Slog
News & ArtsMonday, January 16, 2012
Chow Is Slaughter-Free Milk Realistic?
Posted by Charles Mudede on Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 8:29 AM
Hope for cowkind?
U.K.-based Ahimsa Milk is the first and only company that sells “slaughter-free” milk — milk that is produced without killing any cows, calves or bulls. But what exactly is slaughter-free milk and is it even feasible on a larger scale?In conventional dairy production, dairy cows are usually impregnated yearly and pumped with hormones to produce as much milk as possible. But dairy cows can’t produce milk forever — and that’s when they’re slaughtered. Calves and bulls are also slaughtered when they’re no longer “useful”. In short, the lives of dairy cows are cruel and heartbreaking.
The problem with this solution:
Start thinking about the feed, veterinary costs, and housing costs involved and it’s clear that the future financial obligations entailed by a glass of slaughter-free milk dwarf its production costs. And that goes double if the cows are receiving high-quality veterinary care, and are given spacious accommodations during their productive lives and their retirements. Now also consider that at four calves per cow, two of those calves will be males. Are they really going to give these two males accommodations and veterinary care for their natural twenty year lives?This form of retirement (retirement from the job of producing milk for human consumption) seems to need "death panels."
2
Why? First they give you milk for breakfast, then burger for lunch, and then steak for dinner. Why ruin it?
3
I could live without milk. Cheese, though? You're gonna have to pry that outta my cold, dead hands.
4
5280: I'm guessing your cheese is German, blued, with a textured rind, balanced, not too much of a kick?
7
Hmmmm, worked pretty well before factory dairy farms.... of course the bull calves were considered meat. The key to this one is words.... Euthanasia versus slaughter I think is the key... the undesirables will br "put down" not "slaughtered" as that designates butchered for food.
10
#8 not true. The water used to grow almonds in CA is taken from rivers, rivers that used to be teaming with salmon, until the almond groves moved in. Now, due to the needs of almond growers, the rivers are siphoned too low for salmon to survive which results in annual fish kills of staggering proportions. Slaughter free? Hardly. Every time you drink a quart of almond milk, your doing nothing more than drinking a quart of Sacramento river water, which used to be a vibrant healthy ecosystem supporting billions of pounds of biomass. Now, it's used to make smug, self satisfied yuppie shit heads feel good about not causing pain to dairy cows (which, btw are a crop species themselves, bred to be food - whereas salmon are wild and whose genetics and lifecycles are only determined by the hands of god. Which is more deserving of your contrived outrage?
11
@8, almond milk slaughters people's ability to not be smug. Pick your poison, I guess. Make cows live and die as part of a food economy, or render human beings helplessly smug. I'm not sure where I stand, but I very much want a bit of ice cream right now...
12
So even though cows produce huge amounts of greenhouse gasses and everyone is saying that the best thing we can do is reduce demand for beef and dairy, there are people who want to have even more cows -- cows who will never be slaughtered -- just so they can feel better about consuming dairy? Does anyone else think this is terribly wasteful and likely to be worse for the environment?
Personally, I would rather focus on ensuring a better quality of life and less anti-biotic use for cows versus increase the number of herds to appease a few people who aren't seeing the forest for the trees.
Personally, I would rather focus on ensuring a better quality of life and less anti-biotic use for cows versus increase the number of herds to appease a few people who aren't seeing the forest for the trees.
13
The funniest bit for me is that part of the useless slaughter can be blamed on the dying taste for veal. I mean, sure, baby cows were being killed anyway, but at least before they were being put to use.
14
@11 Airtight logic, gus. Factory farming is the cause of more greenhouse gas production than all forms of vehicle travel in the world combined. Hope our grandkids will at least appreciate we weren't smug, though.
15
Now we have sexed semen - that means that one can buy semen with which to artificially inseminate cows, and the resulting calves will be something like 95% female.
So no, you don't have to have half of your calves be bull calves headed for a sad young slaughter and minimal economic return to the farmer. You can have most of them be replacement heifers.
Just one of the many ways science is improving things.
So no, you don't have to have half of your calves be bull calves headed for a sad young slaughter and minimal economic return to the farmer. You can have most of them be replacement heifers.
Just one of the many ways science is improving things.
16
@14, I apologize for a poor joke when matters of such ptih and moment are being weighed by us of the Slog brain trust.
18
I'm all for "humane" treatment of animals but slaughter free? That's silly. Cows are raised for food. Once you're done getting one kind of food from them it's time to get the other kind. Treat them well, feed them right then feed them to me.
19
@17: "Ptih" is the noise I make when I've got a hair on my tongue.
In keeping with the move towards culture-grown meat, hopefully we can someday soon grow bovine milk glands in the lab and cut overhead by quite a lot.
In keeping with the move towards culture-grown meat, hopefully we can someday soon grow bovine milk glands in the lab and cut overhead by quite a lot.
21
@7, no even non-factory biodynamic boutique dairy farms slaughter dairy cows past their prime for food. My freezer is full of some of evidence of this practice.
22
It's really hard to make a living on dairy farming. If people stopped eating meat then a whole host of problems would disappear, not just the slaughtering.
23
It doesnt need to be so extreme. Let the cows raise their calves outside in the sunshine having fun.Harvesting the left over milk, which can be alot. when the calves get to be adult some are kept to restock the dairy the rest are butchered as quickly and painlessly as possible. Im not going to be eating them but if this system has to exist it should be as close to natural and humane as possible. Still parasitically living off of them but in a much less intrusive way. Use real bulls for insemination, no painful mutilations, no hormones, no unnecessarily cruelty. You cant avoid killing but you can make their lives better.
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