A well known 'weight-loss clinic' runner recently wrote an article lauding the properties of cow's milk. Most of the so called benefits seem to belong to an era when it was believed that human beings needed milk throughout their lives in order to survive the cycle of life. I am neither a nutritionist nor a doctor - just a sensible person who trusts her instincts and basic scientific understanding to make her own informed decisions. Ask yourselves a few questions and you will find that there is no end to which the Government, the dairy industry, doctors, manufacturers of milk powder and other milk products, and nutritionists will go to fool you. Sometimes of course it may be a case where they have been fooled into thinking the way they do.
Starting today onwards I am going to spend some time each week discussing the myths and facts about cow's milk.
Let's start at the very beginning.
The BIG MYTH
"The cow has been given the status of mother in our culture"
FACT
Indeed it has! Why our country? The whole world thinks of the cow as a 'mother'! Only no one thinks of weaning themselves from her milk and the poor animal ends up being just that - a mother who will spend her life feeding everyone except her calf.
These days the only life a cow lives is that of a lactating mother! A cow is a mother who is injected and impregnated. Once the calf is born and found a male, it is useless to the dairy industry, so it is left to die. Meanwhile the cow is used for her milk. A few months later like all mammals her milk supply slows down. Nature supplies only as much milk as is required by a mammal to triple the birth weight of her progeny. Once the cow shows signs of reduced milk supply it is time for her to be impregnated. Why bother about the mating season at all? After three such cycles of impregnation and lactation, the cow can no longer stand the torture. It is time for her to die. Who decides? The cattle masters do. The cow is sent on a death march.
The act of milking
Next time you watch a cow being milked, if you are a woman picture yourself and if you are a man, picture your mom. It is hard to watch or feel a mother whose breasts are pinched and pulled and she is constantly raped so that a billion people can feed themselves. Calling the breasts 'udders' does not change the act. When women suffer it we call it groping, raping or molestation. Is there a difference? No! Milking is molestation.
Odd that we treat the holy mother cow in the same manner and think of it as appropriate. So much for the holy mother!!Labels: myths regarding milk, The holy cow, The life of a cow, What is milking?, why is milk bad for health?