What is in US dairy? It feels like a poison.

[Anonymous]

Projection and worry.

I'm not lactose intolerant but my mom became this way in her older years and it affected her both in the US and in Europe.

Maybe you haven't had it until now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:US wheat processing adds niacin. To stop rickets and other things. EU does not. Many people have sensitivity to niacin. It seems like gluten issues but it's really just that. So they are ok with bread made from imported flour (that's not made explicitly for US market).

"US bread isn't strictly "banned" in Europe, but it's often seen as different due to additives like potassium bromate, azodicarbonamide (ADA), and BHA/BHT, which are restricted or banned in the EU due to health concerns, leading to stricter ingredient lists and different processing methods, and the US uses a harsher pre-harvest drying agent (glyphosate) on wheat, creating a perception of less "clean" bread compared to Europe's focus on traditional methods and additives."

[Anonymous]

No idea. I stopped buying grocery store organic grass fed milk years ago. We only buy from a local VA farmer...same with eggs and cheese too. I buy organic wheat grain and mill it at home and make all our own breads/pastas too.

[Anonymous]

I am lactose intolerant and this was definitely not my experience in Europe. I found myself running to the bathroom more frequently, which is tough in a place that does not have plentiful public restrooms!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the hormones the pump dairy cows full of.
Industrial farming is terrible for livestock and consumers.

But there are a lot of hormone free, grass fed dairy products.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have it with US bread. There is something terrible in the wheat or the way bread is made. Now, I stick to imported flour and make my own bread.

Eye roll

I don’t see why.

DP. Because it doensn't make sense. The PP is lumping all "US bread" into the same category, and appears to be blaming the wheat supply for the problem (thus her decision to import her flour from other countries). This is ludicrous because "US bread" encompasses a vast range of bread from ultraprocessed commercial bread loaded with preservatives in order to be shelf stable for months, to the relatively low processed whole grain loaf you can buy from a local bakery the day it was made using high quality ingredients (including wheat from a US mill). The PP claims that both of these would make her equally sick, but somehow the problem is solved by importing wheat from another country (unspecified -- there are countries with a good wheat supply and others I would assume to be inferior quality to the US) and baking her own bread. The other ingredients are presumably American.

Choosing to avoid breads with preservatives or enriched dough makes sense -- regardless of which country the ingredients come from, these breads have added ingredients that could in fact impact your health. And highly processed breads have less nutritional content in general. But there is ZERO reason to think it's due to US wheat (which would include both ultra processed flour from factory mills and small batch stone milled heritage flour from something like Hayden Flour Mills, plus your standard King Arthur or Bob's Red Mill which are both considered high quality even though they are from high-volume suppliers) or that wheat in other countries would be better. It's just a totally baseless theory.

It's annoying because people make claims like this all the time and it's often just based on paranoia, classism, and narcissism. US food supply has serious issues, but that doesn't mean the US doesn't have high quality food (there are more and better healthy food options in the US than in most of the world, we are spoiled for healthy food availability) or that food from literally any other country is automatically healthier (in many cases it is more likely to be contaminated, loaded with preservatives, or otherwise bad for you). The issue in the US is that we don't regulate the food industry very well and our regulation is designed for the benefit of a handful of huge corporations but not for smaller farmers or manufacturers, and definitely not for consumers.

That doesn't mean the "US bread" is slowly poisoning you.

Enrichment of flour is a problem.

[Anonymous]

Ofcourse there's a difference between foods between countries. My stomach is constantly in knots in US even if I eat mostly whole foods.
I had hard time believing I can't eat dairy here as I grew up on a dairy farm. Something in products here makes me feel lousy.
The worse culprits here are the white 'flour' and anything corn.

[Anonymous]

Do you take vitamin supplements? Too much A or D maybe?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:US wheat processing adds niacin. To stop rickets and other things. EU does not. Many people have sensitivity to niacin. It seems like gluten issues but it's really just that. So they are ok with bread made from imported flour (that's not made explicitly for US market).

"US bread isn't strictly "banned" in Europe, but it's often seen as different due to additives like potassium bromate, azodicarbonamide (ADA), and BHA/BHT, which are restricted or banned in the EU due to health concerns, leading to stricter ingredient lists and different processing methods, and the US uses a harsher pre-harvest drying agent (glyphosate) on wheat, creating a perception of less "clean" bread compared to Europe's focus on traditional methods and additives."

