Ethics of Milk

[blackbery]

Re: What Astrological Sign Best Describes Coffee?™️

That's what I understand too, that a cow must be miked daily or they will die.

Anyone ever asked a cow if they like to be kept in a permanent state of lactation as their milk is regularly mechanically expressed?
Would you like it?

 

[waybread]

You might want to stop using dairy products from factory farms, but there are alternatives.

I live in a small agricultural valley, where I can buy milk from a local organic dairy farm. I've visited the farm and can see how these grass-fed dairy cows are being raised. Which is humanely. But don't take my word for it: go visit your nearest organic dairy, and ask a lot of questions. Right now our local dairy farm's cows are out to pasture, so their cream has a lovely pale yellow color.

If you ask around, you'll probably find someone in your area with goat milk for sale. It's more digestible, and goats are thriftier to feed than dairy cattle. I used to buy goat's milk from a friend until she found milking the goats by hand to be too arduous and sold them.

BTW, wild cows who were impregnated annually would also be in a "constant state of lactation" once their calves were born.

If you're familiar with the Blood Type Diet, Type B's do benefit from dairy products.

But globally, only a few cultures support consuming dairy products into adulthood. A fascinating one is India. Cattle are sacred so beef is verboten, but they use cows' milk for yogurt, soft cheeses, and sweets. Dairy products have nutritional benefits for a country with so many vegetarians.

There are other traditional cattle-raising milk-consuming cultures in Africa, like the Masai people. I find it offensive that their ancient herding traditions are ignored here, while milk production is seen to be limited to the worst abuses of American factory farms.

(Please don't get me started on bovine growth hormone.)

Too often food crusaders confuse a particular animal food product with an unsustainable method of producing it. They need to realize that there are methods for producing animal products humanely and sustainably-- and then do their homework on them.

 

[blackbery]

Waybread, majority of people live in urban cities without a farm close to them for miles & miles....if it exists at all in their area.

And the cost would be beyond most people's budgets, esp with children.

The reason people buy factory products, whether it's milk or meat is the cost.
It's CHEAP.

Doesn't matter how much 'homework' a person does, a single mother with even one kid isn't going to be able to run around looking at local dairy farms & buy from them.

Heck, even a working family can't afford anything but cheap milk & cheap meat which is only available with factory farming.

Only the elite, wealthy can afford to 'go natural'.

 

[Dirius]

OMG I'm actually agreeing with waybread

 

[Dirius]

Waybread, majority of people live in urban cities without a farm close to them for miles & miles....if it exists at all in their area.

And the cost would be beyond most people's budgets, esp with children.

The reason people buy factory products, whether it's milk or meat is the cost.
It's CHEAP.

Doesn't matter how much 'homework' a person does, a single mother with even one kid isn't going to be able to run around looking at local dairy farms & buy from them.

Heck, even a working family can't afford anything but cheap milk & cheap meat which is only available with factory farming.

Only the elite, wealthy can afford to 'go natural'.

This is true though. Unfortunately the organic route isn't economically viable given the semi-socialist systems in the world.

Why are we paying taxes on food? Should food and basic needs be tax deductible? These taxes actually harm the poorest tier of society. Why not remove, for example, sales tax from food products?

 

[blackbery]

I agree. There should be NO sales tax on ANY food.

Healthy, natural food should be cheaper than processed food but it's not.

It's only the wealthy, the elite who can afford to go 'organic'.

In most black urban areas, there is NO grocery stores, NO access to fruit/veggies let alone non-farming milk. There are only fast-food joints with huge containers of pop.

People have NO idea about any of this; they go through life drinking their soy lattes without a clue about the real world.

This is true though. Unfortunately the organic route isn't economically viable given the semi-socialist systems in the world.

Why are we paying taxes on food? Should food and basic needs be tax deductible? These taxes actually harm the poorest tier of society. Why not remove, for example, sales tax from food products?

 

[blackbery]

FOOD DESERTS*
The other defining characteristic of food deserts is socio-economic: that is, they are most commonly found in black and brown communities and low-income areas (where many people don’t have cars). Studies have found that wealthy districts have three times as many supermarkets as poor ones do, [2] that white neighborhoods contain an average of four times as many supermarkets as predominantly black ones do, and that grocery stores in African-American communities are usually smaller with less selection. [3] People’s choices about what to eat are severely limited by the options available to them and what they can afford—and many food deserts contain an overabundance of fast food chains selling cheap “meat” and dairy-based foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt. Processed foods (such as snack cakes, chips and soda) typically sold by corner delis, convenience stores and liquor stores are usually just as unhealthy.


https://foodispower.org/access-health/food-deserts

 

[Osamenor]

If you're familiar with the Blood Type Diet, Type B's do benefit from dairy products.

