I just finished reading this book by a vegan dietitian who is against the drinking of milk. I'll have to post a quote from the book later about how she believes the hormones in commercial milk make the nutritional benefits minimal. She also listed many legumes that have more calcium and magnesium than milk, in addition to other vitamins, and are therefore better. That really makes sense to me.

As far as humans not needing milk as they grow up, I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. It's obvious that other cultures around the world (europe, asia) don't have the same amount of dairy that we do, and they are certainly not as unhealthy as we are in america.

So my conclusion is: Unless I know the dairy farmer who's giving me the milk (incidentally, one of my former clients owns a dairy farm a few miles west) I don't feel comfortable putting it into my body. That's really the conclusion I was looking to draw, though, since I don't like milk products.

(Also, it's undeniable that the american dairy council has been goading the government in certain directions about dairy, and I don't like that. The government guidelines are clearly not the right place to look for diet advice.)