excess of human needs. Protein and calcium are building blocks; they are, and help create, solid matter. It is inevitable that, when out of proportion, these elements will create some waste matter of excess in the body by their presence. 4 What are the effects of that excess? Nutritionists say that whatever nutrients we take in excess of need are excreted. This is perfectly true, and when our organs of elimination are unblocked, excretion proceeds smoothly. But in our current collective condition, are they? I think not. And if they’ re not, what happens? From infancy on we partake of dense, heavy foods: cheese, baked goods, meats, fried potatoes, ice cream. Push a thick, dense substance through a strainer, and soon enough the small openings get clogged, rendering the strainer less and less effective. The same thing happens with our organs, such as the liver, the intestines, the lungs, and especially the kidneys. Faced with a daily load of waste matter far in excess of what the body is prepared to handle, our organs soon become less and less efficient in excreting the excess through normal channels. Other avenues to the exterior are then formed, via the skin and the mucous membranes of all our body’ s orifices. The excess matter that cannot be excreted remains inside the body. Unused matter in the body, according to Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, turns into mucus or pus— the perfect culture medium for bacteria. Dairy products, then, are a ripe breeding ground for infections. The host of common problems of buildup and excretion that plague us today— asthma, allergies, strep throat, tonsillitis, ear infections, pimples, acne, overweight— can be taken as proof that our organs of elimination are not in fine working order. The fact that these conditions and many others tend to clear up when dairy products are removed from the diet indicates that cow’ s milk and its derivatives— because of their high content of buildup elements of protein and calcium— may be closely associated with them. The addition of synthetic vitamin D to cow’ s milk appears to cause a great deal of trouble as well. Introduced with the best of intentions, to forestall rickets in children, this vitamin encourages the deposit of calcium in the body. Artifically encouraged, calcium is often deposited in the wrong places. For that reason, added vitamin D has been identified as a causative factor in extensive injury of the cardiovascular system, calcification of the kidneys, and mental retardation. 5 In many cases, the excess calcium of fortified cow’ s milk is excreted by the kidneys. When it can’ t go through because the holes in the strainer, as it were, are already blocked, it can remain in them and form kidney stones. It may also form deposits in various areas of the female reporoductive organs, at times hardening into cysts. There may be some relationship between dairy food intake, vitamin D fortification, and the tendency in some women to develop calcium deposits on the strings of their IUDs. The most dramatic example I found of the presence of excess calcium in the human system was in the case of a young woman who consulted me regarding her diet. She had had an operation on her kidneys during which an external tube was inserted temporarily between kidney and bladder, bypassing the ureter. Within a month, the tube was totally blocked by hardened calcium deposits that impeded the flow of urine, much to the surprise of her doctor. She was drinking two or three glasses of milk daily at the time. When I met her, she was well recuperated from her operation, although her kidneys still gave her trouble, and she had skin problems and allergies. After she eliminated milk and milk products from her diet, all those problems gradually disappeared, and she reported that her energy increased markedly. Many people, in fact, report a noticeable rise in energy once they stop using dairy products as a main food.“ I used to feel so lethargic,” said a handsome middle-aged woman after taking my cooking classes for ten months.“ Now I feel fantastic!” Women suffer more from the buildup and blocking effects of milk products than men do, and the problems take longer to heal. From a natural, systems viewpoint, this makes perfect sense: Milk is supposed to go out of the woman, not into her. When the flow is reversed, the energy system backs up— and everything gets stuck. One woman came to see me complaining of painful premenstrual swelling of the breasts; all I suggested was that she stop consuming her daily quart of milk— after all, where does milk come from? A month later she called me and asked,“ Is this for real? Could it make such a difference so soon?” I spoke to her five months later and found that the breast soreness only recurred mildly the month she ate some cheese or ice cream. The consumption of dairy products, including milk, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream, appears to be strongly linked to various disorders of the female reproductive system, including ovarian tumors and cysts, vaginal discharges, and infections. I see this link confirmed time and again by the countless women I know who report those problems diminishing or disappearing altogether after they’ ve stopped consuming dairy foods. I hear of fibroid tumors being passed or dissolved, cervical cancer arrested, menstrual irregularities straightened out.“ Dairy products seem very much associated with menstrual cramps and heavy flow,” noted Christiane Northrup, M. D., an obstetrician and gynecologist from Portland, Maine. Dr. Northrup also reported in a telephone interview with me that the women with the most severe cases of endometriosis or fibroids were heavy consumers of cheese, ice cream, butter, or milk. Several of her patients had their fibroids shrink after they