I am a milk drinker and have been all of my 61 years. I drink fortified skim milk and probably consume 24 to 32 ounces a day. I need to lose about eight pounds. May I continue drinking milk? Why do you recommend no dairy products? Is it the sugar?

First of all, let me begin by saying that if you are 61, and in very good health, and only have eight pounds or so to lose, God bless you, and clearly you are doing something -- maybe even most things -- quite right. I believe the old saying "If it ain't broke don't fix it," and that seems to be very true in your case. It's important to remember that not everyone responds to the same foods in the same way; in fact, that is the whole principle of biochemical and metabolic individuality (which I strongly believe in).

Remember, even the best information in advice columns has to be somewhat general and is not the same as what you might get in a completely customized, individual program. What you read here is information that I think most people will benefit from, all things being equal. It doesn't necessarily mean it's right for you personally. From the information you've given me, I can't say that giving up milk will make or break your diet. That said, I still have a lot to say on the question of why milk is not the perfect food.

On that note, here's some food for thought about milk.

Top 10 reasons why milk is not the perfect food:

1. It's a great source of unwanted antibiotics.
2. Ditto for recombinant bovine growth hormone.
3. Eighty percent or more of the world's people are lactose-sensitive or -intolerant.
4. The homogenization process (which allows the fat to stay in suspension, so that the cream, for example, doesn't rise to the top) makes the fat and the cholesterol more subject to oxidation (and therefore free-radical generation).
5. The nations that consume the most milk also, incidentally, have the highest rates of oesteoporosis.
6. The top 10 reasons why you should drink it have been brought to you by the dairy industry, not by independent assessors.
7. It is very high in phosphorus, which is a calcium antagonist, so the calcium in it is not particularly well absorbed.
8. The calcium-magnesium ratio is not particularly good.
9. It is one of the top allergens, probably the number one allergen for children, and it is filled with sugar.
10. Calcium is not as well absorbed in the absence of some fat; hence skim milk is an even worse choice.

When people have trouble identifying what in their diet might be causing them problems, I think it's a good idea for them to do their very own "science experiment" and try temporarily removing those foods that have been most recently introduced into the human diet. Grains and dairy head that list -- agriculture wasn't developed till 10,000 years ago, (less than a second on the 24-hour clock of human evolution), and wheat and milk are on everyone's top five list of usual suspects for food intolerances and allergies.

And just for good measure, some food for thought: no other mammal in the world drinks the milk of another mammal, and even cows won't touch homogenized, pasteurized milk.

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