Sloppy arguments.

May 21, 2007

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Link followed link and somehow I ended up in a pdf from Peta which stated:

No species naturally drinks milk beyond the age of weaning, and no species would naturally drink the milk of a different species. For humans, drinking cow’s milk has been linked to heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes, and even osteoporosis, the very disease that the dairy industry claims its products are supposed to prevent! The high animal-protein content of milk actually causes calcium to be leached from the body. According to a Harvard Medical
School analysis of the evidence, milk does not protect against osteoporosis; the study found that countries with low calcium intake (just 300 mg/day) tend to have a lower incidence of hip fractures (an indication of osteoporosis) than do those countries with higher calcium-consumption rates.

Um, humans are part of nature. They drink the milk of a different species. Therefore, one species does naturally drink the milk of another species. It might not be usual, it might not be normal for mammals generally, but it isn’t unnatural. Grr.

I am trying to work out my position re milk drinking, but arguments like this make me not want to bother!

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Comments

20 responses to “Sloppy arguments.”

Clare
21 May 2007
I’m a milk drinker and a meat eater, but I do believe what PETA are saying. The thing is that we haven’t been drinking milk (as a species) for the vast majority of our existence so we’re not evolved to do so. The point of knowing this (for me) is that it’s sometimes useful to be able to say to people ‘it doesn’t matter if your toddler won’t drink cows milk as we don’t actually *need* it – you can find the nutrients in other foods’. However, in a society where our babies aren’t breastfed until they naturally wean (ie. for the period of their life when they probably need to have some sort of milk in their diet), cows milk is a very helpful addition to diets IMO – just not an essentail one IYSWIM.
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Jo
21 May 2007
My family doctor always used to say the exact same thing about 30 odd years ago. He used to get quite worked up about it actually. Very funny it was, seeing him go all red in the face….then panicking he might be having heart failure or something.
My thought has always been….Who was the first person to milk a cow? And what did he think he was doing at the time???
(And I managed to keep my vegan status out of the whole argument!)
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Gill
21 May 2007
*Nodding* It’s not natural, it’s not good..
Oh, but tea! I can’t imagine it without a splash of cow juice. I’d have to stop drinking that too 😥
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HelenHaricot
21 May 2007
well, i think i should be vegan, but i don’t like tea without milk, and i like chees – cow, goat and sheep! i don’t think it is unnatural to drink milk mind you, but that the milk industry does lead to taking lives – calves, and I’d rather not buy into that. so i am imperfect in my diet, but vegetarianism suits me.
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nutty mummy
21 May 2007
Hello 🙂
Never been here before and straight into another debate 🙂
I’m with you … we do drink milk therefore it is naturally drunk by a species other than its own. That’s what I thought as I read the extract…
… quite obvious to me…
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Allie
21 May 2007
I find arguments based on what is ‘natural’ for humans to be very dodgy all round. How the hell can we possibly determine that?? I don’t like the way milk is mass produced but, like Helen, I like cheese and milk in my tea etc. and can’t get up the enthusiasm to cut out dairy foods from my diet. Being a vegetarian suits me and our kids seem happy with it for now.
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Tech
21 May 2007
Ultimately, the *naturalness* of things aside, you’d be hard pushed to live a completely ethical life. Whilst veganism may be animal friendly, depending on what your diet is made up of, it can be quite earth unfriendly, as can carnivorous and veggie diets obviously. I say this as an aspiring vegan and having lived with and fed a vegan for a couple of years, so am not vegan bashing!
As to the naturalness argument – well extend it to soya milk – t’ain’t exactly *natural* either is it? Natural would, IMO have to be something like raw – be it meat or veg/fruit, and then to go a step further, it would have to be locally available produce too. IMHO of course! So yes, I agree, a flaky argument!
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Tech
21 May 2007
When I say *locally available* what I meant was *locally produced* ie that which is native to an area.
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HelenHaricot
22 May 2007
yes, being ethical is often a balance. we as a society are unlikely to return to a locally grown/produced lifestyle in entirety, but aiming to live as ethically as possible whilst understanding that there are compromises is the best i can do.
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Jo
22 May 2007
I don’t like tea or coffee with milk (or sugar for what it’s worth)….I don’t think you get the full flavour of either with anything added.
