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The Unheard Details of Drinking Milk

May 26, 2015

st0526-03 “Drinking milk doesn’t kill cows.”

This is one of the most common misconceptions that the population of milk-drinkers have, along with other beliefs such as “kids need milk for calcium,” and “cows need to be milked.”

However, all these milk myths are just that: myths.

Like any other mammal, cows are only able to lactate, or produce milk, by having children. But the milk meant to nourish their young is sold, which means the babies are torn away from their mothers when they are barely one day old. Instead of milk, calves are fed replacers so that the milk they need can be sold to humans. Dairy cows are kept constantly impregnated, a cycle that starts shortly after their first birthdays.

Naturally, they would be unable to produce the amount of milk forced of them, so they are pumped full of hormones and fed an unnatural diet. The fate of the day-old calf depends entirely on his or her gender. If she is female, she meets the same end as her mother in the dairy industry. Male calves are kept chained in stalls to be raised for veal, where they are fed a diet of milk substitute and purposely deprived of iron and exercise so their flesh can stay pale and tender.

That is only the cruelty of it. Not to mention the facts that the dairy industry is detrimental to the environment (an acre of rainforest is cut down every 6 seconds to accommodate cattle) and it is actually not a very good source of calcium and protein(plant-derived milks contain far more calcium, vitamins, and protein without any of the cholesterol), human bodies don’t need dairy-in fact, they fight it. We just aren’t meant to be drinking the milk of another species, if the rates of lactose intolerance, the most common food allergy after peanuts,have anything to say about it.

Sarah Choe
North High School 9th Grade

3 Comments

Cindy P Gambone

June 3, 2015 at 7:55 AM

She is right! I was raised to believe that drinking milk made us grow, and that cows need to be milked. Whether milk is benificial or not, impregnating cows just to kill the births is a terrible industry. And any health benefits of drinking milk are totally dwarfed by the risks of the hormones given to lactating cows, which goes right into the milk you are drinking.

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igsmo

November 17, 2015 at 2:15 AM

The cows are abused and treated with extreme cruelty, it’s time to boycott the entire American Industrial Food Farming Complex.

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