While pulling Operational Risk articles for work this morning, I came across this:
“Dairy-Cow Kill to Double Milk Price on Biggest Slump Since 1980”
So basically, the National Milk Producers Federation located in
According to a Wells Fargo senior economist (Wells Fargo is my new company), “No one is making money producing milk. The milk price remains well below the total cost of production.” Meanwhile, the poor cows are pumping out, on average, over 1,800 pounds of milk each, per year, a new USDA record.
One dairy farmer said, “We are in a depression right now. I have to be an optimist that the dairy farmers can get together and find a way to reduce the cow herd about 5 percent so that prices can recover quickly.”
The article drones on to provide endless statistics on these commodities, as if they are lumps of coal, pools of oil or hunks of gold. Do your health a favor, and your pocketbook, and quit drinking dairy milk and switch to plant milk. It’s healthier, more sanitary and cruelty-free. Seems a simple and straightforward decision. Personally, I don’t miss dairy milk at all, in fact the mere thought of it grosses me out. I enjoy the variety and cleanliness of the various plant milks, and of discovering which are my favorites. The following is a PETA article on dairy cows: “The 9 million cows living on dairy farms in the Cows produce milk for the same reason that humans do: to nourish their babies. In order to force the animals to continue giving milk, factory farmers impregnate them using artificial insemination every year. Calves are generally taken from their mothers within a day of being born—males are destined for veal crates, and females are sentenced to the same fate as their mothers. Mother cows on dairy farms can often be seen searching and calling for their calves long after they have been separated. Author Oliver Sacks, M.D., wrote of a visit that he and cattle expert Dr. Temple Grandin made to a dairy farm and of the great tumult of bellowing that they heard when they arrived: “‘They must have separated the calves from the cows this morning,’ After their calves are taken from them, mother cows are hooked up, several times a day, to machines that take the milk intended for their babies. Using genetic manipulation, powerful hormones, and intensive milking, factory farmers force cows to produce about 10 times as much milk as they naturally would. Animals are pumped full of bovine growth hormone (BGH), which contributes to painful inflammation of the udder known as “mastitis.” (BGH is used throughout the A cow’s natural lifespan is 25 years, but cows used by the dairy industry are killed after only four or five years. An industry study reports that by the time they are killed, nearly 40 percent of dairy cows are lame because of the filth, intensive confinement, and the strain of constantly being pregnant and giving milk. Dairy cows are turned into soup, companion animal food, or low-grade hamburger meat because their bodies are too “spent” to be used for anything else.”
In reality, cows living, breathing creatures that experience the emotions that your pet does… joy, happiness, excitement, loneliness, sadness, fear. At what economic price point does life become an expendable commodity? And better yet, at what point DID life become a matter of profit and loss for a businessman’s balance sheets? If an alternative to suffering exists, why not use it and eliminate suffering? We are the only creatures that drink milk from other animals. Dairy milk alternatives are much more appealing when you think about it… milk from a plant, such as almond milk, oat milk, soy milk, rice milk, hemp milk or cashew milk. Why do we insist on cow milk as if it’s the end-all?
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