currently consume too much meat by nutritional standards, further education could lead to more consumption of milk products, leading to a higher incidence of LI. Although the percentage of the U.S. population affected by LI is relatively low, LI tends to be most prevalent among those least aware of the problem. Even worse, the sufferers of LI who understand LI's problems are not generally in a position to address alternate diets, purchase supplements and so on (Reasoner et al. 54). As mentioned previously, blacks are very lactose intolerant. Many blacks in the U.S. also tend to be at low and poverty income levels, and thus are more likely to be part of food programs such as school lunch programs. Unfortunately, these programs generally have milk products as one of their high nutrition components. As a result, efforts to help the underprivileged are in many cases undernourishing them as well as making them sick. Since LI is a growing U.S. and world problem, I believe we need to better educate people with respect to the existence of LI and ways of dealing with it. This is especially imperative in populations where a considerable percentage of people's nutrition and caloric intake comes from milk products. People who are very lactose intolerant are in a sense lucky. Since lactose consumption causes them great discomfort, they severely limit their milk product intake. These people seek other forms of nutrition to supplement their diets. People who are mildly lactose intolerant are at comparatively high risk because they consume milk products with little or moderate discomfort, but believe milk is providing them with substantial nutrition. People at the greatest risk, however, are called malabsorbers. These people can consume "normal" daily quantities of milk products with no discomforting side effects, but they are actually receiving little or no nutrition from them. They are most at risk because milk may be a large portion of their percei...
