Topics:
Osteoporosis
But cows like being milked
Calcium
I cannot give up dairy
“The myth that osteoporosis is caused by calcium deficiency was created to sell dairy products and calcium supplements. There's no truth to it. American women are among the biggest consumers of calcium in the world, and they still have one of the highest levels of osteoporosis in the world. And eating even more dairy products and calcium supplements is not going to change that fact.”
- Dr. John McDougall The McDougall Program for Women (2000)
Ask yourself, if you can get adequate calcium from sources other than dairy easily, why should a cow have to endure pain, suffering and ultimately death?
Osteoporosis is a debilitating disease characterized by low bone mass and deteriorating bone tissue that affects tens of millions of Americans and causes 1.5 million fractures annually. The annual cost of treatment totals more than $10 billion. While some people suffering from osteoporosis experience recurring back pain, loss of height, and spinal deformities, many don't even know they have the disease until a bone fracture occurs.
According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, one in two women over the age of 50, and one in eight men, will experience an osteoporosis-related fracture. The dairy industry has a powerful hold on the nutrition industry in this country; it pays huge numbers of dietitians, doctors, and researchers to push dairy, spending more than $300 million annually, just at the national level, to retain a market for its products. The dairy industry has infiltrated schools, bought off sports stars, celebrities, and politicians, pushing all the while an agenda based on profit, rather than public health.
Dr. Walter Willett, a veteran nutrition researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, says that calcium consumption “has become like a religious crusade,” overshadowing true preventive measures such as physical exercise. To hear the dairy industry tell it, if you consume three glasses of milk daily, your bones will be stronger, and you can rest safely knowing that osteoporosis is not in your future.
Despite the dairy industry funding study after study to try to prove its claims, Dr. John McDougall, upon examining all the available nutritional studies and evidence, concludes:
“The primary cause of osteoporosis is the high-protein diet most Americans consume today. As one leading researcher in this area said, '[E]ating a high-protein diet is like pouring acid rain on your bones.’” Remarkably enough, if dairy has any effect, both clinical and population evidence strongly implicate dairy in causing, rather than preventing, osteoporosis. That the dairy industry would lull unsuspecting women and children into complacency by telling them, essentially, drink more milk and your bones will be fine, may make good business sense, but it does the public a grave disservice.
Most of the world's peoples do not consume cow's milk, and yet most of the world does not experience the high rates of osteoporosis found in the West. In Asian countries, for example, where consumption of dairy foods is low (and where women tend to be thin and small-boned, universally accepted risk factors for osteoporosis), fracture rates are much lower than they are in the United States and in Scandinavian countries, where consumption of dairy products is considerably higher.
Read more about this here.
For those vegetarians reading this who are thinking "Ohhhh but my cheese and icecream" go to MilkSucks.com for more info!
Fact of the matter is, milk is not necessary. It is drunk as it contains calcium and is thought to be required for our 'health'. In Australia there are over 10, 075 dairy farms, which adds up to an approximate of 3, 056, 00 dairy cows and calves (Australian Bureau of Statistics, Agricultural Commodities 2006) The dairy industry in Australia is a corporate giant making millions.
What the industry fails to tell you is milk is not necessary for healthy bones. And why is it that countries who consume more dairy have higher levels of osteoporosis?
Many people find it difficult to understand why the dairy industry is cruel. After all, cows produce milk naturally and milking seems a relatively benign procedure. In truth however, dairy is a for-profit business which inflict great suffering upon cows.
The dairy industry would like us to believe that cows are miraculously suited by nature to produce large quantities of milk for human consumption. In fact, cows lactate for the same reason as all mammals, including humans – to feed their babies. To produce milk in profitable quantities a dairy cow must be made pregnant every twelve months. Left to her own devices she would produce just enough milk to feed her calf who would suckle for up to a year. But instead her calf is taken away just a few days after birth, still small, bewildered and totally dependent on its mother, so that her milk can be stolen and drunk by humans. Cows and their calves form strong bonds and the separation causes intense distress to both.
Professor John Webster of the British Farm Animal Welfare Advisory Council described the removal of the calf as the "most potentially distressing incident in the life of the dairy cow. The cow will submit herself to considerable personal discomfort or risk to nourish and protect her calf". Observers have described cows mooing frantically for days following separation from their calves, and sometimes breaking down fences and walking for several kilometres to be reunited with their babies.
Female calves may later join the dairy herd to face the same cycle of constant pregnancies and separation from their babies. Male calves and surplus females may be reared for veal or may be slaughtered when just a few days old, to end up in pet food, fertilizer and cheap cuts of meat. Not being primarily bred for meat, their flesh is considered substandard by the beef industry. Everyone who eats dairy products is complicit in the grisly deaths of these innocent young animals, without whom milk could not be produced, and to whom it rightfully belongs. Over a million dairy calves are slaughtered every year in Australia.
To obtain maximum milk yield, dairy cows are pushed to their physiological limits through a combination of selective breeding, high-protein supplementary feeds, and the latest technology. Over the past 10 years the milk yield per cow has risen by around 25%, and is more than 10 times the amount a calf would naturally drink. The strain of ever increasing yields and the restriction to 2 milkings per day, rather than 5-7 sucklings by a calf, can cause serious health problems. The second leading cause of death for dairy cows is chronic mastitis, a painful bacterial infection of the teats and udder. A survey of Victorian farms also found that 88% of herds were affected to some degree by lameness. High yielding cows are prone to ketosis, where the cow’s metabolism cannot keep up with the demand for milk, causing her to metabolise her own body fat and resulting in severe liver damage. The escalating trend towards supplementary feeding with concentrated high protein foods which the cow would not naturally eat, also results in a high number of painful digestive disorders. Many diary cows are “culled” each year as a result of health problems.
