Did you know that Dairy Milk Consumption has decreased from it’s peak in the late 1940’s and in the last few years, from about 240 pounds per person in 2010 to about 120 pounds per person in 2015.
This declining demand for cow’s mild has lead to a growth explosion in plant-based milks. One reason for this decline is the knowledge of how cows are treated in the milk industry.
Turning cows into milk machines has led to epidemics of “production-related diseases”, such as lameness and mastitis (udder infections), the two leading causes of dairy cow mortality in the U.S.. This weakness is due to genetic manipulation and supplemental hormones which cause unnaturally high milk yields.
According to the USDA, 1 in 6 cows in the U.S. suffers from painful clinical mastitis. This level of disease is reflected in the concentration of somatic cells found in milk. When a cow is infected, more than 90% of the somatic cells in her milk are neutrophils, the inflammatory cells that form pus. The average somatic cell count in U. S. milk per spoonful is 1,120,000, however, the dairy industry says this pus doesn’t matter because the milk is pasteurized (the pus gets cooked).
Dairy milk has also been found to contain an alarming cocktail of hormones including: progesterone, estrogen, cortisone and other adrenal steroids, IFG1 growth hormone, leptin, oxytocin, prolactin, thyroxine and triiodothyronine. This makes sense as it’s designed to rapidly grow a baby calf-but they aren’t components humans should be consuming.
Over the last few years, so many people have been switching away from cow’s milk that the dairy industry is in serious decline. In the UK, more than 1000 farms have closed in the last three years, and research conducted by Mintel shows that half (49%) of Americans now regularly consume non-dairy milk.
Tip of the Week: Slowly wean yourself from cow’s milk. Buy both at first and mix then move strictly to nut based milks. These milks are fortified with about 50% more calcium than cow milk.
