Why drinking a glass of milk is an act of violence…

Why would I say this? Well… Go to the grocery store.  Choose the brand of milk you want.  Choose the percentage of fat you want. Decide how many quarts or gallons you need.  Take it home and cook with it, put it on your cereal, and have a plate of cookies with milk.  This seems innocent enough. But there is a backstory. You need to know it, because when you purchase a glass of milk, you are responsible for how it was produced. 

In school you were taught about how milk gets from the cow to the store: Happy cows grazing in large green fields. Kindly old dairy farmers milking them early in the morning. Reality, however, is very different.  99% of dairy cattle are crowded onto huge factory farms.  They are artificially inseminated to keep them pregnant virtually all the time. Their babies are taken away from them immediately after birth, and they are never fed their mother’s milk. They are fed something that isn’t their natural diet (cow’s milk) and that includes blood, and then turned into veal and killed within a few months of life.  The dairy cows spend their lives chained in their stalls in huge sheds, where they are milked two or three times a day by machine.  They receive no exercise. Pesticides and antibiotics are used to increase their milk productivity. Many develop chronic udder infections. Cattle have a natural lifespan of approximately 20 years, but dairy cattle die of exhaustion after an average of about 4 years. When they are taken to slaughter they are often too weak to walk. They have to be dragged by chains and ropes to the truck.  They are a major source of the cheap hamburger used by fast food joints. 

If you wish to see with your own eyes then try watching the documentary, “Earthlings,” (part 2) a film by Nation Earth and narrated by Joaquin Phoenix.  This is not a film for children to watch, but it is definitely a film for adults to watch.  Let’s no longer be naive on this subject and take the time to know what the real story of milk (and meat, and fur) is.  We cannot afford to be shielded any longer from the consequences of our choices.  Then we can do the adult thing and take responsibility for every glass of milk that we drink.