You can't put your faith in Staples anymore

More and more we are finding merchandise in our shops that are raising the “Buyer Beware” signals like never before.
This includes cooldrinks and cookies loaded with the sweetest of tastes - and none of the labels have to tell you what was added or used in the farm factories or the growing fields.

We take it on trust that all those goodies are loaded only with goodness, Caveat emptor (Buyer beware).
Take your faith in milk. Your grandparents thrived on it - those rosy cheeks and solid bones were the beacon of radiant health. What a frame for life. That was 100 years ago.

Now a noted nutritionist who has authored numerous articles and presented programmes on radio and TV, says homogenised milk may actually be the number one cause of heart disease.

A hundred years ago there was no homogenised milk in mass circulation. Today it takes 7-10 days between the time cows are milked and we drink their milk. Enough time to ensure the milk goes sour.

So, to avoid losing money, the dairy industry had to bring in some changes. In 1932 they invented homogenisation - a mechanical process where milk is pasted through pipes and fine filters at high pressure and speed. This results in the fat portion of the milk being broken up into even smaller fat globules.  When they are their normal size, they rise to the top of the milk and are identified as cream.

Milk fat contains an enzyme called xanathine oxidase (XO) which, when not homogenised, is totally digested and either used by the body or excreted. But scientists have found that a proportion of the homogenised (smaller molecules) can pass through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream.
When foreign XO enters the bloodstream all havoc is let loose. Doctors Oster and Ross warn that it can attack tissue within artery walls as well as heart muscle.

A dairy cow left on her own produces about five litres of milk per day. That's for her calf who needs the XO enzyme to help digestion.

Factory cows on the other hand have been turned into massive milk machines, capable of producing anything from 25-40 litres a day

Professor John Webster in Animal Husbandry at Bristol University reckons the factory farm dairy cow can be compared to you or I jogging six hours a day every day of our lives.

So I swore off milk and declared myself a waterarian, until I reached London and nearly drowned in a survey that linked water supply and a drop in sperm count.

Apparently male brown trout in the Lee river - a Thames tributary source - have developed female characteristics from synthetic oestrogen levels which were as low as one part per litre.

Even the Staff of Life hasn't escaped a scare of health. A recent international report linked an ingredient sometimes used in bread production, namely potassium bionate (it is used to improve texture and shelf life), to cancer.

If you're a mother with a baby, take note of scientists who warn in a leading medical journal, The Lancet, that baby's milk heated in the microwave is exposing your newborn beauty to brain and liver damage. This super-fast oven turns milk protein into poisons which attack vital organs.

Top food scientist Professor Richard Lacey, who predicted the killer outbreaks of Salmonella and Listeria, says microwave makers have never carried out proper tests on food such as milk. What about those foods committed daily to microwaves that contain a proportion of milk such as pizzas, quiches, TV dinners?