Just Milk It!

I am sure to most of you reading, like me, you were brought up drinking milk. May it have been with your morning cereal or cup of tea or by itself with a cookie, it was the norm.  Well now, at the age of 26, I have given up drinking milk or having it with my cereal or in my tea.

Giving it up started when I started my 30 day Vegan challenge (which is no longer a challenge but my daily life) and I do not think I could go back to having milk. This is actually dairy in general. Trust me when I tell you I miss dairy, I really do, it is no lie! But here I am, the girl who loved a good bar of chocolate, tea with Cravendale milk and a good piece of cheddar cheese (I loved toasted cheese sandwiches more than anything) now telling you that after doing my research and reading up about the effects of dairy, I think I would rather not have that tasty melted cheese toastie or chocolate bar.

So I want to share some of the things I have learnt. Once again, I want to make you all aware that I will never preach or judge, just share and help teach what I have learnt which has helped my life, to maybe help yours.

So where does milk come from? Well let’s start with that most basic question. Cows, is the answer. Do you know why cows produce milk? Just like humans, cows only produce milk when they give birth, to nourish their infants. So when a woman has a baby, she produces breast milk to feed her baby and that makes a 300 percent weight gain in just 12 months. When a baby is anything from 12-24 months, the mother will stop breast feeding. Her milk dries up and the baby will never drink that breast milk again. The difference though, is that cow’s milk by design grows a 90 pound calf into a 2,000 pound calf within the course of 2 years. Wow, sounds more fattening than humans milk! Oh wait, that is because it is! So after two years, this mummy cow’s milk too is dried up.

In order to force the cows to continue giving milk, factory farms typically impregnate them using artificial insemination every year. Calves are taken from their mothers within a day of being born. Male calves are usually taken to be raised for the veal you have on your plate and the females are destined for a life like their mothers.

Watch a sad mother cow when her baby is taken from her..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWM5jYORSDg

or how about the veal calf taken away and beaten!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAvgM6Xbku4

After their calves are taken away from them, mother cows are hooked up, several times a day, to milking machines. These cows are genetically manipulated, artificially inseminated, and often drugged to force them to produce about four and a half times as much milk as they naturally would to feed their calves.

Animals are often dosed with bovine growth hormone (BGH), which contributes to a painful inflammation of the udder known as “mastitis.” (this drug is banned basically everywhere in the world apart from the US and UK and is known to cause cancer.) According to the industry’s own figures, between 30 and 50 percent of dairy cows suffer from mastitis, an extremely painful condition.

A cow’s natural lifespan is about 25 years, but cows used by the dairy industry are killed after only four or five years. An industry study reports that by the time they are killed, nearly 40 percent of dairy cows are lame because of the intensive confinement, the filth, and the strain of being almost constantly pregnant and giving milk. Dairy cows’ bodies are turned into soup, companion animal food, or low-grade hamburger meat because their bodies are too “spent” to be used for anything else.

 

Watch this video if you can stomach it. If you can stomach drinking the milk, maybe you should learn to stomach watching this video, to learn how and from where you get your milk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZcUrWAK-8Q

We are the only species on the planet that drinks milk as adults and also there are 51,000 mammals on the earth and we are the only ones to drink a different animal’s milk. We could literally be putting bear milk or zebra milk on our cereal and we wouldn’t know the difference. So why cow’s? Because it is the animal that produces the largest quantity of milk and is more easily housed than an elephant means more money for the farmers. So, it all comes down to money. But of course! The dairy industry is a multi-billion dollar industry based on amazing advertising and the addictive taste of milk and cheese.

A funny thing I found was when I think back, I always remember teachers or parents or friends saying ‘you should drink your milk so you get strong bones!’
This actually could not be more untrue. It is a known fact that although American and British women consume tremendous amounts of calcium, their rates of osteoporosis are amongst the highest in the world. A study showed that 40 million women in America have osteoporosis where as in Africa, only 250,000 have bone disease. Within 40 tribes in Kenya and Tanzania, only one – the Maasai tribe, has members suffering with Osteoporosis. As it happens, they are a cattle owning, milk drinking tribe.

Dairy products have also been linked to other problems such as acne, anxiety, ADD, ADHD, Fibromyalgia, IBS, headaches, heartburn, allergies, breast and prostate cancer – just to name a few. I had slight ADD as a kid and as an adult I have fibromyalgia and IBS (irritable bowel syndrome.) Could dairy have been a part of it whilst growing up?

I have learnt that milk is also not a reliable source of minerals. You get much higher amounts of magnesium and calcium from fruit and vegetables. Other foods that can give you the required amounts of calcium you need can be cabbage, seaweed, chickpeas, broccoli, red beans, soybeans, kale, grains, tofu and nuts.

I can tell you straight up that I feel a lot better for not drinking or eating anything dairy. My skin is a lot better and I feel better within myself, for health reasons and also knowing that I do not participate in the killing and pain of animals. Plus, I am loving the types of milk I can have like Almond or hazelnut milk, soya milk and coconut milk! Delicious!!

I would love to hear if any of you have any views on this. Please email me at blogdoll21@gmail.com or leave a comment below!

LaLa x