“A cow's a piece of machinery. If it's broke, we try to fix it, and if we can't, it gets replaced” (Dairy farmer quoted in Scientific Farm Animal Production).
Dairy cows undergo routine mutilations such as tail docking and dehorning without anaesthetic, although a study by the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries has concluded that there is no evidence that these provide any health benefits or improvement in milk quality. Horns are extensions of the skull and contain blood vessels and nerve endings, so their removal is agonising. Tail docking may result in the formation of neuromas, abnormal masses of nerve endings which produce chronic distress. Docked cows also suffer greater fly irritation. Routine tail docking of dogs has now been banned in Australia in recognition of the fact that it causes pain and distress. Cows suffer no less.
Under natural conditions, a cow can live 15 – 20 years. The average life of a dairy cow is 3-5 years. Her milking life has steadily decreased as the demands on her body increase. Once she stops producing milk in profitable quantities, she is sent to slaughter. There are no peaceful paddocks where retired dairy cows relax after their years of service. The fate of these young animals, in what should be the prime of their lives, is the same as that of their counterparts raised for beef. Their skulls are smashed by a steel bolt, their throats are cut, and their bodies dismembered to be made into sausages, pie fillings and pet food. The myth that animals do not suffer and die so humans can eat dairy foods is a comforting fantasy which bears no relation to reality. Dairy is a slaughter industry the same as meat production, only the violence and bloodshed are one step further removed from the consumer’s plate.
Despite industry propaganda, cows’ milk is no more necessary to human health than is elephants’ milk or dogs’ milk. Did you know that humans are the only animals who drink the milk of another species, and the only animals who drink milk after weaning? Or that the relationship between calcium intake and bone disease is considerably more complex than the dairy peddlers would like us to believe, and that it is only one of many factors responsible for building healthy bones? Osteoporosis is now reaching epidemic proportions in countries such as Australia and America where dairy consumption is amongst the highest in the world. In Japan and many other non-Caucasian countries, dairy consumption has traditionally been minimal and overall calcium intake low – yet these people also have a much lower rate of bone fracture. The website of the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine is an excellent resource for those seeking unbiased, scientific information about the health aspects of dairy consumption.
(This information was sourced from ALV.ORG.AU - to find out more about their MILK SUCKS campaign, click below!)
A woman requires 1000mg of calcium per day (approximately)
- FitSugar, 2007
| Food | Amount of Calcium in milligrams (mg) |
|---|---|
| 1 cup of milk | 300 |
| 6 oz of yogurt | 350 |
| 1 oz hard cheese (cheddar) | 240 |
| 2 slices processed cheese | 265 |
| 1/4 cup cottage cheese | 120 |
| 1/2 cup soft serve frozen yogurt | 100 |
| 1/2 cup ice cream | 85 |
| 1/2 cup tofu | 258 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1/2 cup pinto beans or chick peas | 40 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1/4 cup almonds | 95 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1 Tbsp almond butter | 43 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
Want to see what other foods contain calcium? Then read more
| Food | Amount of Calcium in milligrams (mg) |
|---|---|
| 1 Tbsp sesame seeds | 90 |
| 1 Tbsp Tahini | 63 |
| 1/4 cup Brazil nuts or hazelnuts | 55 |
| 8 medium sardines (canned) | 370 |
| 3 oz salmon | 180 |
| 1/2 cup oysters (canned) | 60 |
| 1/2 cup shrimp (canned) | 40 |
| 1/2 cup bok choy | 75 - - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1 cup kale | 94 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1 cup broccoli | 178 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1 cup celery | 54 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1 cup cooked green beans | 58 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1 cup cooked butternut squash | 84 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1 cup cooked sweet potato | 70 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1 medium naval orange | 56 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 2/3 cup raisins | 53 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 10 medium dried figs | 269 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1 cup calcium-fortified orange juice | 300 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1 cup enriched soy milk | 300 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
| 1 cup enriched rice milk | 300 - NON DAIRY/ANIMAL SOURCE |
Table thanks to FitSugar (Sugar Inc.)
"Dairy is everywhere, I cannot avoid it...and I would have to give up the things I love to eat like icecream and cheese! I CANT GIVE UP CHEESE!!!!"
Again it seems for many taste comes before moral ethics. Luckily, some gorgeous people out there have created soy based products aimed at mimicking the taste of meat and dairy products. I suppose any meat eater readin this would be going "OH SOY IS YUCK" but actually they taste very similar to the real thing! You ust have to find the right one for you. Having given up dairy doesn't mean I do not eat stuff which I used to LOVE!
When I have a craving for icecream I go buy myself some Purely Decadent Dairy Free Icecream and they come in the most divine flavours!
You can buy dairy free cheese, milk, butter, cream cheese and chocolate from any Coles or Woolies!
If you are willing to explore a bit you will find a whole heap of other stuff in stores. Go to our resources section to check it out!
