Monday, January 26, 2009

Drinking Cow's milk - Very Unnatural Indeed !


The diary industry is indeed one of the biggest food industries the world over and everyone seems to swear by the milk, but I am wondering whether using another animal's milk is a right thing to do. This thought was aired by noted Economist Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar in his Times of India column(Milk is more dangerous than Cola) when he was discussing about Coca-Cola being targeted by Indian environmentalists. He argued that milk had more contaminants than Coca-Cola and drinking another animal's milk was not environment friendly either. I stopped diary products for a short while after reading the article, but couldn't hold on to it for long. But I am at it again this time more determined to stick with it.

I have been thinking about it more since we are nearing weaning our daughter from breast milk and cow's milk is the recommended thing after that. And we have been drinking and using diary products and eating beef once in a while as well. I have not heard any convincing answer why it is ok to drink cow's milk and I am more and more convinced that it is not the natural thing to do. It appears that any breast milk is that it is produced on a demand basis - if the child or calf doesn't drink it, it stops producing it. So human being have created an artificial demand and milking the cow for their use (BTW, don't buy the argument from mothers who say their milk supply is poor or the kid doesn't drink - most of the time it is because they just don't know to feed their babies or aren't interested in patiently feeding them - they have a lot of alternatives these days). So we may not be really depriving the calves their share by drinking cow's milk, but we are misusing the demand-supply nature of the milk supply to create a food industry itself. Cows themselves have become very synthetic - they are being created for the diary industry.

But I can understand people(including myself) eating cow's meat because human beings are at the top of the food chain, it is a natural instinct to indulge in and we let the animal live its life before killing it(though there will be exceptions). Many people don't eat it because of the religious belief and the sacredness associated with the cow(especially in India), but they have no qualms in drinking cow's milk and eating diary products however, which seems to be the most unnatural thing.



I figured PETA has been fighting this cause, but they are a bit extreme that they are against other natural instincts(like eating animal meat) though not based on any religious principle. But if they take their arguments a bit further to trees and vegetables, human beings will find it tough to survive. However, I can support them in their efforts to stop drinking milk though.

So I am off from diary products though it is really tough to figure out if there is cow's milk in many of the things that we eat, it is so damn widely used in all kinds of food. But I am giving it a shot.
Posted by Jayadeep(JDP) at 10:42 AM
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11 comments:

  1. i stopped taking milk products arnd 5 months back. i have since felt much more energetic and healthy than i used to before the change.

    i feel drinking milk is unnatural and also cruel to animals. i feel eating meat is cruel to animals.

    -prasad.
    (prasi55@gmail.com;came to ur site through bikezone)
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  2. I wonder how it is natural to eat meat. If evolution is constant progress then perhaps humans becoming vegetarian is the next step forward.
    Your argument against PETA seems conveineince rather than reasoning.
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  3. @Anonymous, my reasoning is pretty simple in this aspect - milk of any animal is produced exclusively for its offspring, NOT anyone else. So another animal higher in the food chain drinking it is indeed unnatural to me. No other animals in the chain does this except human beings. In fact no other animal drinks milk after infancy. Eating meat to me is just another case of us being at the top of the food chain like we eat vegetables. It is very natural for an animal above the chain to another one below.

    BTW, for me it is far more inconvenient to not to drink milk than eating meat, not that I can't live without it. While there may be merit in not eating meat as well, I am not convinced yet.

    Thank you for the comment!
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  4. How is eating meat a natural instinct? Clearly, you've worked through the logic that drinking another species' milk is entirely unnatural. Surely you can also work through the logic that meat is equally unnatural.

    A thought experiment - Imagine a hungry toddler sitting in a room with two food sources. A living breathing mouse, or an apple tree with fruit on it. Now, obviously the toddler would never be able to catch the mouse, but even if it could, would it choose the mouse as food, or the apple? Well, the answer is obvious. The point is, humans don't instinctively see animals as food. If the meat is already cut up for us, and in the toddlers case, cooked for us, then some of us would see it as food. But surely this is far from instinct. It's more of a cultural custom, or habit, than anything else.