Not true. The blood type diet has been debunked several times over.

One study here: https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/new-study-debunks-blood-type-diet

And there are many more if you go looking for them.

The blood type diet was never based on science in the first place. Peter D'Amato, who originated the idea, never did any research into it. He just made it up to make himself a health guru.

It's a perfect scam, in a way: his diet plan puts type O people on the Atkins diet. Half or slightly more of all Americans are type O, so at least half of his target audience got the Atkins diet, which works just well enough for weight loss, in most people, to make them think they're getting results. For the rest of the blood types, he just made stuff up, didn't care about those. He wasn't writing for non-Americans, either.

Genetics gives lie to the "type B people benefit from dairy" part, too. Blood type B is predominant in Eastern Asia, where the lactose tolerance gene is rare to nonexistent. If dairy is so good for type B, why are so many type B's unable to consume it?

 

[Osamenor]

Why are we paying taxes on food? Should food and basic needs be tax deductible? These taxes actually harm the poorest tier of society. Why not remove, for example, sales tax from food products?

37 of the 50 U.S. states have no taxes on groceries, and the rest have efforts going on to repeal them. I don't know how other countries break down. I would think taxes on food are the exception, not the rule.

 

[Osamenor]

Only the elite, wealthy can afford to 'go natural'.

And country people... sometimes. If you're lucky enough to have organically operating farms nearby, and those farms aren't shipping everything they produce off to the cities, you just might be able to get good, healthy natural food locally if you live in the country, even without a big budget. But there are many rural food deserts, too. Ironically so, when it's the rural areas that produce all food in the first place.

 

[waybread]

Waybread, majority of people live in urban cities without a farm close to them for miles & miles....if it exists at all in their area.

And the cost would be beyond most people's budgets, esp with children.

The reason people buy factory products, whether it's milk or meat is the cost.
It's CHEAP.

Doesn't matter how much 'homework' a person does, a single mother with even one kid isn't going to be able to run around looking at local dairy farms & buy from them.

Heck, even a working family can't afford anything but cheap milk & cheap meat which is only available with factory farming.

Only the elite, wealthy can afford to 'go natural'.

So don't drink milk if it offends you, Blackbery. Nobody has a problem with that.

Organic dairy farms are all over the place, however. Probably your favorite supermarket sells organic milk and your nearest health food grocery store will.

Saying the cost of organic milk is prohibitive, however, is simply poor food budgeting.

Grocery shoppers spend all kinds of money on wasteful packaging and prepared foods. Think about it. If you buy a prepared food with a lot of packaging, you're paying for the packaging and the food processing.

Think about nutritional bang for the buck.

People spend money on potato chips or frozen french fries with high salt and fat content, and minimal nutritional value, for example; when fresh potatoes are cheap, nutritious, and simple to prepare.

Rural people have typically raised a lot of their own food, and few of them qualify as elite.

But big corporate agriculture-- like Monsanto, Cargill, Conagra, and their ilk-- love your "reasoning."

 

[waybread]

My personal experience is much different.

As a type B+, I was on the blood type diet for a year or two. I liked the food, I felt good, and lost weight. Type B is the one blood type that benefits from dairy products, and there aren't too many of us. Only about 7 to 9% of the population in Canada and the US.

It is a healthy enough diet if people follow it, unlike some that are nutritionally unbalanced (like strict veganism.) It's full of fresh produce and complex carbs, for example.

The only problem I had with the Type B diet was that I missed too many foods out of my group. Oh, like chocolate chip cookies.

I don't think the D'Amato father and son were scam artists. There's nothing to buy, unless you purchase their books, so far as I know. They weren't pushing supplements or other products. A friend of mine who was seriously into healthy eating knew the senior D'Amato and never said anything about them being dishonest.

Some babies have milk allergies. But lactose intolerance happens to people who are weaned off mother's milk or formula at a young age, and then who do not live in a dairy-consuming culture, so their intestines lose the ability to process lactose.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lactose-intolerance/symptoms-causes/syc-20374232

But JA will be pleased that they recommended the Type O, A, and AB folks stay away from dairy products.

Not true. The blood type diet has been debunked several times over.

One study here: https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/new-study-debunks-blood-type-diet

And there are many more if you go looking for them.

The blood type diet was never based on science in the first place. Peter D'Amato, who originated the idea, never did any research into it. He just made it up to make himself a health guru.

It's a perfect scam, in a way: his diet plan puts type O people on the Atkins diet. Half or slightly more of all Americans are type O, so at least half of his target audience got the Atkins diet, which works just well enough for weight loss, in most people, to make them think they're getting results. For the rest of the blood types, he just made stuff up, didn't care about those. He wasn't writing for non-Americans, either.

