WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT DAIRY (MILK AND MILK PRODUCTS)
- Q: When does ANY animal mother produce milk? Be it a cat, dog, horse, donkey, human being, cow, buffalo, zebra, giraffe, rhino, hippopotamus, elephant, etc.?
- A: ONLY when she has a baby.
- Why has nature put that milk in her body?
- A: The baby doesn’t have teeth so needs liquid nutrition. The milk is nutrition in liquid form for her newborn baby to grow very fast in a very short period of time.
- Q: So what is ANY milk?
- A: It’s BABY food.
- Q: When you take milk from a cow/buffalo, what are you doing?
- A: Taking away the nutrition or food of a baby and depriving the baby of its fundamental birthright.
- Q: As a responsible, thinking, person, do you think this is appropriate?
- A: Hoping your answer will be, “Definitely not!” in which case it indicates that you are a compassionate person.
- Q: Then why is it that you’re doing this?
- A: Because society has never allowed us to feel that it is a sin or a there’s something wrong in this. Above all else, it’s an invisible dominant ideology with the majority of the people around the world practicing it, we never question it and participate in it blindly. In fact, society has conditioned us to accept this abuse, violence and exploitation as something normal.
- Q: How often (how many times a day) should ANY baby drink his/her mother’s milk?
- A: Every two to three hours.
- Q: How much milk should ANY baby drink?
- A: As much as he/she wants. No mother or father ever tells the baby to stop drinking his/her mother’s milk. ONLY the BABY decides when to stop.
- Q: How often do we milk a cow/buffalo?
- A: Twice a day: in the morning and in the evening.
- Q: What happens because she’s milked only twice a day?
- A: Her udder should actually be emptied every to three hours by the baby. So we’re forcing her to accumulate milk for twelve hours in her udder. Can you imagine how painful that must be?
- Q: How much do we “allow” the baby to drink?
- A: Just enough to keep her alive if it’s a female calf. Not at all if it’s a male calf. The male calf is starved to death because he cannot produce milk when he grows up. The dead calf is then either sold for ‘calf leather’ or the body is emptied and filled with hay. This is called a ‘khal bacha’ and used to induce the mother to release milk twice a day thinking her baby is still alive. Only the BABIES of any species decide how much and when to drink milk. A calf is no different, so who are we to tell the baby how much to drink?
- Q: How much milk would there be left for your cup of tea, dahi, pizza, butter, paneer, ice cream, gulab jamun, rasgulla, etc if the baby were left free with the mother 24X7 and allowed to drink as much as he/she wants whenever he/she is hungry?
- A: Nothing at all unless the mother has been selectively bred (which is abuse and torture) to produce an UNNATURALLY high amount of milk.
- Q: Tell me one animal that drinks milk as an adult.
- A: None. Apart from humans, lol. Milk is BABY food. That’s what nature intended it to be, and apart from humans, all animals follow the law of nature.
- Q: Tell me one animal that drinks the milk of another species when it’s an adult.
- A: None. Milk is baby food meant ONLY for the baby of that particular species. Nature has designed the milk of each species according to the needs of the baby of that species. So, A1 milk is meant for an A1 calf and A2 milk is meant for the baby of an A2 cow. The milk of a Jersey cow is meant for a Jersey calf and that of a Holstein cow for a Holstein calf. Dog milk for a puppy, cat milk for a kitten, rat milk for a rat’s baby, elephant’s milk for an elephant’s baby, human milk for a human baby and so on.
- Q: What’s the weight of a newborn human baby and what weight does he/she reach in a year?
- A: A human baby has an average weight of 3 kgs when born and achieves an average weight of 8-10 kgs in a year.
- Q: What’s the weight of a newborn cow/buffalo’s baby and what weight does he/she reach in a year?
- A: A cow/buffalo’s baby has an average weight of 15 kgs when born and achieves an average weight of 130-140 kgs in a year.
- Q: What does nature say when the baby of any animal starts teething, and what changes start taking place in the body of that baby?
- A: Nature says, “Now that you can chew, you can get all your nutrition from semi-solid and solid food. You don’t need liquid nutrition.” So the body gradually stops producing lactase, the enzyme required to digest milk. That’s why if you’re “lactose intolerant” your body is normal. Almost everyone is naturally ‘lactose intolerant’ and the body shows signs of bloating, rumbling, loose motions or diarrhea, acne, diabetes, arthritis, high blood pressure, PCOD, heart issues, auto immune diseases, etc. if you consume milk. (Also because milk contains saturated fats, cholesterol and hormones)
- Q: If a human baby of say three or four years is incapable of digesting human milk, do you think he/she will be capable of digesting the milk of a cow/buffalo that’s meant to blow up a 20 kg calf to a 150 kg young cow/buffalo in a year or a year and a half?
