Life as a Milk Cow

 I Was Just a Milk Cow:

Moving Away from Cows Milk Can be Beneficial to Us All

I was ripped from my mother shortly after I was born. I cried for days for my mom. When I got old enough I was painfully branded with searing hot metal, my tail was cut off, and my horns were cut off. I was artificially impregnated with a long metal tube. I had my first baby. I loved my baby when he was born....for a few days until they came and took him from me. He was tied to a tiny crate and killed a few months later for what they call “veal”. I cried for days for them to return my baby; no one answered. Instead, they took me from the field and plugged me up to machines every day to drain me of the milk meant for my dead child.

I am hurting; there is blood and pus in my milk from the infections. It is so cramped, there’s no room to walk or graze. I can't eat grass anymore; they give us corn and grains in troughs. Now it has been about seven years, I have had many children; all of them taken from me. My milk production is down and its “time for slaughter” they say. I am shocked with electric prods off the truck; I can smell death all around me. I am stunned so that I cannot move, but I am still aware. I am hung upside down from my back legs with chains, my throat is slit, and my blood is drained....I’m dying. I was just a milk cow.

This is the life and the fate of almost every milk cow brought into existence by the milk industry, even small scale operations. I used to deny this, because I loved my milk. I was addicted to chocolate milk and had it every day of my life for about 25 years. I wanted to believe that there were always happy cows and calves roaming relatively freely in green pastures, and a comfy milk cow retirement program where they could live out the rest of their lives naturally. Then I watched two documentaries, one was Forks over Knives, which focused on health, the other was Earthlings, which is about ethics. Watching them impacted me deeply and set me on the path to learn and research more, and I haven’t had a drop of dairy since.

Consuming cow’s milk is an ancient cultural tradition that was once thought necessary for survival; a clever adaptation. However, this is a new age, with new information, new perceptions, and new possibilities for progress, and there are many things in history once thought acceptable that no longer are, so it’s time to move forward.  There are serious ethical and health-related implications tied to cow’s milk consumption, there are much better alternatives available to us, and I want to share some of this information with you so that you too may make a more informed decision about your dietary future.

Firstly there are the ethical problems with exploiting cows for their milk supply. Undercover investigations from the Humane Society, Mercy for Animals, Action for Animals, the producers of Earthlings, and many other organizations have revealed over and over again that abuse runs rampant in the milk industry, including kicking, stabbing, hitting, and electric prodding. Cows are left to suffer with open, bloody wounds, painful swollen utters, pus filled infections, crippling lameness, and other diseases and ailments typically without veterinary care. Dairy cows are injected with a steroid called Posilac, or Bovine Growth Hormones, to increase milk production, and has been shown to increase lameness in cows and cancer risks in humans. The average milk cow in this country pumps out over 80 pounds of milk a day, far more than nature would allow.

However, some will say that these things are not true of every farm. What about organic milk, or small family operations? Well, even on farms where cows are not kicked and stabbed and injected with drugs, it is still a necessity in the business to take calves from their mothers, sell or slaughter males for veal, dehorn, brand, and tail dock without pain killers, keep cows perpetually pregnant year after year (each time taking their calf), and after 5-7 years after milk production has waned, an exhausted cow is sent to slaughter at a third of her natural lifespan. Ninety percent of our hamburger supply comes from so called “spent” dairy cows. Twenty percent of all dairy cows are slaughtered each year. This seems downright ungrateful.

              A cow makes milk for the same reason every other mammal produces milk, to feed her babies. It is an inescapable truth that buying milk supports the veal industry, and endorses the act of painfully separating mother from child. I talked to someone named Meg who personally still works at a dairy farm, but she’s starting to feel rather badly about it. She said, “If vegetarians think that drinking milk is okay then I would have to say that cows are bred, inseminated and produce a calf. We take their calf. Cows have one of the highest maternal instincts of any mammal. They call for their calf for about three days. A cow will produce milk for their calf for around six months on a natural cycle. We milk them for nine months and then “dry them off”. We make them have one calf per year. Now if taking an animal’s baby away year after year isn’t as bad as eating the meats, then I think your opinion is wrong. The cows are treated okay in a welfare aspect there, but mentally it’s hard for them. I’m not vegan but I can see the reason for the choice.” This is quite powerful coming from someone who works in the industry.  

