Free "Condomi" condoms are available from the Vegan Society.

Homemade queso fresco , a Mexican-style soft cheese, may have caused at least seven salmonella infections recently in the Salt Lake Valley, public health officials said Thursday.

The salmonella cases came to the attention of the Salt Lake Valley Health Department after people became sick with diarrhea, fever and stomach pains. When a sample of the cheese was tested at the state's Public Health Laboratory, the bacteria officially known as "Salmonella Newport" was found.

The Newport infections involve seven people, most of whom live in the Salt Lake Valley, said Theron Jeppson with Utah Department of Heath. But it may be more widespread, because health officials have seen sporadic cases of salmonella linked to queso fresco.

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It is still baffling how calcium is still the big selling point of milk products and calcium pills for that matter. Let’s get this nonsense straight, it’s not about how much calcium you put into your system…it is how much you discharge..(yes that is where it comes out). Green leafy veggies have the best absorbency rate of calcium and that is mainly because it doesn’t have the animal protein that releases the calcium.

Have I lost you yet?

Animal protein (Milk, Meat & Eggs), Sodium and Caffeine, once consumed make your blood acidic and for your body to buffer itself, it needs to take calcium from somewhere…so it takes it from where you have it most – your bones. Therefore countries like America that consume high amounts of dairy, meat, caffeine and sodium, have higher rates of osteoporosis. Check it out for yourself!!!

Dairy can have calcium amounts from here to Timbuktu and back but due to the animal protein, it will only make your calcium go down the toilet. Now isn’t that a shame?

The economy is chomping down on every sector, everyone is getting hit one way or another- I too have lost properties, cut back significantly and finding myself just barely keeping my head afloat, yet the harsh truth is we NEEDED this breakdown as a big time wakeup call.

These last years have been a whirlwind of hot air, and now, creative ways of business need and should emerge to create a sustainable economy, planet and ecosystem. That, my friends, is what ought to be the focus in order to straighten out this financial disorder and not a stupid quick fix (Bailouts) that will burn bridges, tenfold, down the road. For obvious reasons let’s take the dairy industry as an example:

Dairy Industry is in trouble:

1.       The production cost of a gallon of milk is higher than the cost the dairy farmers sell it to the milk processors = farmer loss.  2008 production costs rose and the milk selling price has dropped = farmers loss even more and then some.

2.      Production costs are higher due to the increase of the feed, medications and quality control.

3.       The government has always subsidized the dairy farmers’ loss, creating an ongoing black hole for tax dollars.

4.      Throughout 2008 the dairy industry has requested an increase to the subsidized amount, to save a multitude amount of dairy farmers from closing down dairies. Due to the current economy state of affairs they have been turned down.

5.        Small family owned dairy farms are becoming extinct. Large corporations are overtaking and creating massive dairy farms of 5,000 – 15,000 cows per dairy.

6.      With so many cows, it becomes hard to tend to each cow individually, and so higher rates of transmittal diseases become present, increasing the requirement and quantity for additional drugs.

7.       These drugs lower the quality of the milk and in many cases unsellable to the American market.

8.      Therefore the beverage has lost its appeal to the public. Repetitive contamination warnings, artificial hormone injections, illegal amounts of antibiotic residue found in milk and constant up rise of studies linking milk to diseases like: Cancer, Childhood diabetes, heart disease and Osteoporosis, the public’s interest in milk alternatives amplified.

9.      More alternative choices (Soy, Almond, Hazelnut, Rice, Oat and Hemp milk) are now available in most stores.

10.   Lactose intolerance has found its way into mainstream familiarity. Now recognized and quickly diagnosed, has added weight to the fashionable stray from dairy products.

11.   International sales and exports plummeted.

Dairy industry is trying to fix the plunge the same way is has for years

1.       Increase lobbying for more lax policies for international trade and export.
2.      Persist to prohibit labeling milk that differences milk from cows injected by rBGH and those that haven’t.
         Click here for just released article.
3.       Convince developing countries, which have never been exposed to cow’s milk that they need to start drinking it.
4.      Amplify marketing, amplify marketing & amplify marketing.
5.       Escalate funding towards the ADA (Americans Dietician Association) to expand the command over the ADA  
         curriculum and certification exams.
6.      Continue to enforce milk to be sold at schools, a requirement (placed by the dairy industry) to be considered for 
         the School Lunch Program.

