Vegan Forum

Environmental Reasons to Avoid Milk

1. Dairy cows produce waste.

Lots of waste. In fact, your average dairy cow produces 120 pounds of waste every day—equal to that of more than two dozen people, but without toilets, sewers, or treatment plants.

2. Let me repeat: Dairy cows produce lots and lots of waste (and greenhouse gases).

California produces one-fifth of the country's total milk supply. According to MilkSucks.com, "in the Central Valley of California, the cows produce as much excrement as a city of 21 million people, and even a smallish farm of 200 cows will produce as much nitrogen as in the sewage from a community of 5,000 to 10,000 people, according to a U.S. Senate report on animal waste."

3. Milk production ultimately leads to climate change.

The dairy industry is an extension of the beef industry (used-up dairy cows are sent to the slaughterhouse after an average of four years, one-fifth their normal life expectancy) which means it plays a major role in creating climate change. Here's the equation: The dairy industry uses cows before passing them on to be slaughtered by the beef industry which is now recognized as an environmental nightmare. "According to a UN report," writes Brian Merchant, "cows are leading contributors to climate change ... Accounting for putting out 18% of the world's carbon dioxide, cows emit more greenhouse gases than cars, planes, and all other forms of transportation combined." That means the industry of exploiting all cows—including dairy cows—involves destructive practices like deforestation and polluting offshoots like runoff.

4. Milk often contains unwanted ingredients.
Under current industrial methods, cow's milk is often a toxic bovine brew of man-made ingredients like bio-engineered hormones, antibiotics (55% of U.S. antibiotics are fed to livestock), and pesticides—all of which are bad for us and the environment. For example, unintentional pesticide poisonings kill an estimated 355,000 people globally each year. In addition the drugs pumped into livestock often re-visit us in our water supply.

Which brings us to...

Health Reasons to Avoid Milk

5. Cow's milk is for cows.
The biochemical make-up of cow's milk is perfectly suited
to turn a 65-pound newborn calf into a 400-pound cow in one year. It contains, for example, three times more protein and seven times more mineral content while human milk has 10 times as much essential fatty acids, three times as much selenium, and half the calcium. Some may like cow's milk but drinking it is both unnecessary and potentially harmful.

6. Milk is actually a poor source for dietary calcium.
Humans, like cows, get all the calcium they need from a plant-based diet.

7. Contrary to popular belief, milk may increase the likelihood of osteoporosis.
It is still widely accepted that the calcium in dairy products will strengthen our bones and help prevent osteoporosis, but studies show that foods originating from animal sources (like milk) make the blood acidic. When this occurs, the blood leeches calcium from the bones to increase alkalinity. While this works wonders for the pH balance of your blood, it sets your calcium-depleted bones up for osteoporosis. As explained by John Robbins, "The only research that even begins to suggest that the consumption of dairy products might be helpful [in preventing osteoporosis] has been paid for by the


8. Milk makes you fat.

In 2005, the Harvard School of Public Health had this to say on the consumption of dairy products: "Three glasses of low-fat milk add more than 300 calories a day. This is a real issue for the millions of Americans who are trying to control their weight. What's more, millions of Americans are lactose intolerant, and even small amounts of milk or dairy products give them stomach aches, gas, or other problems."

I like drinking milk, it tastes really nice. I'm not going to stop.

Milk has never been very appealing to me, but once I started learning/thinking more about it, milk is totally unnecessary. Plus, most of the milk alternatives taste much better. And it doesn't make me feel like I'm drinking fat.

I know so many people who think they can't possibly give up cheese, but it's much easier than you think. I accidentally ate something with cheese in it not long ago, and I felt so heavy and nasty. Didn't figure it out until I asked what was in it!

8 Reasoms to drink milk.

1. It is readily availible

A glass of ice cold milk is usually only 10 minutes away due to its mass production and easy accesability in shopping centres.

2. Let me repeat: Milk is very readily availible, and cheap

Every large supermarket chain stocks milk, as do most small corner shops. And most average families can easily afford the handy 2 Litre cartons.

3. Killing off the cows after they are used up stops climate change

If we didn't slaughter the cows after they reached their used by date not only would people be getting off milk, there'd be freakin old cows everwhere!
Those old cows would be pooping everywhere making accelerating climate change rapidly.