- A: Very doubtful indeed.
- Q: How do you think the cow/buffalo keeps producing milk continuously when in nature, the breasts of ANY mother gradually dry up once the baby starts teething?
- A: She is sexually assaulted just three months after the baby is born. The person shoves one arm almost up to the elbow into her rectum and inserts a tube with the semen into her vagina. So the milk you drink comes from a cow/buffalo that is both pregnant and lactating. There are hormonal changes taking place in her body because of her pregnancy and part of the hormones are released from her body through her milk and urine, which enter the human body when we consume milk or any milk products. That’s the reason children these days are reaching puberty at the tender age of 8-10 years.
- Q: Does a cow/buffalo allow humans to milk her the first time she has a baby?
- A: No. She tries to move away, kicks with her hind legs and hits with her tail.
- Q: Then how do we milk her?
- A: By restraining her with heavy chains and tying her legs and tail. In fact, she’s tied in one place ALL her life till she’s sent to be killed once she stops producing a profitable amount of milk. It’s also good to remember this popular Hindi saying:
- Gau ijjat aur garima huey khandit
- Jub jub thun pur haath huey mandit.
- (A cow’s respect and dignity are shattered every time her udder is covered (touched) by (human) hands.)
- Q: How many years does a cow/buffalo produce a “profitable” amount of milk and what is her natural lifespan?
- A: She produces a profitable amount of milk for a maximum of 8 years. After that her body gets so deteriorated that she can’t produce much milk. Her natural lifespan is 20-25 years.
- Q: What happens to her after she stops producing a profitable amount of milk?
- A: She is killed for beef and leather. Many times, she is skinned alive for the leather. India has the largest number of cows and buffaloes in the world and the dairy industry in India kills over 1 lakh cows and buffaloes every day, or in other words, more than 3.5 crore cows and buffaloes every year and they are transported in an extremely inhumane manner breaking the law that allow only 8-10 cows or buffaloes in each truck.
- Q: Would you kill a cow/buffalo or skin her alive yourself?
- A: Hoping your answer would be a vehement, ‘NO!’, which means you are a compassionate person.
- Q: If you wouldn’t then why is it that you’re participating in it?
- A: 1. Because you’re probably not made aware of these harsh facts, and 2. because society has conditioned us to accept this violence as something normal, natural and necessary. The dairy (milk) and beef industries are two sides of the same coin.
- Q: Why is India one of the largest exporters of beef?
- A: Because though almost all Indians consume milk, the majority don’t consume beef. So the beef is exported.
- Q: Why is this allowed in the land of “AHIMSA”?
- A: Because money is more important than values of compassion, nonviolence and peace.
- Q: What can you do to stop this?
- A: Stop consuming milk and milk products. The consumer is very powerful and can help by changing the demand for these products.
- Q: What substitute is there for dairy products?
- A: First of all, you’re not a baby. Milk is BABY food and not meant for adults. What you really need is calcium, iron, protein, vitamins, fats, fibre, carbs, etc. You can get all these easily from plants. Plants are the only ones that can fix nitrogen from the air and store it as amino acids. Google more for plant-based nutrition. But if you’re addicted to tea/coffee or don’t want to give up dahi, cheese, paneer, etc., you can use almond milk, cashew milk, coconut milk etc in your tea/coffee, substitute tofu (soya paneer) for dairy paneer, make dahi out of soya milk, rice milk, peanut milk, coconut milk, etc, and there are hundreds of very easy to make cheese recipes on the net that are also much more nutritious.
- You can also check for plenty of traditional Indian recipes on IndianVeganCookbook.com or the older version with many more recipes on bit.ly/cfiv-in and many delicious but yet healthy vegan recipes on Sharan-India.org. Also check out these links: nutritionfacts.org run by Dr Michael Greger and GoodbyeLupus.com run by Dr Brooke Goldner.
- Need help to go Vegan? Try GenV.org/Go-Vegan or Challenge22.com on FaceBook. They help you stay vegan for 31 and 22 days respectively, but you can keep registering with them till you get there. And it’s free! Or try vegan in January or any other month of the year by taking the pledge at Veganuary.com
- Books on recipes of “Dairy Alternatives” by Dr Rupa Shah from her website are available here, and “What About My Calcium?” here.
If we can live life without inflicting pain on others, why wouldn’t we choose to do that?
Be Ahimsak (Vegan)!
Stay healthy!