Dummies! Instead of realizing that this industry isn’t going in the right direction, not for the farmers, not for the economy, not for the environment, not for the government and certainly foremost not for anyone’s health, they are continuing to dig themselves deeper and deeper into it.

Farmers, people, citizens, aliens, government officials and all others – I am no genius, but here is an idea…Put all that money into changing the dairy industry into a sustainable industry where things can grow. We hit a wall sometimes because the universe wants us to take another direction. How about growing beans, nuts and legumes or building solar farms.

The options and technology are out there we simply need to engage our brain and make smart moves from this. We have lost a lot, let’s not lose the lesson.

Shira Lane

Director / Producer of
“Got the facts on Milk?”

It is a new year and already so many spiffy new things have changed:

We have a new President that has restored our pride & faith in government (well for meantime). 

* CPK - California Pizza Kitchen (The American chain restaurant) now has a vegan menu.

* A New vegan ice cream shop opened in New-York called Stogo.

* T. Colin Campbell has launched his foundation website.

* Milk Prices are slashing – low consumption and high production costs.

* Israel and Gaza have a cease fire – after 8 years of constant rockets from Gaza into Israel.

Yours Shira

  President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet continues to take shape, as he offered former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle to post of secretary of health and human services.

Daschle, the former South Dakota senator has had a close working relationship with Obama for at least four years. He was a mentor to Obama when Illinois senator joined the Senate in 2005 and was a key adviser to Barack Obama's campaign.

The Obama transition team has yet formally to announce Daschle's taking of the position, but several news organisations today reported the offer had been extended and that Daschle had accepted.

The news indicates that the once-tight Obama team has sprung leaks as Obama has expanded his transition effort beyond the close-knit circle of aides who managed the campaign. Obama had hoped first to announce his national security and economic teams before making public other cabinet posts.

Daschle is also a departure from Obama's thus-far Clinton-heavy line-up. Obama chose as his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a former White House political aide to Bill Clinton. Former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta is heading Obama's transition team, and Obama is reportedly strongly considering Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state. In addition, Obama this week asked Eric Holder, a former top justice department official under Clinton, to be attorney general.

Daschle was friendly with Bill Clinton but never worked for him, and they were not known as close allies.

As secretary of the department of health and human services, Daschle will likely head up administration efforts to expand health insurance coverage, an area Obama has signalled will be a top early priority after his inauguration in January. Daschle will oversee the development of health policy, and, given his extensive contacts in the Senate, will likely help shepherd legislation through Congress.

Obama's close ties to Daschle are illustrated in his choice yesterday of Pete Rouse as senior White House adviser. Rouse was Daschle's chief of staff for 19 years before joining Obama's Senate office as chief of staff.

Daschle was elected to the Senate in 1986 and in 1994 became leader of the Senate Democrats, then in the minority. The Democrats regained majority status in May 2001 when Vermont senator Jim Jeffords switched parties, throwing control of the evenly divided Senate.

But Democratic losses in 2002 returned control of the Senate to the Republican party, demoralising Daschle and allowing the Republicans to weaken him by portraying him as an obstructionist.

But in 2004, Senate Republicans broke with tradition and launched a full assault on Daschle. Both parties poured millions into the state for the fight.

Opponent John Thune said Daschle was out of touch with South Dakota values and was a toady for more Democrats like liberal senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and the Clintons. Although Daschle won 62% of the vote in 1998, Thune in 2004 bested him 51% to 49%.

Before joining the Senate, the South Dakota native was an intelligence officer in the US air force and a member of the House of Representatives. Since leaving the Senate he has been a senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress, a liberal policy thinktank founded by Podesta.

Hong Kong: High levels of the chemical found in the Chinese milk scandal are now in eggs in from the mainland.

The authorities on the island said that the eggs contained twice the legal limit of melamine, an industrial chemical which made over 50,000 infants ill and killed four when it was discovered in powdered baby milk over the summer.

Melamine, which is more commonly found in plastics, was added by unscrupulous traders to "bulk up" milk and make it appear richer in protein.