4. Milk is now way healthier!

Breakthroughs in modern science have resulted in amazing new quality control methods like 'homogenisation'
This great new scientific process cleans all the icky cow teet puss right out of your tasty milk.

5. We may be the only species that drinks cows milk but hey! what other species on the planet is as awesome as us?

It's only logic kids
We are the only species from earth to do awesome stuff like build sky scrapers and make nukes!
We are also the only species from earth who drink other animals milk!
Therefore, other species milk MUST makes us the king of the jungle!

6. Milk makes cheese!

Milk is the direct predecessor to the many various cheese products that grace this world with their dairy goodness.

7. Milk made economy

Dairy farming is an integral part of many economies, if we drop milk we're dropping jobs!

8 The cerial question

Coco pops and milk, need I say more


Remeber kids, don't let the cow rule you!
stick it to those pompous bovines and drink up all the tasty milk you can!

You can always have milk... There are almond milk and soy milk

One more reason not to drink milk is casomorphins. They cause physical dependence. When I went vegan, I experienced the symptoms of physical dependence. My parents said that was because my body didn't get enough nutrients. But casomorphins are not nutrients. They're drugs. I don't want to be a drug addict again.

It was shocking that milk contains drugs... Too bad for milk drinker...

The only reason I don't drink milk is because baby bulls are used to make meat, and if i'm opposed to eating meat, it seems only logical that I should avoid it.

I don't drink milk because a high percentage of what we buy is pus from an over-milked, infected cow's udder.

Coco pops and pus, anyone?

I can see that people have different reasons why they don't drink milk... It is better to drink nuts' milk or soy milk... i has better taste and more nutrients...

The reasons I don't drink milk anymore.

Because you don't need it. Its a myth that you need calcium from cow's milk.

Cow's milk is mostly compromised of White blood cells and puss. Don't believe me? Do your research.

Cow's milk will make you fat. If your not fat already.

Cows do not produce milk all the time without being pregnant.
They stay pregnant, because farmers inject them with semen. So that they can produce milk.
Guess what happens to the calves? They become Veal. Yep, they are put into little cages just big enough for their tiny bodies so they cannot move around one bit, and thats what makes their muscles so weak and "tender".

The cow can live about 20-25 years but are slaughterd after 3 or 4 years, after their milk production slows down.

If you think that if we didn't use cows and slaughter them that their population would get out of control, your mistaken.
Cows aren't even native to North America. And the ONLY reason their are so many of them is to keep up with the demand to eat them!

I feel like if you want to eat something that was once alive than you should know where it came from and how it lived its life.

meign wrote:It was shocking that milk contains drugs... Too bad for milk drinker...

Not surprised. Scary, that. Worries about cancer...

Btw, coco puffs and plain almond milk is great! Soy milk only tastes good on wholesome cereal, lol. But for junk food cereals, almond milk is best cuz it's neutral in flavor.

no matter what any one says. i have been drinking milk all my life and i am not going to stop.

frank911 wrote:no matter what any one says. i have been drinking milk all my life and i am not going to stop.

Hurray!
A fellow milk drinker, cheers mate!

"2. Let me repeat: Milk is very readily availible, and cheap"

Milk is cheap? How cheap? Milk in my area today is $2.79.

How much does it cost me to make ricemilk (which tastes much better and does not contain cholesterol)? Twenty cents.

Since when is milk being readily available a logical reason for drinking it? Cancer and heart disease are also readily available in developed nations. Does that make them good?

Cheap is a relative term, for an average middle class person 2.79 is fine.
For the kind of person who needs to make their own food, perhaps not.

Please stop taking claims out of context, milk is a foodstuff, not a disease, ergo your comparison is terribad.

I love milk but that's ing...may never have another glass.

AdamD wrote:Cheap is a relative term, for an average middle class person 2.79 is fine.
For the kind of person who needs to make their own food, perhaps not.

Please stop taking claims out of context, milk is a foodstuff, not a disease, ergo your comparison is terribad.

The error is on your part. You are using the "ready availability" of milk as a reason to drink it. This implies that something being readily available is good, seeing as it's a good enough reason for you to drink milk. This is a logical fallacy.

$2.79 a gallon for milk is not cheap. Not when you account for the added risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, auto-immune responses, asthma, etc. that come with every gallon.

philosopher wrote:

AdamD wrote:Cheap is a relative term, for an average middle class person 2.79 is fine.
For the kind of person who needs to make their own food, perhaps not.

