Those who push superfoods – one dietary supplement that they say can cure most or even all illnesses – usually have a specific profile. They tell stories about people whose lives have been saved and transformed by their product; they say their product is necessary for everyone from babies to octogenarians; they say spiritual guidance and ancient wisdom confirms their claims; they offer some kind of scientific-sounding proof for their product’s efficacy; and they are always selling the product. This was true of the original “snake oil salesmen” of the Old West and it is true of every “alternative medicine” purveyor two centuries later. Douglas A. Wyatt, author of HOLY COW: The Miracle of Life’s First Food fits this profile to a T. Even so, his claims about bovine colostrum are persuasive because there is some genuine scientific backing and an evolutionary logic to them.
Wyatt’s story centers around his late wife, who suffered from a weak immune system for most of her life due to having received X-ray therapy on her thymus gland as a baby to treat infections (a common procedure back in the 1940s that didn’t stop until the 1960s). Serendipity – also a common element in the stories of superfood promoters – led to Wyatt coming across bovine colostrum, which within one night improved his wife’s health. From then, he began to research bovine colostrum, which at the time was a milk waste product that only farmers used to feed calves. With his wife as chief test subject, Wyatt eventually created a process to create a commercial colostrum product. Wyatt’s argument is that raw cow’s milk provides a wide range of health benefits, all centered on colostrum’s ability to strengthen the human immune system. (Raw milk is considered dangerous, however, because of bacteria, which is why milk needs to be pasteurized.) Despite his arguments about colostrum’s marvelous health effects, his book starts with a legal disclaimer about medical advice and ends with the caveat that colostrum works best for people who eat properly and exercise regularly (which, of course, confounds any health benefits from the supplement).
Douglas A. Wyatt’s HOLY COW: The Miracle of Life’s First Food, is clearly written and contains lots of useful health information. And bovine colostrum–the “first food” of the title–has no harmful effects so readers can try for themselves and see if it makes a difference.
~Kevin Baldeosingh for IndieReader