Conventional Dairy

Conventional Dairy

The Purpose of Milk

Milk is a nutrient-rich liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Because the natural purpose of animal milk is to help young animals grow quickly, it contains all essential nutrients, including protein, calcium and a variety of growth-promoting factors. For this reason, milk is a nutritionally balanced food for young animals. However, once the young animal starts weaning and is able to meet all their nutritional requirements through solid food, then their mother’s milk no longer becomes necessary.

Humans and Animal Milk

When you think about it, milk is a weird thing to drink. It’s a liquid made by a cow or other animal to feed its young; we have to squirt it out of the cow’s udders to obtain it. We are the only species that consume milk after weening. We are also the only species that consume someone else’s milk.

Throughout history, humans never consumed dairy until modern agriculture. Because of its high nutrient profile, drinking milk gave people a new source of nutrients, reducing the risk of starvation and malnutrition. In doing so, many humans evolved to produce the lactase enzyme in order to digest milk and its byproducts.

Lactose Intolerance

All humans can digest milk in infancy. But the ability to do so as an adult developed fairly recently. A handful of mutations allowed adults to produce the enzyme lactase, which can break down the milk sugar lactose. When these lactase mutations evolved, they spread rapidly, as it carried a big advantage in natural selection.

However, over 65% of the world’s population is still lactose intolerant. Estimates for lactose intolerance vary by ethnicity; Asian ethnicities see a high lactose intolerance rate (up to 96%), while northern Europeans have a lower rate (about 5%). These rates depend on ancestral lactose intakes.

Conventional Cows

The dairy that we eat now is very different from the dairy eaten by our ancestor’s hundreds of years ago.

Today’s milk and milk byproducts contain:

— A Myriad of Hormones

The milk supply has increased levels of steroid hormones like estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone to promote growth and production.

— Inflammatory Casein (A1)

Wild cows had a very different form of casein (which wasn't inflammatory), called A2 casein. Nowadays, conventional dairy products are much higher in inflammatory casein (A1).

— Antibiotics

Nowadays, cows are fed antibiotics to prevent, treat and control bacterial infections in livestock. This is because of the poor living conditions and high levels of disease in dairy farms. This then contributes to increased antimicrobial resistance.

— Growth Hormones/Factors

Cows are given different types of hormones to stimulate and increase the production of milk. Prolactin stimulates the production of milk, Bovine somatotropin (bST) increases milk production and IGF-1 is used for milk production, bone growth, and cell division.

— Dairy Products are Pasteurized

Pasteurization is the process of heating milk to kill bacteria. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as raw, unpasteurised milk could be a vehicle for many diseases. However, there is evidence that in the pasteurisation process, many of milk’s initial health benefits are drastically reduced.

— Dairy Products are Homogenised

Homogenisation is the process of breaking fat globules into smaller, more uniform sizes so that the fat globule is more evenly dispersed and suspended throughout the milk. This results in a well-mixed beverage that has the same consistency throughout the final milk product. But as with any mechanical process, when you homogenise milk you not only change the size of the fat globules, you also rearrange that fat and protein molecules which could alter how they act in the human body.

— Confined Animal Feeding Operations

Cows are grown in confined animal feeding operations under horrible conditions. Because of their tight living spaces, cows are unable to perform even the most basic behaviours essential to their well-being.

— Cows are fed an unnatural diet

For their bodies to produce extraordinary amounts of milk each day, dairy cows are fed all sorts of foods that are not in their natural diet in order to support good milk production. This is because their natural diet of foraging and grazing simply cannot meet their bodies’ needs.

Why Should We Avoid (Most) Dairy Products?

Industrial dairy from modern cows raised in factory farms is mostly bad for human health, the animals and the environment.

Human Health

— Upsets digestion/ irritable bowel (especially those lacking the enzyme to digest lactose)

— Increases bone fractures

— Allergies & allergic conditions (asthma, eczema)

— Sinus infections

— Cancer (Increased risk of prostate cancer in men and endometrial cancer in women)

— Menstrual difficulties

— Hormonal dysregulation

— Acne & other skin issues

— Congestion

Environmental Impact

Beyond the direct health effects, dairy consumption also impacts the environment in which we all live. In contrast to traditional integrated farming methods — with grass-fed animals that may help recycle carbon into the soil — high-intensity industrial milk production produces large amounts of greenhouse gases, water pollution, soil degradation, antibiotic resistance, and other environmental disruptions.

Factory Farming is Cruel

Factory farming is the result of techniques for keeping animals alive and producing at the lowest costs possible, using cost-saving measures such as smaller cages and extreme confinement. Cows in the dairy industry suffer their entire lives. From the moment they enter this world, they are treated like commodities.

— Today’s industrial farming landscape is composed of loud, windowless sheds and cages that barely allow animals to move around at all.

— Cows are repeatedly impregnated by artificial insemination and have their newborns taken away at birth. A cow will have to go through this painful process every year of her life. The milk she produces for her calf is instead taken from her and sold to consumers.

— Cows often develop painful medical conditions because of the dire living situations, unsanitised facilities and painful mutilations.

— Female calves are confined to individual pens and are grown to have the same fate as their mother.

— Soon after birth, male calves are trucked off to veal farms or cattle ranches where they end up as meat.

— The typical dairy cow will spend its entire life inside a concrete-floored enclosure, and although they can live up to 25 years of age, most are sent to slaughter after four or five years when their milk production wanes.

— Cows will undergo a series of painful mutilations/interventions throughout their lives:

Dehorning

Horn buds are cut and burnt off to prevent animals injuring each other or staff in their restricted space. A cow’s horns are rich in blood, hypersensitive nerve endings and delicate tissue, making dehorning very painful for the animal.

Tail Docking

A common practice for cows is to have their tail removed. They will either be cut off with shears or wrapped with wire or rubber bands to cut off blood circulation and cause it to die.

Branding

Workers heat iron bars in open fires and burn the flesh of young cows to identify them. Iron inflicts high-degree burns to the skin, which is extremely painful to the animals. These untreated wounds are also ripe for infection.

Ear Tagging

The ears are pierced to fix ear tags for identification.

Not All Dairy is Created Equal

Dairy is far from perfect, but if you do choose to consume dairy, make sure to look for dairy products that are:

— From wild cows (heirloom cows)

— Free from antibiotics, hormones and growth factors

— Organic

— Grass-fed

— Pasteur-raised (raised on grass & open spaces)

Conclusion

There is no human requirement to drink the milk of other animals. All the nutrients in milk can be obtained in the necessary amounts from other dietary sources.

Milk and other dairy products may provide health benefits for those with poor diet quality, but for people following a healthy diet, there is no need for dairy products at all. In fact, high intakes of dairy might even cause harm to the body (especially conventional dairy products from factory-farmed animals).

If one does choose to consume dairy, it is important to look for high-quality choices that use ancient farming techniques and sustainable practices.