Please stop taking claims out of context, milk is a foodstuff, not a disease, ergo your comparison is terribad.

The error is on your part. You are using the "ready availability" of milk as a reason to drink it. This implies that something being readily available is good, seeing as it's a good enough reason for you to drink milk. This is a logical fallacy.

$2.79 a gallon for milk is not cheap. Not when you account for the added risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, auto-immune responses, asthma, etc. that come with every gallon.

Ready availability of food dictating what people eat is a logical fallacy now? I'm quite sure that the readily availability of different foodstuffs has dictate what was good to eat or not for well...forever!

I believe that the vegan lifestyle has its fair share of risks as well e.g.:
Osteoporosis as a result of a lack of calcium causing bone demineralization
Rickets in children due to a lack of vitamin D
Iron-Deficiency Anemia due to low iron storage. One study found that 27% of women and 5% of men who were lacto-ovo-vegetarians had low serum ferritin levels (iron storage)
Macrocytic Anemia due to vitamin B-12 deficiency. This has been observed in infants breast-fed by mothers who are strict vegetarians.

So let's not pretend that drinking milk is any less healthy than ingesting any other kind of food or drink. All in moderation!
* Emaciation or Slow Growth in vegetarian infants and children

AdamD wrote:Ready availability of food dictating what people eat is a logical fallacy now?

yes that's called the bandwagon fallacy. drinking cows milk is very bad for you, cows milk is for baby cows.

it is unnatural and unhealthy for human beings to consume cows milk..

this is well documented...
Dangers Of Milk And Dairy Products - The Facts

Cow's Milk: A Cruel and Unhealthy Product

"Given the chance, cows nurture their young and form lifelong friendships with one another. They play games and have a wide range of emotions and personality traits. But most cows raised for the dairy industry are intensively confined, leaving them unable to fulfill their most basic desires, such as nursing their calves, even for a single day.They are treated like milk-producing machines and are genetically manipulated and pumped full of antibiotics and hormones that cause them to produce more milk. While cows suffer on factory farms, humans who drink their milk increase their chances of developing heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and many other ailments..."

AdamD wrote:

philosopher wrote:

AdamD wrote:Cheap is a relative term, for an average middle class person 2.79 is fine.
For the kind of person who needs to make their own food, perhaps not.

Please stop taking claims out of context, milk is a foodstuff, not a disease, ergo your comparison is terribad.

The error is on your part. You are using the "ready availability" of milk as a reason to drink it. This implies that something being readily available is good, seeing as it's a good enough reason for you to drink milk. This is a logical fallacy.

$2.79 a gallon for milk is not cheap. Not when you account for the added risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, auto-immune responses, asthma, etc. that come with every gallon.

Ready availability of food dictating what people eat is a logical fallacy now? I'm quite sure that the readily availability of different foodstuffs has dictate what was good to eat or not for well...forever!

I believe that the vegan lifestyle has its fair share of risks as well e.g.:
Osteoporosis as a result of a lack of calcium causing bone demineralization
Rickets in children due to a lack of vitamin D
Iron-Deficiency Anemia due to low iron storage. One study found that 27% of women and 5% of men who were lacto-ovo-vegetarians had low serum ferritin levels (iron storage)
Macrocytic Anemia due to vitamin B-12 deficiency. This has been observed in infants breast-fed by mothers who are strict vegetarians.

So let's not pretend that drinking milk is any less healthy than ingesting any other kind of food or drink. All in moderation!
* Emaciation or Slow Growth in vegetarian infants and children

A food item being readily available doesn't make it good to eat. Milk is readily available in the States due to government subsidies for corn used to feed cows, along with additional handouts to the dairy industry. This does not make milk good. Ingesting animal products has been proven to clog arteries in humans, yet animal products are readily available. Does this make those products good? Clearly, no.

Your risks aren't accurate, let me explain:
People in developed nations get osteoporosis from ingesting animal products. Excessive protein actually leaches calcium from the body. Ever wonder why people who drink the most milk have higher levels of osteoporosis? A few vegan foods high in calcium are; artichokes, asparagus, beans, beets, broccoli, bok choy, chili peppers, carrots, kale, sesame seeds, celery, etc. Doctors have stated that it is nearly impossible to not get enough calcium in a day unless you are calorie deficient.

