A question about milk production ...

tiredwithtwins

hello, sorry if this has been covered before ... i have searched but couldnt find what i was looking for!

anyway, i wanted to ask about something i saw on a tv prog a good few months ago about the dairy farming methods of getting higher volumes of milk from cows.
from what i understood, cows were given hormone/milk producing booster drugs to increase their daily yield of milk - apparently a cows normal yield would be 20/30 (?) pints per day ... but when given these hormones/drugs it boosted the milk to excesses of 120 pints per day. (figures are from memory so sorry if they are wrong ...)
what i wondered was how do we know which milk is from this sort of intense dairy farming? Is the pint we buy in tesco/asda/sburys etc from cows who are artificially forced to produce milk or is it from cows with a normal yield?

I do usually buy organic ... but had to buy ordinary at the weekend cos my supermarket had run out and didnt have time to go and find a supermarket with organic milk in stock.

thanks for any replies ... and sorry if its been discussed before!

sue:)

earthmother

As far as I know, all the non-organic milk is produced this way.

Having recently changed over to organic, you can definitely taste the difference between the cheaper 'forced' milk, and the naturally produced organic.

And, of course, there are the issues of what all these hormones are doing to our own systems.

Ken-Dodds-Hairy-Knodule

ALL milk is intensively farmed.

Getting organic just lessens the amount of drugs fed to cows.

Cows are still kept pregnant their entire lives, forced to give more milk than they naturally would and have any male calves they bore slaughtered at/near birth (Rennet that is used to curdle cheese is predominantly derived from the stomach of said calves).

See: http://www.qgar.oceandrop.org/Life_of_a_Dairy_Cow.htm and http://jivdaya.org/What%20Wrong%20with%20Dairy%20&%20Eggs.htm

Testee

According to the stand at the FutureLondon exhibition yesterday non-organic milk uses three times as much energy to produce as organic milk which would suggest that there is more difference involved than just the chemicals.

The Organic Milk Suppliers website has some interesting information:-

http://www.omsco.co.uk/index.cfm

savvy

Ken-Dodds-Hairy-Knodule wrote:

ALL milk is intensively farmed.

Getting organic just lessens the amount of drugs fed to cows.

Cows are still kept pregnant their entire lives, forced to give more milk than they naturally would and have any male calves they bore slaughtered at/near birth (Rennet that is used to curdle cheese is predominantly derived from the stomach of said calves).

See: http://www.qgar.oceandrop.org/Life_of_a_Dairy_Cow.htm and http://jivdaya.org/What%20Wrong%20with%20Dairy%20&%20Eggs.htm

In addition to that, the cows are not only distressed (some have been known to travel for miles and bellow for days to find their young) at having their new borns taken from them within a few days (to bottle the milk for human consumption), 30-60% of British cows suffer from mastitis where traces of pus from infected teats can seep into the milk. Current regulations permit millions of pus cells per litre.

In addition around 30% of the total UK milk yield comes from permanently confined zero grazed cows (Animal Aid literature)

I'll stop there, as some of the intensive farming practices are pretty disgusting (and I used to work on a farm and live next door to a dairy farm ), and hence some of the reasons we have switched to soya and rice milk in recent years!

tiredwithtwins

Thank you so much for all those links, and for your informative posts.
I knew it was bad, but never knew it was that bad.

thanks again ...

kiwichick

God, I feel sick with guilt reading this thread. I will definately buy organic from now on, especially as we get through around 30ish pints a week. I will also try to get the kids drinking soya or rice milk in the hope that I can change their taste.

Can anyone tell me if the way soya or rice milk is made is bad for the environment. Sorry to go off track, I dont know anything about the production of these.

savvy

kiwichick wrote:

God, I feel sick with guilt reading this thread. I will definately buy organic from now on, especially as we get through around 30ish pints a week. I will also try to get the kids drinking soya or rice milk in the hope that I can change their taste.

Can anyone tell me if the way soya or rice milk is made is bad for the environment. Sorry to go off track, I dont know anything about the production of these.

Not sure about production but here's a little bit about it and how to make your own....................if you're getting through 30 odd pints a week, it may help save some money! :D

My 2 were very opposed to changing, the younger one has done it and his eczema has cleared right, funnily enough he had cows milk today and hated it. We have cut right down on cow's milk, only the eldest one to wean off it now! :rolleyes: Most of it is just the idea of change, introduce it in cups of tea

dolly_day_dream

I became vegan over two years ago and milk was difficult at first. I persevered and now can't stand the taste of cows milk. It wasn't for the sake of animals that I changed but TBH I do feel better knowing that I am not contributing towards their suffering. I changed because I felt so much better diary free and I wanted to play my small part in helping the rest of the world towards food equality. I live simply in order that others may simply live.

savvy

dolly_day_dream wrote:

I live simply in order that others may simply live.

Aww I like that dolly! :T:A

dolly_day_dream wrote:

I changed because I felt so much better diary free

Hee hee I'm going to tell boss I'm following a diary free diet..........no more meetings or appointments YAY!that'll be excellent for my stress levels!:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:






Okay okay dolly,I know you hate me now, I'm sorry I couldn't resist, I'll leave you alone now!:o;)

dolly_day_dream

savvy wrote:

Aww I like that dolly! :T:A

Hee hee I'm going to tell boss I'm following a diary free diet..........no more meetings or appointments YAY!that'll be excellent for my stress levels!:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:


:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: If only I could be diary free. Like you my stress levels would plummet. Would you believe that this school year I have not one but three diaries :eek: I just couldn't fit it all into one and had to separate different parts of my life:o How could I hate you? I aplogise for the typo ur ummm ... it was late, my keyboard is sticking .... can't think of any other excuses:D
Keep up the good fight

Dolly