    Rethink through the thought experiment, but this time substitute the toddler with a young cat. Obviously the cat would instinctively see the mouse as food and would clearly not be interested in the apple.

    Basically, we could substitute pretty much any animal into this experiment, and always the human would choose the fruit. Animals don't look like food to us. We simply do not have the ability to hunt down and kill a buffalo with our bare hands. Even if we got lucky and found a dying one, who of us can say that we'd enjoy biting into the beast, tearing off some living flesh covered in warm blood, and then eat it down. That's exactly what other carnivores would do.

    Yes, certainly we are able to digest meat, but humans are wonderfully adaptive. In times of food shortage, we have adapted to be able to eat almost anything. However, looking at all the studies done about meat in the last decade, or so, many of them state the same thing - saturated fat and cholesterol are not good for us. i.e. meat is not good for us. No studies tell us that apples, or broccoli are bad for us. Actually most tell us to eat more of these foods.

    Yes, it's east to continue to eat meat, because so many people do it, and it's so readily available. But just do a little bit of research, and it's soon realised that meat should be left to the lions and the sharks.

    Watch this video by a medical doctor for more information (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r3uGuWDlGU). He also talks about milk!!
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  5. This is the dumbest artical I've ever read. How in the world are you going to
    stop people from drinking milk? It is not cruel at all! Of course cows are
    being breed and raised for their milk!! People NEED it! There is no way that cow's milk is cruel.
    I guess I'm pretty stupid to not understand this.
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  6. Animals eat other animals!! its the way of life. yes i think eating animals is natural because it contains vitimins that are rare in plants. BUT drinking miks of anither spicies is not natural.

    what i think is realy unnatural is gmo amimals (geneticaly modified organisoms) as they implant genes from one organism into another!! LOOK IT UP for example bactrer genes and animal genes into plants. check twise about what you realy eat.
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  7. For me, I find the idea of DRINKING milk, and eating anything made of milk very unnatural, and very distateful.. However I do agree that meat is a very heathy thing to eat, as stated in the above argument, being higher up in the food chain, it is natural to hunt and eat other animals and fish, Just as any other animal dose. We see tigers hunt gazelle, bears fishing for salmon and even whales hunting seals! They dont on the other hand hunt them down and start suckling... Thats my opinion anyway.
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  8. Cows milk is certainly the most terrible animal crewelty there is, being a meat eater I am always concious of where I buy my produce, and where it comes from and where it is raised..Cows are forcfully impreginated and their babies are immediately taken away and often shot because the breat milk is being pumped away to make yoghurts and icecream rather than used to sustain its calf. then, within weeks the cow is imprginated AGAIN, and so the process continues..The average dairy cow diew of exhaustion and mental tourture within 3-5 years. Its horrible to think that some belive milk to be very helthy thing to drink, where it is actually full of desise causing bacteria and blood!
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  9. Dear Purushottaman ( The best among men),
    Please learn that keeping aside any religious or spiritual beliefs, the human physical body itself does not possess any characteristics that true omnivores or carnivores possess. The human body is made to consume natural vegetarian diet. Moreover, the knowledge which only humans possess among all living beings should give us the discriminating thought of what is right and what is wrong. Finally, there is no food chain (open ended) in this universe, there is only a food cycle (closed). Even man is eaten by the bacteria. Infact everything is circular in nature in this universe. There is nothing linear.

    Best Regards
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  10. Poojya Anonumousji, If what you are saying is the case, humans would not have survived this long. Humans survived on all kinds of meat(off course including cows). And definitely there is no right or wrong about this argument. Pick your choice and live with it. Interesting that you say there is no food chain - there is off course one, just ignoring that because it doesn't help your argument doesn't make it go away. Sure, there is nothing linear and everything is circular - that's why killing and eating is perfectly fine!
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  11. "I wonder how it is natural to eat meat. If evolution is constant progress then perhaps humans becoming vegetarian is the next step forward."

    Eating meat provided us with the proteins necessary for brain growth.

    Your argument makes no sense, Anonymous.
    ReplyDelete

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