Vitamin D is added to milk in processing plants, milk is not naturally rich with vitamin D. Vegan food items high in vitamin D; soymilk, quaker oatmeal, mushrooms, orange juice, butternut squash, broccoli, (and sunlight of course).

Lots and lots of foods provide adequate iron. http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/iron.htm

Every vegan takes a B-12 supplement. It can be made with plants. I've read studies that stated adequate B-12 levels stay in the body for years without purposely taking supplements. Most ricemilk, are soymilk have B-12. There are many other foods also that are fortified with B-12, so it's not really a problem at all.

Please source your claims with some sources that aren't completely biased like dragonflys'.

Arguing from the point of the status-quo I don't have the obligation to source my arguments in support of it.

adam my sources aren't biased, you trollish insights are boring and tedious.

and you regurgitating the calcium myth here, is idoitic and absurd. *barf*

philosopher wrote:A food item being readily available doesn't make it good to eat. Milk is readily available in the States due to government subsidies for corn used to feed cows, along with additional handouts to the dairy industry. This does not make milk good. Ingesting animal products has been proven to clog arteries in humans, yet animal products are readily available. Does this make those products good? Clearly, no.

Your risks aren't accurate, let me explain:
People in developed nations get osteoporosis from ingesting animal products. Excessive protein actually leaches calcium from the body. Ever wonder why people who drink the most milk have higher levels of osteoporosis? A few vegan foods high in calcium are; artichokes, asparagus, beans, beets, broccoli, bok choy, chili peppers, carrots, kale, sesame seeds, celery, etc. Doctors have stated that it is nearly impossible to not get enough calcium in a day unless you are calorie deficient.

Vitamin D is added to milk in processing plants, milk is not naturally rich with vitamin D. Vegan food items high in vitamin D; soymilk, quaker oatmeal, mushrooms, orange juice, butternut squash, broccoli, (and sunlight of course).

Lots and lots of foods provide adequate iron. http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/iron.htm

Every vegan takes a B-12 supplement. It can be made with plants. I've read studies that stated adequate B-12 levels stay in the body for years without purposely taking supplements. Most ricemilk, are soymilk have B-12. There are many other foods also that are fortified with B-12, so it's not really a problem at all.

correct, the price supports thing is totally insane.

Both of your "sources" that you presented just then dragon fly appeal to the emotions of people very heavily, this is a surefire sign of a dodgy source.

here's a guide to sources that I found quite useful: http://www.lib.mq.edu.au/research/critical.html.

The debate shouldn't be about whether or not drinking non-human milk is more or less healthy for humans, it should be about putting our trivial desires for such things aside, so that a sensitive animal, that has as much right to live on this earth happily as we do, can live its life in peace.

Cows can live up to 20 years, however, cows used for milking usually only live up to 4, and then their dead bodies are sold to fast food chains. Can we really justify this for a glass of milk?

rhiancummins89 wrote:The debate shouldn't be about whether or not drinking non-human milk is more or less healthy for humans, it should be about putting our trivial desires for such things aside, so that a sensitive animal, that has as much right to live on this earth happily as we do, can live its life in peace.

Cows can live up to 20 years, however, cows used for milking usually only live up to 4, and then their dead bodies are sold to fast food chains. Can we really justify this for a glass of milk?

the point is drinking milk is not healthy, not by a long shot. and yes dairy cows end up in the slaughterhouse, get treated poorly at the feedlots, it is quite barbaric and inhumane.

AdamD wrote:Both of your "sources" that you presented just then dragon fly appeal to the emotions of people very heavily, this is a surefire sign of a dodgy source.

here's a guide to sources that I found quite useful: http://www.lib.mq.edu.au/research/critical.html.

wrong. stop being silly. and that you are incapable of independent thought is hardly relevant to this discussion.

And so the ad hominem attacks continue, the really don't help your case at all.

As much as cows are cute and nice to look at, when it comes down to it they are animals. Humans as an animal have been well established to be superior to lesser animals like cows. It is for this reason that killing a human is punished much more severely by society than killing a cow is.

Cows are a readily available source of food and we would be fools not to exploit them. As much as it is nice to pull out questionable statistics about the unhealthiness of cow meat, over 3000 years of human survival and prosperity based off agriculture (including the cow) weigh in against you.

Society as a whole has decided that killing a cow just isn't that big of a deal, let alone milking one.

Nothing to say, dragonfly?