Introduction: explore the dairy industry
Milk - The Wrong Stuff
Cows produce milk to feed their babies – just like humans. It flows for the best part of a year and then stops.
More milk requires more babies. That’s the reality of dairy farming – the visible, obvious side of the industry.
But there is another, cruel, much darker side to dairy which few see much and even fewer know about.
Drinking milk is cruel - it’s also unnatural. Only humans drink it after weaning – and milk from a different species, at that. It’s no more natural than drinking badger’s milk or cat’s milk. Designed for calves, many humans find milk hard to digest and the result is allergies. Hormones in milk are linked to ovarian, breast and prostate cancer, as well as juvenile-onset diabetes. The saturated fat, cholesterol and animal protein it contains are linked to many other diseases.
Despite relentless claims by the dairy industry, milk is neither the only nor the best source of calcium and has little effect on bone strength. Broccoli, spinach (cabbage), watercress, nuts, seeds, soya and other plant foods are better and healthier sources.
Desperation
Despite the myth of contentment, a dairy cow is the hardest worked of all farmed animals. She nurtures a growing baby inside her while simultaneously producing milk - up to 120 pints a day. To keep the flow going, she is forcibly impregnated every year and her babies are taken away a day or two after birth – year, after year. Professor John Webster describes the removal of the calf as the ‘most potentially distressing incident in the life of the dairy cow’.
“The dairy cow is exposed to more abnormal physiological demands than any other farm animal. She is the supreme example of an overworked mother.”
Professor John Webster, Bristol University’s Veterinary Science Department
DONATE NOW
We are a reg charity
Help us now!
Follow Us
Sign up for our monthly email newsletters
