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Out of curiosity, do you have a source for these numbers? It's interesting to hear that one dairy cow's lifespan effectively covers enough milk for two average

Out of curiosity, do you have a source for these numbers? It's interesting to hear that one dairy cow's lifespan effectively covers enough milk for two average human lifespans worth of consumption.

Retric 6y ago
After posting that I kept digging and got slightly different numbers. Annual milk consumption from Wikipedia is just over 600lb per year in the US, where another source listed 500 lb (Might be milk vs milk + dairy products or an approximation?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milk_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milk_cons... For total milk production from Wikipedia “ The United States dairy herd produced 84.2 billion kilograms (185.7 billion pounds) of milk in 2007” https://www.statista.com/statistics/194302/number-of-beef-and-milk-cows-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/194302/number-of-beef-an.... Lists numbers of beef and dairy cows. 185.7 billion lb / 9.4 million cows = ~20,000 lb per year * ~5 year lifespan ~100k lb. https://albertamilk.com/ask-dairy-farmer/how-long-does-the-average-dairy-cow-live/ https://albertamilk.com/ask-dairy-farmer/how-long-does-the-a... However, I am not sure it’s a clear comparison as this may be excluding calf’s from these counts. Which would drop lifetime production closer to 60,000lb and better line up with other sources. https://extension.sdstate.edu/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-fed-steer https://extension.sdstate.edu/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-f... Suggest a typical cow at 490 lb of beef and this https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/per-capita-consumption-of-poultry-and-livestock-1965-to-estimated-2012-in-pounds/ https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/st... gives annual beef consumption of 58.1 lb beef per person per year (2019). PS: Of note dairy cows are also consumed for meat, though generally of lower quality. Which further muddles the issue suggesting that reducing milk consumption might simply increase the number of beef cattle ~1:1 to compensate.

Out of curiosity, do you have a source for these numbers? It's interesting to hear that one dairy cow's lifespan effectively covers enough milk for two average human lifespans worth of consumption.

Retric 6y ago

After posting that I kept digging and got slightly different numbers. Annual milk consumption from Wikipedia is just over 600lb per year in the US, where another source listed 500 lb (Might be milk vs milk + dairy products or an approximation?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milk_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milk_cons... For total milk production from Wikipedia “ The United States dairy herd produced 84.2 billion kilograms (185.7 billion pounds) of milk in 2007” https://www.statista.com/statistics/194302/number-of-beef-and-milk-cows-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/194302/number-of-beef-an.... Lists numbers of beef and dairy cows. 185.7 billion lb / 9.4 million cows = ~20,000 lb per year * ~5 year lifespan ~100k lb. https://albertamilk.com/ask-dairy-farmer/how-long-does-the-average-dairy-cow-live/ https://albertamilk.com/ask-dairy-farmer/how-long-does-the-a... However, I am not sure it’s a clear comparison as this may be excluding calf’s from these counts. Which would drop lifetime production closer to 60,000lb and better line up with other sources. https://extension.sdstate.edu/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-fed-steer https://extension.sdstate.edu/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-f... Suggest a typical cow at 490 lb of beef and this https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/per-capita-consumption-of-poultry-and-livestock-1965-to-estimated-2012-in-pounds/ https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/st... gives annual beef consumption of 58.1 lb beef per person per year (2019). PS: Of note dairy cows are also consumed for meat, though generally of lower quality. Which further muddles the issue suggesting that reducing milk consumption might simply increase the number of beef cattle ~1:1 to compensate.