Calcium is important. But is milk the only or even the best source of it?
It’s not news that calcium is key for healthy bones. Getting enough calcium from childhood through adulthood helps build bones up and then helps slow the loss of bone tissue as we age. It’s not clear, though, whether we need as much calcium as is generally recommended, and it’s also not clear whether dairy products are really the best source of calcium for most people.
From a scientific and health point of view, one thing is clear for sure: milk is NOT the only source. There are plenty plant based sources of calcium and "worse case" scenario, there are always fortified plant milks if you are not a big fan of kale or spinach.
But how about the source? The actual source of milk... the cow? How come we believe that something which nature designed for a baby calf to grow from 30 kg to 500kg in 6 months is meant for us to consume? Cow's milk is designed for the calf to grow fast. And not a single living creature drinks milk after infancy on this planet, specially not another mammal's breast milk... Our body doesn't need dairy.
There are so many flaws with milk that it is hard to even list up. Starting by the simple fact that as is the case with all mammals, mother cows lactate after giving birth, so each year they are impregnated and their babies are taken away (it is not propaganda, this is how the business works), as they would drink the milk, which we want for ourselves. So we take the male baby calves away and keep them alive for 1-24 weeks then sold as veal... their little bodies all of a sudden become "veal". Or in an even worse scenario, the female calves take over their moms' jobs, becoming milking machines.
Cows would live around 20 years, but in the dairy industry their bodies wear out due to the extensive milking and repetitive impregnation. Their "production" slows down after 4-5 years, so they are sent to slaughter. To die, as they've just become useless for the industry.
As our consumption grew, our needs did too - the dairy industry responded by forcing cows to give more and more milk. They needed more cows and more milk. This of course jeopardized the whole "old fashioned" way of keeping cows. No more grass, no more old grandmas milking away. Confinement, medicine, antibiotics and machines to milk. This, of course, goes all in the milk. The puss for infections (there is even an official limit of how much puss is still allowed in milk), blood, medication and of course the naturally occurring growth hormones (which grow calves in 6 months).
If you are truly interested what is wrong with milk, I advise you to make your own research. Watch some documentaries, articles, TED talks and presentations.
A wonderful and detailed presentation by M.D. Michael Greger:
A very interesting study on the connection between milk and osteoporosis:
Milk, dietary calcium, and bone fractures in women: a 12-year prospective study
RESULTS:
We found no evidence that higher intakes of milk or calcium from food sources reduce fracture incidence. Women who drank two or more glasses of milk per day had relative risks of 1.45 for hip fracture (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.87, 2.43) and 1.05 for forearm fracture (95% CI = 0.88, 1.25) when compared with women consuming one glass or less per week. Likewise, higher intakes of total dietary calcium or calcium from dairy foods were not associated with decreased risk of hip or forearm fracture.
All dairy products are originated from milk. Naturally they change some of their characteristic overtime as they are fermented, "rotted", pasteurized, etc. But the origin is the same, milk, breast milk.
In the today's modern world where most of our knowledge is moderated and reinforced by powerful corporations/ industries and by a myth which the media helps to spread day-by-day, its hard to get a "proper discussion or debate" over milk, and dairy products.
I can only invite you to make a critical thinking of your own. What is milk? It is the breast milk of an animal, right? When did you drink human breast milk? Probably from your mom as you were a baby. When did you finish weening? Maybe between 6 month and 1 year? Right, somewhere that time. Good. Our body is designed as all other mammals to ween on our moms breast milk to get a strong start. There is no other animal on the whole world who drinks breast milk after infancy... No wonder the third of the population is lactose intolerant. As our ability to digest milk (specially a completely other animal's breast milk) was and is not present in many people. However of course many can digest it, but on what price? Cows milk is designed to grow a calf 10x of his/ her size in 6 month, it is full with natural growth hormones and fats. Its perfect fuel for the little cow, and a "perfect" recipe for us to get fat.
And what is more important. at least for me, as I want to believe I am a compassionate person full with empathy towards non-human and human animals and our one and only beautiful planet.... The ethics behind the story. The shear reality, what is happening in the dairy industry, which I saw with my own eyes. Something you cannot just walk away from and pretend never happened...
I was not a vegetarian or a vegan, just a curious person, with an open mind and a big big amount of critical thinking. So off I went and saw, what is the real price of milk. There is noting outstanding or illegal what I have found out. Standard industry practices. I saw in a big scale and tiny farm scale. The procedure is the same:
- The mother cow is forcefully impregnated by a human arm and a big amount off bull sperm. (I wont describe now how they get the sperm)
- As they constantly milk the mother cow, she is giving milk while she is pregnant, there is around a 2 month of non-milking period each year.
- The cow bears her child for 9 month, then gives birth. This gives a boost to her milk production.
- The industry takes the baby away instantly (on the first day), small farms tend to leave the baby there for 2-3 month, but controlling how much milk the baby can drink.
- As you may realized from the previous point, these babies are separated for a sole purpose of stopping them from drinking their own mom's milk (as we humans wants to have it), and the male calves sole purpose are to arrive to our world and became "veal". They are normally killed between the 1st and 24th week. We are talking about, babies which are going to be slaughtered. The female calves might get "lucky", and follow their moms path.
- Watch the video and read the article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2152608/Baby-calves-shot-C4-documentary-People-right-complain-dont-inform-food.html
- For me personally, the game changer was, when I saw and heard as a mother cow cries after her baby (as the baby been dragged away). This just killed a part of my soul. This is the cruelest thing on the whole world! Taking a baby from its mom??? How dare we? How dare we?? And yes, cows are deep, social individuals who cares and morn after their babies.
- This is one of the soft videos of separation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaqR9V4XkXA
- And of course as soon as the milk production drops (around 4-years) the hard working moms go to slaughter as well.
"It's not natural for humans to drink cow's milk. Humans milk is for humans. Cow's milk is for calves. You have no more need of cow's milk than you do rats milk, horses milk or elephant's milk. Cow's milk is a high fat fluid exquisitely designed to turn a 65 lb baby calf into a 400 lb cow. That's what cow's milk is for!"
--Dr Michael Klaper MD
"Bringing someone into life for the sole purpose of killing it? Where's the innovation in that? We're paying businesses for such moral crimes every day. Animals are being produced like some sort of objects on a conveyor belt... they are dying per billion each year. If the world would go vegan, we would stop forcefully impregnate them so they would stop reproducing, in 20 years we would have much less of these animals, and non of them would be suffering or used. They would live in reservations, live as far as possible from us who made their lives and their babies lives a living hell."
-- PhD Lukas Jasiunas
A book recommendations:
And some food for thoughts:
No comments :
Post a Comment