Not sure what this post is quoting, but that is true for a lot of US wheat. It's sprayed with Roundup/ glyphosate at the end of its growing cycle.

My understanding is that organic wheat does not do this.

There are also different varieties of wheat in different parts of the US and in Europe. Same is true with predominant types of cows.

Op, what brands are you okay with in Europe? Do those exist as imports here? That might not give you a clear answer because domestic and export standards are often different. I also wonder if there's any chance the packaging is a problem, or even soon being like the plastic tubing used at the dairy.

[Anonymous]

It's not the lactose, it's the protein in the milk. My son had the same experience. U.S. dairy would make him throw up because he has an intolerance to the protein in the milk here. But he ate cheese and butter in Europe without any problems.

[Anonymous]

It's not in OP's head. Food quality is better in Europe, period. Go find all the posts from people who went to Europe on vacation, ate a ton, and still lost weight. It's not just the walking -- it's the food.

It does not matter how much you spend here or whether you buy all organic, you can't buy your way out of our messed up food system. My relatives own a "certified organic" farm and talk about how pesticides and hybridized seeds blow in from neighboring farms all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not in OP's head. Food quality is better in Europe, period. Go find all the posts from people who went to Europe on vacation, ate a ton, and still lost weight. It's not just the walking -- it's the food.

It does not matter how much you spend here or whether you buy all organic, you can't buy your way out of our messed up food system. My relatives own a "certified organic" farm and talk about how pesticides and hybridized seeds blow in from neighboring farms all the time.

And then combine that with all the second hand smoke inhalation you experience while over there. Europe didn’t get the memo that smoking is bad for you. So maybe you will have better overall food choices and then get lung cancer. Not sure that’s better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not in OP's head. Food quality is better in Europe, period. Go find all the posts from people who went to Europe on vacation, ate a ton, and still lost weight. It's not just the walking -- it's the food.

It does not matter how much you spend here or whether you buy all organic, you can't buy your way out of our messed up food system. My relatives own a "certified organic" farm and talk about how pesticides and hybridized seeds blow in from neighboring farms all the time.

First, I have no issues with dairy here in the US or in Europe, which I have either lived in or visited intermittently for the past 30+ years. I was born and raised in a dairy state in the US. I LOVE cheese, yogurt etc. I don't drink milk but use it in my coffee. I have no problem whipping up a chowder using milk. US farms rarely use hormones anymore and there are plentiful organic/grassfed/etc etc options. The problem I run into with dairy is if it's very low fat/high sugar - that is what gives me gas. Full fat, no problem.

Please stop the fantasy that Europeans don't eat processed foods. There is SO MUCH convenience food in France, Belgium, the Netherlands which is where I have lived/visit family that MOST PEOPLE CONSUME. The milk alone is so processed it has a shelf life of years! Of course, there like here you can find high quality foods if you're willing to pay more. Have you wondered if when you are on vacation and are willing to find and pay for higher quality, artisanal foods?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not in OP's head. Food quality is better in Europe, period. Go find all the posts from people who went to Europe on vacation, ate a ton, and still lost weight. It's not just the walking -- it's the food.

It does not matter how much you spend here or whether you buy all organic, you can't buy your way out of our messed up food system. My relatives own a "certified organic" farm and talk about how pesticides and hybridized seeds blow in from neighboring farms all the time.

Anecdotes do not equal data. You should know better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not in OP's head. Food quality is better in Europe, period. Go find all the posts from people who went to Europe on vacation, ate a ton, and still lost weight. It's not just the walking -- it's the food.

It does not matter how much you spend here or whether you buy all organic, you can't buy your way out of our messed up food system. My relatives own a "certified organic" farm and talk about how pesticides and hybridized seeds blow in from neighboring farms all the time.

Anecdotes do not equal data. You should know better.

Lots of anecdotes, collected in a systematic way, and analyzed do, indeed, equal data. What exactly do you think is meant by “data”?
Data is information. How you understand and extrapolate from data depends on the quality of the data.