China has not updated the number of children affected by melamine poisoning since the third week of September, and there are indications that the official number may be far too low. Health officials said on Sunday that one quarter, or 75,000, of the 300,000 families in Beijing with a child of less than three had been affected.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong has started testing meat and vegetables coming from the mainland. One theory is that the chickens may have eaten feed contaminated with the chemical.

It has also emerged that cyromazine, a derivative of melamine, is widely used in pesticides and animal feed. This could have been absorbed and pass upwards through the food chain.

"As we have found melamine in eggs, we shall also test chicken meat and we shall also look at offal, for example chicken kidneys and pig kidneys," said Mr Chow.

Full Article click here

Download | Duration: 00:05:53

BEIJING:

 More than 10,000 children remain hospitalized after being sickened in China's tainted milk scandal, officials said, as the government released its first rules on allowable levels of the chemical blamed in the ailments.

The Health Ministry said in a statement on its Web site on Wednesday that eight of the 10,666 children were in serious condition after drinking milk powder contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine, which can lead to kidney stones and possibly life-threatening kidney failure.

No new deaths have been recorded, it said. The scandal has so far been blamed for the deaths of four babies and the sickening of more than 54,000 others.

But the effects of the scandal continue to be felt, forcing the government to deal with festering health and public relations issues. China's food exports have increasingly suffered, with more nations issuing import bans.

Dairy suppliers have been accused of adding melamine, used in products including plastics, paint and adhesives, to watered-down milk to make the product appear rich in protein and fool quality control tests.

There had been no previous standards for the amount of the chemical allowed in food products.

Under Health Ministry guidelines released on Wednesday, melamine is now limited to one part per million for infant formula and 2.5 parts per million for liquid milk, milk powder and food products that contain more than 15 percent milk.

Wang Xuening, a ministry official, acknowledged that small amounts of melamine can leech from the environment and packaging into milk and other foods, but said deliberate tainting was explicitly forbidden.

Levels of melamine discovered in batches of milk powder recently registered as much as 6,196 parts per million.

In the US, the Food and Drug Administration says its experts have concluded that eating 2.5 parts per million of melamine, a minuscule amount, would not raise health risks, even if a person ate food every day that contained it.

Guidelines in Hong Kong and New Zealand say melamine in food products is considered safe at 2.5 parts per million or less, though Hong Kong has lowered the level for children under 3 and pregnant or lactating women to one part per million.

China's food exports have suffered significantly from the scandal, with more than 30 countries restricting Chinese dairy products, and in some cases all Chinese food exports.

Something surprising in Rhode Island- we actually had one of our posters inside a Starbucks coffee shop. The last place in the world that we would have imagined a poster for "Got the facts on Milk?". Ladies and gentlemen here is the proof.

So what if it is Monday? Have a good one anyway

Download | Duration: 00:02:59

We are in Seoul, South Korea this weekend with the Green film festival, tonight we will be screening our Asian Premier.
Anyone in South Korea?

Today we bring you insider tips from the Texas Department
of Agriculture's Cooperative Extension program (TCE).
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"Sell early before all that is left is a shell of a cow. Try
not to market cows that are too thin or too fat. Sell before
blemishes become problems. Sell crippled cattle and cows with
obvious blemishes directly to the packer."

"Market crippled cattle directly to a packer, without going
through usual marketing channels. Cows with other blemishes,
such as bad eyes, probably should also be sold directly to a
packer."

"Consider cull cows as a valuable asset and handle them as such.
Bruising is a major problem with cull cows. Most bruises are
caused by rough handling and hauling from the time they are
sorted at the ranch until they are processed at the cow plant."

"Always be cautious and concerned about withdrawal times when
marketing cows which have been treated with any kind of
pesticide, antibiotic or any other chemical compound."

"Cull old cows before they lose their teeth, decline in body
condition and fail to breed."

"Add weight to thin cull cows before selling."

"Explore selling directly to a packer on a prearranged price."

"Sell cows before they become fat. Fat cows are discounted
for low lean yield."

"Sell cows outside seasonal marketing trends. Cull cow prices
are normally lowest in October and November."
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