4 ms·

"In the 1940s, a cow produced over 16 pounds of milk per day."

acveilleux 11y ago
A relation of my wife is a canadian dairy farmer. He spends almost more of his time poring over the genetics of his cows, their productivity and exactly which sperm he will buy for her next calves. It's a major upset when a male is born (they're killed after a few days and sold for rendering, probably for dog food.) Any sperm will get a cow pregnant, a 400$ insemination is only worth it for the potential cow sale... That's cause his biggest source of revenue isn't the milk, it's the cows that produce more, fatter milk than any of his neighbors' on less feed per pound of milk. And so they're inbred as hell with a handful of bulls (if that) fathering all of his cows and their mothers for multiple generations. But they sure produce a lot.
- michael_h 11y ago
  I feel like drinking milk from a herd of consistently inbred cows is one of those things that will seem obviously dumb looking back when something catastrophic happens[0]. [0]I don't know - nationwide distribution of spongiform-milk slurry, aka zombie serum.
  - moskie 11y ago
    Drinking cow's milk at all, inbred or otherwise, will most likely be viewed as a completely ridiculous notion one day.
    - DiabloD3 11y ago
      Some people already view it as a ridiculous notion, so you're not far off.
      - clock_tower 11y ago
        This is going to sound like trolling, but it isn't meant to be: Why are some people passionately averse to milk? Personally, I've always seen cow's milk as the quintessential drink of Western Christendom: something that Germans, Scots, Englishmen, Scandinavians, Celts (from the Hebrides all the way to Navarre and Galicia), and provincial Frenchmen consume, but that's all but unknown among foreigners -- including the predatory, Viking-descended aristocracies in London and, especially, Paris. (The English upper class proverbially never trusted an adult who drank milk; the French upper class hardly even remembered that it existed, except as a precursor to cheese.) My theory is that those who hate milk see it in the same way as I do, but don't share my fondness for Western Christendom. The old-money "Northeastern establishment" in the United States never quite forgave God for how His Book is fine with slavery; Jews and Germans always did feud, but these days the Jews have very good reason to be frightened when they hear talk of traditional voelkisch German-ness (which in any case never did like them); eastern and southern peoples, not all of whom can consume milk in the first place, might reasonably regard milk as a symbol of a society that was as rich as it was xenophobic. And people born into the old Western order but seeking to escape it -- including most Americans, to some extent or other -- might want to escape its symbols, too. Does this sound about right, or are there other reasons for disliking milk? I can understand personally not drinking it, if you don't have mature lactose tolerance; I can see excellent reasons for disliking industrial dairying with battery farms of miserable, inbred, inadvertently-cannibal cows (I don't touch milk unless it's organic and from humanely-raised cows); but if it isn't for the reasons above, I don't know why people dislike -- indeed, passionately shun and repudiate -- the very idea of drinking milk.
        DiabloD3 11y ago
        I am of German and Irish descent, thus I do not have lactose intolerance. The problem is lactose is still a sugar, milk still contains caesin, and various hormones that trigger a response in human biology. See: http://paleoleap.com/place-of-dairy-on-paleo-diet/ http://paleoleap.com/place-of-dairy-on-paleo-diet/
        moskie 11y ago
        (Sorry for the late reply) I'm confused. When you say "but if it isn't for the reasons above, I don't know why people dislike [milk]," how do you know that these complaints you've heard aren't for one of those stated reasons? If you know someone who advocates against dairy for reasons aside from what you listed.... you should ask them. (Sorry if that sounds flippant.) I've been vegan for about 4 years, for ethical reasons, so I fall into one of the camps you've listed. So I guess I can't answer your question.

A relation of my wife is a canadian dairy farmer. He spends almost more of his time poring over the genetics of his cows, their productivity and exactly which sperm he will buy for her next calves. It's a major upset when a male is born (they're killed after a few days and sold for rendering, probably for dog food.) Any sperm will get a cow pregnant, a 400$ insemination is only worth it for the potential cow sale... That's cause his biggest source of revenue isn't the milk, it's the cows that produce more, fatter milk than any of his neighbors' on less feed per pound of milk. And so they're inbred as hell with a handful of bulls (if that) fathering all of his cows and their mothers for multiple generations. But they sure produce a lot.

michael_h 11y ago
I feel like drinking milk from a herd of consistently inbred cows is one of those things that will seem obviously dumb looking back when something catastrophic happens[0]. [0]I don't know - nationwide distribution of spongiform-milk slurry, aka zombie serum.
- moskie 11y ago
  Drinking cow's milk at all, inbred or otherwise, will most likely be viewed as a completely ridiculous notion one day.
  - DiabloD3 11y ago
    Some people already view it as a ridiculous notion, so you're not far off.
    - clock_tower 11y ago
      This is going to sound like trolling, but it isn't meant to be: Why are some people passionately averse to milk? Personally, I've always seen cow's milk as the quintessential drink of Western Christendom: something that Germans, Scots, Englishmen, Scandinavians, Celts (from the Hebrides all the way to Navarre and Galicia), and provincial Frenchmen consume, but that's all but unknown among foreigners -- including the predatory, Viking-descended aristocracies in London and, especially, Paris. (The English upper class proverbially never trusted an adult who drank milk; the French upper class hardly even remembered that it existed, except as a precursor to cheese.) My theory is that those who hate milk see it in the same way as I do, but don't share my fondness for Western Christendom. The old-money "Northeastern establishment" in the United States never quite forgave God for how His Book is fine with slavery; Jews and Germans always did feud, but these days the Jews have very good reason to be frightened when they hear talk of traditional voelkisch German-ness (which in any case never did like them); eastern and southern peoples, not all of whom can consume milk in the first place, might reasonably regard milk as a symbol of a society that was as rich as it was xenophobic. And people born into the old Western order but seeking to escape it -- including most Americans, to some extent or other -- might want to escape its symbols, too. Does this sound about right, or are there other reasons for disliking milk? I can understand personally not drinking it, if you don't have mature lactose tolerance; I can see excellent reasons for disliking industrial dairying with battery farms of miserable, inbred, inadvertently-cannibal cows (I don't touch milk unless it's organic and from humanely-raised cows); but if it isn't for the reasons above, I don't know why people dislike -- indeed, passionately shun and repudiate -- the very idea of drinking milk.
      - DiabloD3 11y ago
        I am of German and Irish descent, thus I do not have lactose intolerance. The problem is lactose is still a sugar, milk still contains caesin, and various hormones that trigger a response in human biology. See: http://paleoleap.com/place-of-dairy-on-paleo-diet/ http://paleoleap.com/place-of-dairy-on-paleo-diet/
      - moskie 11y ago
        (Sorry for the late reply) I'm confused. When you say "but if it isn't for the reasons above, I don't know why people dislike [milk]," how do you know that these complaints you've heard aren't for one of those stated reasons? If you know someone who advocates against dairy for reasons aside from what you listed.... you should ask them. (Sorry if that sounds flippant.) I've been vegan for about 4 years, for ethical reasons, so I fall into one of the camps you've listed. So I guess I can't answer your question.