Ethical milk

VfM4meplse

I have posted something similar under the ethical money-saving, but wanted to raise awareness of the availability of slaughter-free milk in the London area in the grocery section.

I became a vegan just 9 months ago, for ethical reasons, after being a strict vegetarian for over 15 years. Yesterday I learnt of an inititiative that could possibly change my mind though, that is a distribution chain for slaughter-free dairy produce. The cows are not reared for slaughter, from what I understand the milk is prioritised for the young calves, and only the excess is sold for human consumption. I may well go back to a limited amount of dairy if it is ethically sourced. To be successful, there would need to be a critical mass of consumers ordering regularly within a given geographical area: http://www.ahimsamilk.org/ .

I realise that this is not for everyone, it may not be considered to be MSE and the cost may in fact be prohibitive for some, especially those with large families or young children. However, if you are able to support this initiative because it's congruent with your beliefs, then here's your chance.

VfM

arachne

This is fantastic - thanks for sharing. I just wish they delivered in my area. With plans for big dairy factory farms in the news, it's a very scary future for milk so it's great to see someone going against the tide and putting animal welfare first.

antrobus

VfM4meplse wrote: »

.... To be successful, there would need to be a critical mass of consumers ordering regularly within a given geographical area: http://www.ahimsamilk.org/ .

OK. Let's have a look...

The base price of Ahimsa milk is £2.25 per litre – plus 15p for delivery to the door/ drop-off pint

.... as against £2 for 8 pints or 4.54 litres in ASDA. What's that 44p a litre?

Pass me that bolt gun will you.

LandyAndy

antrobus wrote: »

OK. Let's have a look...

The base price of Ahimsa milk is £2.25 per litre – plus 15p for delivery to the door/ drop-off pint

.... as against £2 for 8 pints or 4.54 litres in ASDA. What's that 44p a litre?

Pass me that bolt gun will you.

Ahimsa milk is more expensive than conventional milk. This is because are (sic) cows, calves and bulls are never slaughtered.


This is playing at farming, isn't it.

VfM4meplse

Gentle reminder to those who missed it the first time around:

VfM4meplse wrote: »

I realise that this is not for everyone, it may not be considered to be MSE and the cost may in fact be prohibitive for some, especially those with large families or young children. However, if you are able to support this initiative because it's congruent with your beliefs, then here's your chance.

NicolacM

@antrobus Have you never heard of the phrase "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing" the OP pointed out it may not be consider MSE, so you pointing this out and being rude about it is redundant.

antrobus

NicolacM wrote: »

@antrobus Have you never heard of the phrase "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing" the OP pointed out it may not be consider MSE, so you pointing this out and being rude about it is redundant.

Oooh, major sense of humour failure there.

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Gentle reminder to those who missed it the first time around:

And in case you missed it, this is the 'Food Shopping & Groceries' forum, which is itself a sub-board of 'The Bargain Buys, Sassy Shopping & Fantastic Freebies Board'. I would respectfully submit that paying £2.25 for a litre of milk is neither a 'bargain buy', nor an example of 'sassy shopping', and is most certainly not a 'fantastic freebie'. But despite that, you apparently "wanted to raise awareness".

Well let's be serious and raise your awareness.

From what I understand the average productive life of a dairy cow is ten years, and each dairy cow needs to produce a calf every two years to keep the milk flowing. So a herd of 100 dairy cows will produce 50 calves a year; 10 baby girl cows will be required to keep the herd going, and another 1 or two baby boy cows will be required to assist in the process of keeping the herd going. The other 38 will be surplus to requirements, which is where beef comes from. Since cattle live for 15 years or so, that's 570 cattle you've go to provide for, or maybe 600 or so if you take into account the retired milkers.So for every 100 productive dairy cows, you'll have 600 non-productive pets.

That's rather an unefficient use of resources isn't it? The resources that could have been used to produce whatever is the food equivalent of 700 cattle, are only actually delivering the food equivalent of 100 cattle. Or to put it bluntly, and a little melodramatically, you want to take food out of the mouths of starving children and use it to feed your conscience instead, just because you don't like the taste of Alpro soya milk. I don't call that ethical.

Given the world we live in today, where the phrase 'global food shortage' is rearing its ugly head again, and there have been food riots in some countries, we should not be encouraging this kind of wasteful use of resources. I'd therefore urge everyone who lives in the London area to boycott Ahimsa milk and any retailer who stocks the product.

DCFC79

NicolacM wrote: »

@antrobus Have you never heard of the phrase "If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing" the OP pointed out it may not be consider MSE, so you pointing this out and being rude about it is redundant.

lighten up, its the internet so how can somone at other end of the country rile you up.