Then there are the health issues with consuming cow’s milk that most of the public have been unaware of until recently. According to Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, a leading American Cardiac Surgeon and expert in plant-based nutrition, milk is basically just liquid meat. It is loaded with cholesterol and saturated fat, which is not good for the body, especially the heart.

Also, According to industry numbers, there is as much as a dropper full of pus in every 8 oz. glass of milk, which occurs because of the infections cows get from the milking process. It is sterilized in the pasteurization process, but sterilization is not a removal process. Of course the milk industry doesn’t use the term “pus” because that might be off-putting, so they use the term “somatic cell count”. To combat these infections, milk cows are also pumped full of antibiotics. Over 70% of our country’s supply of antibiotics goes into farm animals. This has caused some people to become resistant or even allergic to all antibiotics.

Casein is also a serious health hazard. Casein is animal protein, the main protein naturally found in milk, and has been scientifically linked to the growth of cancer cells in many studies now, most famously by Dr. T Colin Campbell, who co-authored the China Study and is featured in the documentary Forks over Knives.  He found that you could literally turn cancer growth on and off in controlled test subjects simply by adding or eliminating casein in the diet. In the largest and most comprehensive scientific study ever conducted on nutrition, Dr. Campbell found that populations with the lowest consumption of animal protein always had the lowest mortality rates from various cancers and heart disease.

According to both Dr. Campbell and Dr. Esselstyn, cow’s milk also acidifies the body, causing what is known as metabolic acidosis, and the body cannot stay acidic for long or it will die. So what our body does is that it saps calcium phosphate from our bones. Phosphate brings the body back to a pH balance and the calcium is urinated out. The high concentrations of acidic protein in milk and other animal-based sources cause the body to lose more calcium than it consumes. This leaves bones weaker, which is one of the reasons why this country has one of the highest osteoporosis rates in the world in spite of leading the world in dairy consumption. Luckily there are other, better sources of calcium from plant sources that the body can actually absorb and keep, such as oatmeal, tofu, orange juice, spinach, or plant based milks.

 Dairy is a hard addiction to crush however, and it is an addiction. There is a substance in cow’s milk called Casomorphine, which is actually a form of morphine and is a cow’s natural way to keep a young calf close and suckling on her. This substance has a similar effect on us and keeps us coming back for more.

The good news is that there are numerous alternatives out there to replace cow’s milk in your heart and help break the addiction. There is soy milk, coconut milk, rice milk, hemp milk, flaxseed milk, hazelnut milk, and my personal favorite, almond milk. I have a deep affection for the chocolate and vanilla varieties of Friendly Farms almond milk at Aldies for $2.50 a half gallon. That makes it only $5 a gallon, which is just about the regular price of a gallon of cow’s milk. There are also delicious alternatives for our beloved cheese and ice cream as well.

There are many benefits to these milk alternatives too. There is more calcium in these milks than in cow’s milk, and that calcium is absorbed better since they do not acidify the body. None of them have any cholesterol or saturated fat, and they are often fortified with B12 and vitamin D as well. Depending on which kind you get, each one has a list of its own health benefits. For example, the flax and hemp milk are both loaded with beneficial Omega-3 fatty acids.

                When you make a purchase you are endorsing a product, a company, and their practices; you are literally making a vote. With a little effort and the will to change for the animals, for you, or both, we can make a deep and impactful change in our society simply by deciding to vote differently with our money. We don’t have to be a society of animal slavery, cruelty, and death, we don’t have to give anything up to do it, and we can be healthier for having done it. We have the knowledge and options now for more humane, healthier alternatives, but only we have the power to make the change.

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Sources:

Action for Animals. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://afa-online.org/

DairyCo (2013). Somatic Cell Count - milk quality indicator. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.dairyco.org.uk/technical-information/animal-health-welfare/mastitis/symptoms-of-mastitis/somatic-cell-count-milk-quality-indicator/#.Up8T0suA0eG.

Fulkerson, L. (Director). (2011). Forks over Knives [documentary film]. United States: Virgil Films and Entertainment

Mercy For Animals. (2010 ). Dairy's Dark Side: The Sour Truth Behind Milk. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.mercyforanimals.org/dairy/.

Mercy for Animals. (2009). Milk is Cruel. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.milkiscruel.com/.

Monson, S. (Director). (2005). Earthlings [documentary film]. United States: Nation Earth