Genetics gives lie to the "type B people benefit from dairy" part, too. Blood type B is predominant in Eastern Asia, where the lactose tolerance gene is rare to nonexistent. If dairy is so good for type B, why are so many type B's unable to consume it?

 

[waybread]

Not true. The blood type diet has been debunked several times over.

One study here: https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/new-study-debunks-blood-type-diet

And there are many more if you go looking for them.

Peter D'Adamo explains his research on lectins in his initial book, Eat Right For Your Type. One could call it junk science, I suppose, but I can't comment on the microbiology of his work.

A big problem with nutritional studies in general is that they use small sample populations for a short period of time. Long term studies with big sample populations apparently are just too expensive to run, although there are some famous ones, like the Framingham nurses study.

I looked up the original study that your link was based on, at:
https://www.jandonline.org/article/S2212-2672(20)31197-7/fulltext

It looks like their sample for the blood type study was 68 people for 16 weeks without super-strict controls. It didn't say how many of the subjects belonged to each blood type: they distinguished only Type A (20 people) from everybody else (non-Type A, 48 people.) At the end of that time, the researchers measured these people's weight, plus some standard blood tests for lipids and blood sugar.

I think these results are suggestive but hardly conclusive.

 

[waybread]

And country people... sometimes. If you're lucky enough to have organically operating farms nearby, and those farms aren't shipping everything they produce off to the cities, you just might be able to get good, healthy natural food locally if you live in the country, even without a big budget. But there are many rural food deserts, too. Ironically so, when it's the rural areas that produce all food in the first place.

Another thing to check out are farmers' markets. These have become enormously popular across cities and small communities. You get to know the vendors; and also the food standards for the market/s in your area. These include food safety requirements, and whether non-local vendors are admitted.

The FM in my community is a great source for local eggs, meat, bakery products, and produce in season.

The more I think about it, the more I think the notion that healthy natural food is for elites only is probably just fake news promoted by Monsanto and Kraft.

Organic labeling is regulated and farmers have to cover the costs associated with organic farming. For one thing, they usually don't have the economies of scale of major factory farms. On the other hand, non-organic growers can and do label their products as "chemical free," "pasture-raised," and other helpful designations.

The more I think about the OP, the more I realize how disgusted I am by the massive dairy farms one does sometimes see along the highways. Rows of filthy cows in their stanchions, munching on grain and supplements. You'd hate to drink anything coming out of those udders. Which is why they have to be hosed down with disinfectants prior to milking.

But what I object to is that factory farming system. Thankfully it is not universal and there are affordable more ecologically sustainable and healthy alternatives.

So let's skip the expensive chemical-laced processed foods, and get back to basics!

 

[Dirius]

37 of the 50 U.S. states have no taxes on groceries, and the rest have efforts going on to repeal them. I don't know how other countries break down. I would think taxes on food are the exception, not the rule.

That is very interesting, and seems like the logical thing to do. Why should people have to pay taxes on basic things they need for survival? In my country sales tax on meat and vegetables is pretty high. In some EU countries they also have VAT tax on basic foods.

I presume the logic is that taxes of the sort would hurt people's basic economy, preventing them from fullfilling their basic needs. But doesn't this logic also apply to many other things people get taxed for?

 

[Dirius]

Grocery shoppers spend all kinds of money on wasteful packaging and prepared foods. Think about it. If you buy a prepared food with a lot of packaging, you're paying for the packaging and the food processing.

Its not so simple waybread, not everyone has the time to buy food, spend hours preparing it, and then eat.

I used to work in the financial disctrict in Buenos Aires, while still in college, and spent a lot of time working or riding around the city in the subway. I didn't have much time to go grocery shopping, and had to rely mostly on prepackaged food, prepared food, or delivery service. I didn't really have the time to spend 2 hours cooking, except for maybe on the weekends.

 

[Ukpoohbear]

Waybread, strict Veganism is not nutritionally unbalanced and the organic dairy industry is no more ethical than the factory produced milk - cows are still forcibly impregnated so they produce milk, then their babies are taken away from them straight to the slaughterhouse, or the female cows are also repeatedly forcibly impregnated until they are no longer of able to produce milk, then they too are murdered.

I posted a link on the previous page to a family run slaughter house which is 6 minutes long and you can see it is not ethical.

I find it very disheartening that Jupe starts a page about the ethics of milk yet no one is talking about the treatment of animals and the ethics surrounding that.

There are vast options of vegan milk available, whether you make your own milk, buy branded vegan milk or cheaper store branded milk - the vegan diet is nutritionally balanced and affordable AND ethical. It is the only non-cruel choice.

There is also no such thing as ‘strictly vegan,’ you are either vegan or not. If you eat fish, you are a pescatarian and if you eat dairy, you are a vegetarian. Veganism is not a diet - it is the only non-cruel lifestyle choice.

