Misconception Monday: Milk, It Does A Body Good...

This was the slogan I grew up hearing over and over again. Did anyone know that the National Dairy Council wound up settling a lawsuit because it was false, misleading and deceptive advertising? Interesting, right? That's because by that point we were all brainwashed into thinking that milk actually was good for us. The truth is that dairy has been proven to cause cancer, obesity, heart disease, allergies, diabetes, and even osteoporosis - the one thing we were told it would prevent!


Human beings are the only species on the planet that drink the milk of another species. We are also the only ones who continue to drink it throughout the rest of our lives. Every other mammal produces milk when they give birth, feed their young, and then stop. So then why do we drink a cow's milk? Because the dairy industry has spent billions of dollars convincing us that we should - that's why.

Dairy cows hooked up to milking machines

And it's worked! It's worked so well in fact, that in order to keep up with the demand, dairy farmers inject their cows with hormones so that they produce much more milk than normal. The average free cow will produce about 1.32 gallons of milk per day to feed her young. The average dairy cow? 11.62 gallons!! That's a LOT of hormones! Hormones that undoubtedly end up in their milk as well.


What else is in milk? Viruses, bacteria, hormones, antibiotics, herbicides, pesticides, pus, feces, blood and more! Then it's "bleached" with hydrogen peroxide. Yep, that's right. Hydrogen peroxide.


Remember something else... Cows do not "give" us milk. Humans enslave cows to steal it from them. By supporting the dairy industry you're supporting the veal industry. How? Because the dairy cows must always be pregnant in order to keep producing milk. So they're artificially inseminated (another thing we "steal" from male cows. Use your imagination to figure out how!) as soon as possible after giving birth. Her babies are taken from her as soon as they're born which as I'm sure you can imagine, is extremely distressing for both the mother and her young. Most of the girls are sent off to become milk-producing machines like their mother while most of the boys are doomed to become veal. Veal calves are confined in small crates so that they can't move (so their meat is tender) and fed a poor diet to be kept anemic (so their meat is white).

A veal calf in a crate too small to turn around in

There are many alternatives to dairy milk that are so much better for our bodies. The best part is that they don't cause any pain or suffering either! Try soy, almond, coconut, rice, oat, hemp or cashew milk. I think they're all wonderful in their own way and use different milks based on what I need them for. I hope you have fun trying all your different options out, too!


(Little known fact: The popular soy milk brand, Silk, is actually a company owned by Dean Foods - one of the nation's largest dairy farmers. So while many consumers think they're making a more compassionate choice by drinking soy milk instead of dairy milk, they're still putting their money into the pockets of a dairy farmer when buying from this brand.)