But then I’m not that keen on soya milk, unless it’s in porridge, or has cocoa powder added. That would be a chocolate milkshake then. Which is even better with a big dollop of Swedish Glace. Vanilla or chocolate, I’m not fussy….
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Chris
22 May 2007
No other species does a stir-fry with vegetables and tofu, so presumably that’s not natural either 🙂
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Bryony
22 May 2007
Lmao at Chris’s comment 🙂
I was diagnosed as goat’s and cow’s milk intolerant last year, which is a real strain on my resistance sometimes as I LOVE cheese. But I do kind of appreciate the arguement PETA put across, even if they do mess up how they phrase it and end up sounding like someone out the Young Ones. My friend put it much better – cow’s milk is meant for baby cows. Human milk is meant for baby humans. Cow’s milk has stuff in it that humans can’t always stomach very well, hence my need to cut it out/reduce it to the bare minimum. Ultimately though, I think it is entirely up to the consumer. I’m not vegan, but am a veggie who eats dairy (when my belly lets me get away with it!), so as far as I see it, if you can tolerate it, drink it.
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Lucy
22 May 2007
Peta tend to go for shock value with their comments and are not the best source of unbiased info. Vegan Society are better – they are rather more careful to get things scientifically correct. http://www.vegansociety.com Growing up with a cancer specialist for a father rather puts you off the white stuff… though it was the separation between cows and their babies (off to be burgers many of them) that ‘turned’ me as it were. We lived next door to a dairy farm for years and could hear them.
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Lucy
22 May 2007
in saying that, there are so many things that are ‘not quite right’ in this world. You really just have to go with what feels right for you…
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Raymond
22 May 2007
Well, I’m not a great milk drinker .. but life without cheese? Not worth living. I’m with Wallace (of Wallace & Grommit fame).
Regarding what’s “natural”, it may be true that we were not “designed” to drink other mammals’ milk. (Which takes us to a whole other discussion – probably not to be discussed here.) Humans have been drinking milk for hundreds of years, though: that’s natural enough for me.
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Gill
22 May 2007
I must admit, the calves thing does kind of put me off. If I was going to go vegan, that would be why.
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Daddybean
23 May 2007
I’ve always thought the ‘not natural’ argument a bit crap really, it’s probably ‘not natural’ either to eat a herbivorous diet – otherwise B12 wouldn’t be an issue for vegans. Getting the correct nutrition from a vegan diet as a hunter gatherer would probably be hardwork, you don’t need to catch many animals to get the necessary protein etc. in your diet. Other animals would probably drink it if they could work out how to get it out – our dog loved it. So do the Blue Tits and other birds (they must really miss the drop people having milk delivered).
Of course there are plenty of people in the world, esp. in Asia who can’t drink milk anyway.
There are health issues re the consumption of milk, but as Lucy says PETA some what overdo the claims really. I don’t think that there is good evidence as opposed to ‘some studies show’ type comments that milk per se is generally bad for peoples health. As opposed to say over consumption of dairy products say contributing to to much fat in the diet.
For me the argument was always really to do with the link between dairy farming and meat production. You need to breed the cows every year, most calves will end up on someones plate within the year. Some male calves, or un-needed female calves are now killed very young, it’s not worth raising them for meat as the stock is now bread to be specialized so much for milk production. and of course the dairy cows themselves will generally be killed once the milk production drops enough. The two really are inseparable.
(says he the inconsistent ex-vegan)
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dottyspots
25 May 2007
I’m an ex-vegan and don’t drink milk or have it in anything etc. I do like ice-cream though – but chocolate Swedish Glace is rather yummy too. So I occasionally do have some milk through ice-cream, yoghurt and chocolate – but don’t really miss not having it either.
I don’t think PETA are particularly ‘balanced’ so umm, tend to get a tad irritated with them.
The B-12 thing is a concern and I didn’t really find that a vegan diet was ‘for me’.
Like Jo, I wonder who the first person to milk a cow was (likely I have too much time on my hands 😉 ) – although I think their line of reasoning was likely, a calf drinks it and gets sustenance, so therefore it is likely a valuable source of food where other sources might’ve been lacking at the time.
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anonymous
26 May 2007
All that natural soy milk they have…
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dottyspots
27 May 2007
Well, you don’t *have* to have soya milk if you’re vegan (there’s various other alternatives and indeed, why have any milk substitute at all, bit like meat subs, seemed a bit odd as a concept to me) – but the potential for lots of soya in the diet didn’t really appeal to me :0(
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