I began being a vegan at the start of lockdown, before then I was a vegetarian since I was 9 years old. I thought I was still an animal lover but the truth was, I had been a vegetarian for that long, I was complacent and did not question the dairy industry. I only became a vegan because I realised I was lactose intolerant, and only then did it dawn on me just how cruel the dairy industry is.

Eating food is a daily habit that no one really thinks about, just like I didn’t have to put in any thought in to being a vegetarian all those years. So I get what it is like being removed from the reality of where your food comes from, even though if you think about it, it goes against your ethics.

For example, most people would not stab their dog in the throat or take it to the slaughterhouse if it needed to be put down, they would take it to the vet. If I walked up to a dog in the street with a knife and started to attack it, people would defend the pet. Also, the dog would try to avoid the knife because the dog would not want to die. Therefore, it goes against people’s ethics to be cruel to animals, so they should be Vegan. Most people would think shoving a fist up a female dog's anus to impregnate it would be animal abuse, yet they still fund the dairy industry by consuming dairy.

Stopping this begins by choosing a vegan milk next time you are at the supermarket, or choosing the Vegan option at a restaurant etc etc. All it requires is aligning your ethics with your food choices.

 

[Ukpoohbear]

 

[JUPITERASC]

Anyone ever asked a cow if they like to be kept in a permanent state of lactation as their milk is regularly mechanically expressed?
Would you like it?

Thank you for creating this thread. I hope one day it will be made illegal but meanwhile, it does not stop the current suffering. One day the world will wake up. I am sorry to all animals and I send love, which is the only thing I can do except be a Vegan, which saves one animal everyday

Here is 6 mins of footage from a family-run slaughterhouse. The slaughterhouse was reported but it was deemed legal and acceptable.
— Family Run Slaughterhouse EXPOSED (short version)
— https://youtu.be/bWZIa2zYnzo

— The video shows one cow being smart enough to understand the stun gun is dangerous and manages to push it off the ledge, even to the surprise of the slaughterhouse worker’s.

— Another cow tried to escape so hard he rips both his horns off.

— A third cow injured one of the slaughter worker’s hand trying to escape, so the worker aggressively holds the cow by the head and shouts at it, then proceeds to not stun it properly. It is heard gasping for air while being beheaded, causing sounds of disgust from the worker’s.

Once you’ve watched it, here is a petition from change.org to have the slaughterhouse shut down —
— https://chng.it/NrHsBSTrVj

Waybread, strict Veganism is not nutritionally unbalanced and the organic dairy industry is no more ethical than the factory produced milk - cows are still forcibly impregnated so they produce milk, then their babies are taken away from them straight to the slaughterhouse, or the female cows are also repeatedly forcibly impregnated until they are no longer of able to produce milk, then they too are murdered.

I posted a link on the previous page to a family run slaughter house which is 6 minutes long and you can see it is not ethical.

I find it very disheartening that Jupe starts a page about the ethics of milk yet no one is talking about the treatment of animals and the ethics surrounding that.

There are vast options of vegan milk available, whether you make your own milk, buy branded vegan milk or cheaper store branded milk - the vegan diet is nutritionally balanced and affordable AND ethical. It is the only non-cruel choice.

There is also no such thing as ‘strictly vegan,’ you are either vegan or not. If you eat fish, you are a pescatarian and if you eat dairy, you are a vegetarian. Veganism is not a diet - it is the only non-cruel lifestyle choice.

I began being a vegan at the start of lockdown, before then I was a vegetarian since I was 9 years old. I thought I was still an animal lover but the truth was, I had been a vegetarian for that long, I was complacent and did not question the dairy industry. I only became a vegan because I realised I was lactose intolerant, and only then did it dawn on me just how cruel the dairy industry is.

Eating food is a daily habit that no one really thinks about, just like I didn’t have to put in any thought in to being a vegetarian all those years. So I get what it is like being removed from the reality of where your food comes from, even though if you think about it, it goes against your ethics.

For example, most people would not stab their dog in the throat or take it to the slaughterhouse if it needed to be put down, they would take it to the vet. If I walked up to a dog in the street with a knife and started to attack it, people would defend the pet. Also, the dog would try to avoid the knife because the dog would not want to die. Therefore, it goes against people’s ethics to be cruel to animals, so they should be Vegan. Most people would think shoving a fist up a female dog's anus to impregnate it would be animal abuse, yet they still fund the dairy industry by consuming dairy.

Stopping this begins by choosing a vegan milk next time you are at the supermarket, or choosing the Vegan option at a restaurant etc etc. All it requires is aligning your ethics with your food choices.

[deleted pornographic meme - Moderator]

 

[JUPITERASC]

‘If you could talk to animal’s and they could understand you, what would you ask?’